The following review is from my experience with the newest sound card from Philips, the Acoustic Edge. I prefer to review in a "What can this product do for me?" manner instead of drowning the reader in technical babble. Technical details ARE good for geeks (me included), but to the average consumer it only gets in the way of why they are reading about a product in the first place: Should I buy it? Is it better than what I already have? Are all those features really necessary? I reference an excellent resource (
3DSoundSurge.com) at the end for those interested in the more technical reasons of HOW the card works…and will keep the review focused on how good or bad the product is. Enjoy!
Minimum System Requirements (as stated on product packaging):
-One available PCI 2.1 compliant slot
-Pentium class 166Mhz or faster processor
-Intel or 100% compatible motherboard chipset
-16MB system RAM
-CD-ROM for driver installation
Operating Systems Supported:
-Microsoft Windows 9x, Me, NT4.0*, 2000
-MS-DOS*
*Not all product features supported when using this OS
Compatibility:
-Microsoft DirectSound, DirectSound3D, and DirectInput
-EAX 1.0 and EAX 2.0 applications
-A3D 1.0 applications
-SoundBlaster Pro in real mode DOS and DOS box
-MPU-401 UART MIDI Interface
-DirectInput game controllers and most legacy analog and digital joysticks
Features:
-Fully accelerated, 5.1 surround sound PCI card
-Expands stereo sources into complex, distinct 5.1 surround channels using QSound algorithm
-96 distinct 3D voices, 256 distinct DirectSound voices, and 576 distinct synthesized
wavetable voices
-Hardware acceleration using the Philips ThunderBird Avenger digital signal processor for
2-speaker 3D virtualization
-S/PDIF inputs and outputs and Line/AUX inputs
Test System:
-AMD 1.0 GHz Thunderbird cpu (200MHz FSB)
-Asus A7V Motherboard
-Creative Sound Blaster Live! MP3+ 5.1
-640MB PC133 SDRAM
-ATI Radeon VIVO 64MB Display Adapter
-Windows 2000 Pro w/ SP2
-DVD Software = ATI DVD (bundled w/ Radeon) and PowerDVD 3.0 (bundled w/ Philips AE)
-Klipsch Promedia 5.1 Multimedia Speaker System (200W subwoofer, 5-60W satellites)