Ok then ... all I'm gonna say is both cards have the same main Codec chip but different audio chipsets, so the driver implementation ought to be sufficiently different (to avoid the same 'woes' - no guarantees though )...

I do like all the Hercules sound cards though & have much less problems with these than say a soundblaster 'equivalent' ...

Then again all your woes might be absolutely nothing to do with your s/c ... but 'something' else - just because it results in a CMI blah blah error, doesn't mean thats the culprit ...