Why and how was MSX-AUDIO failed?

Good AdLib FM music that I used to like: Secret of Monkey Island and Indy 500 loading/intro music (which was made by Rob Hubbard, IIRC).

For other very good FM music, check out the AdLib music by Vibrants members. I think they are modulating the sound parameters on the fly, which makes the sounds much more interesting. The Surprise!Productions demo Copper is a good example. I remember one Amiga musician commenting it as being the first good PC music he had ever heard.
http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=2048

MSX-Audio was too expensive to be mainstream at launch. Philips Music Module was around 400 guilders, which was a lot in the 1980's.
Besides being expensive it had other flaws:
- crappy software support (Music Creator -which is only half decent to create your own songs- was not in the standard package, but delivered with the optional keyboard iirc. In stead you had this very simple Rom Tool, which was more an annoyance than really helpful)
- Low internal volume routing, to the point where it is unusable in combination with PSG.
- Only to be revived years later by scene-based software it reached it's full potential.

The FM-Pac cost between 150 and 180 guilders iirc. It has a better volume ratio with the PSG. (Actually better than the volume of the build-in MSX-Music in the Turbo-R's, which I think is a bit on the low side compared to the PSG. With the FM-PAC though, you have volume differences depending on which model MSX you're using.)

yeah, 8250's terribly off.
good computer, but sound-wise...

I always thought it might have something to do with the cartridge slots though... switching cartridges between slots already seemed to have an effect, or unplugging one. Maybe philips did something wrong on the 8250 there...

My NMS8255 had the infamous audio drop out glitch. When I first got my FM-Pac the sound was really distorted, and every other 10 seconds, the sound would disappear for a few seconds. The distortion sound could be solved by placing a SCC cartridge in the other slot, which provided extra resistance(?) so the sound of the FM-Pac would be a bit softer and wouldn't distort anymore. However to my discontent, the audio dropouts kept remaining.
SCC would sound way off too btw (so loud that PSG was hardly audible), so I never had drums while playing any SCC game.

This was a known problem back then. I went to Checkmark (the same guys that later developed the memory-expansions and stereo-Pak) to 'fix' my computer. He replaced a few instable parts (a powersupply that got waaay too hot, which caused the dropouts) and added a stereo-switch to route all cartridge sound directly to a cinch-connector at the back of my 8255 when switched on, or route it internally when switched off. Also added was a pot-meter to balance volume between PSG and any sound produced by cartridges (SCC/FM-Pac/MusMod) when you were forced to route all sound internally.
So... Finally 'good' sound for me, yay!!

@Meits: the Music Module was so ridiculous, that on the NMS8220 (the MSX2 without floppydrive, but with build-in paint-software) you would have to hold ESC at boot-up to start-up the Rom-Tool of the Music-Module. But not holding ESC at boot-up started the build in paint-tool of the 8220. So you were either forced to work with the internal Paint-Tool or the Crappy Rom-tool of the Music Module... Idiots @ Philips, I tell ya! ;D