An important sound card characteristic is polyphony, which refers to its ability to process and output multiple independent voices or sounds simultaneously. These distinct channels are seen as the number of audio outputs, which may correspond to a speaker configuration such as 2.0 (stereo), 2.1 (stereo and sub woofer), 5.1 (surround), or other configurations. Sometimes, the terms voice and channel are used interchangeably to indicate the degree of polyphony, not the output speaker configuration. For example, much older sound chips could accommodate three voices, but only one output audio channel (i.e., a single mono output), requiring all voices to be mixed together. Later cards, such as the AdLib sound card, had a 9-voice polyphony combined in 1 mono output channel.
an important sound card characteristic is polyphony which refers to its ability to process and output multiple independent voices or sounds simultaneously these distinct channels are seen as the number of audio outputs which may correspond to a speaker configuration such as 20 (stereo) 21 (stereo and sub woofer) 51 (surround) or other configurations sometimes the terms voice and channel are used interchangeably to indicate the degree of polyphony not the output speaker configuration for example much older sound chips could accommodate three voices but only one output audio channel (ie a single mono output) requiring all voices to be mixed together later cards such as the adlib sound card had a 9-voice polyphony combined in 1 mono output channel