Gravis Ultrasound Max - comparison of SBOS 3.82 and MAXSBOS soundblaster emulation

At long last, a comparison between different versions of the Gravis Ultrasound SBOS sound blaster emulator program. These are both run on the same pc with the same GUS MAX card and the same games, but you can see they sound quite different from each other!

There is another version of SBOS made for the GUS PNP card called IWSBOS. It is not covered in this video however it sounds quite similar to MAXSBOS. The GUS PNP cannot run SBOS 3.82 or MAXSBOS for OPL emulation as it uses a different chipset from the earlier GUS cards.

MAXSBOS was released after SBOS 3.82, so Gravis clearly thought it was a worthwhile upgrade. In my opinion, while each version has its faults, I think MAXSBOS sounds like a downgrade compared to the music from SBOS 3.82. Listen to these examples and see if you agree:

0:00 Wolfenstein menu SBOS 3.82
0:49 Wolfentstein menu MAXSBOS
1:40 Wolfenstein level 1 SBOS 3.82
2:48 Wolfenstein level 1 MAXSBOS
3:57 Wolfenstein level 2 SBOS 3.82
5:08 Wolfenstein level 2 MAXSBOS
6:16 Commander Keen 4 map SBOS 3.82
6:58 Commander Keen 4 map MAXSBOS
7:42 Commander Keen 4 lv 1 SBOS 3.82
8:15 Commander Keen 4 lv 1 MAXSBOS
8:50 Commander Keen 4 song 3 SBOS 3.82
9:39 Commander Keen 4 song 3 MAXSBOS
10:29 Commander Keen 4 song 4 SBOS 3.82
11:30 Commander Keen 4 song 4 MAXSBOS
12:30 Commander Keen 6 map SBOS 3.82
13:20 Commander Keen 6 map MAXSBOS
14:09 Commander Keen 6 song 1 SBOS 3.82
14:36 Commander Keen 6 song 1 MAXSBOS
15:06 Commander Keen 6 song 2 SBOS 3.82
15:48 Commander Keen 6 song 2 MAXSBOS
16:29 Commander Keen 6 song 3 SBOS 3.82
17:37 Commander Keen 6 song 3 MAXSBOS
18:45 Commander Keen 6 song 4 SBOS 3.82
19:48 Commander Keen 6 song 4 MAXSBOS
20:58 Blakestone intro SBOS 3.82
21:26 Blakestone intro MAXSBOS
21:54 Blakestone menu SBOS 3.82
23:23 Blakestone menu MAXSBOS
24:32 Blakestone lv 1 SBOS 3.82
25:32 Blakestone lv 1 MAXSBOS
26:32 Blakestone lv 2 SBOS 3.82
27:24 Blakestone lv 2 MAXSBOS
28:18 Monster Bash menu SBOS 3.82
29:16 Monster Bash menu MAXSBOS
30:11 Biomenace menu SBOS 3.82
30:48 Biomenace menu MAXSBOS
31:23 Biomenace song 2 SBOS 3.82
31:56 Biomenace song 2 MAXSBOS
32:38 Biomenace song 3 SBOS 3.82
33:36 Biomenace song 3 MAXSBOS
34:26 Traffic Department 2192 menu SBOS 3.82
35:27 Traffic Department 2192 menu MAXSBOS
36:17 Traffic Department 2192 briefing SBOS 3.82
37:26 Traffic Department 2192 briefing MAXSBOS
38:15 Jill of the Jungle lv 1 SBOS 3.82
39:20 Jill of the Jungle lv 1 MAXSBOS