Philips made quite a
splash in the soundcard market a few years ago when
introduced PSC 70x family of soundcards, in particular the
Acoustic Edge which I’m sure a lot of you may still use as
your ‘primary’ soundcard. Among the memorable features of
the Acoustic Edge we can recall true 6-channel positioning
and QMSS audio enhancements, two features that certainly
tell a lot about the product and Philips’ solid commitment
to PC Audio enthusiasts given the age of such product.
The PSC805 Aurilium
is Philips’ latest effort to take on the somewhat crowded
soundcard market still dominated by Creative Labs. The
Aurilium is a certified USB 2.0 external soundcard which
doesn’t differ much in concept with the
SoundBlaster Extigy
that we have previously reviewed.
In the Box & Connectivity
Starting from the box
looks, Philips tried to make a fine looking product with the
Aurilium. Its bundle consisted of a printed guide and the
Drivers/Software CD. As per the norm, this covers basic
hardware and software installation, as well as an
installation video in the CD. Installing the soundcard
itself was simpler than with a traditional card given its
‘external’ nature and the wonders of USB: 1) Drivers
installation, 2) Windows reboot, 3) Get plugged to the USB
port and voila.
Important to note is
that the USB port also provides the Aurilium with power,
something that can not be said about the Extigy.
The Aurilium features
3 stereo Line Outputs, Optical/Coaxial S/PDIF Outputs (No S/PDIF
Inputs however), Line In, Mic In and Headphone output. As
with many recent soundcards, no game-port is available.
Additionally, thanks to being an external solution much of
the controls are located on the Aurilium itself (Along with
the lovely blue LEDs).
Over the course of
testing the Aurilium, I used Creative’s
Inspire 6700 and Videologic’s
ZXR 750 speakers systems
using available Line-Out's as well as a pair of Philips
headphones. For testing digital output the Coaxial/Optical
S/PDIF Outputs were connected to a
SoundBlaster Extigy.
Sound Agent 2
The Aurilium is the
latest Philips Soundcard to feature Sound Agent 2 which
according to the manual plays the following function:
Sound Agent 2
uses sophisticated algorithms to analyse sound along 2
dimensions: the source of the sound, which can be any
source type, & the room or headphones where the sound is
going to be played. Combining input & output with the
sound card itself results in high-quality total holistic
sound optimisation. Importantly, the end-user also has a
means of easily identifying & manipulating variables
that affect sound quality in context of their particular
listening experience.
Sound Agent 2 has the
ability of automatically detecting the audio system you have
plugged to the Aurilium, no need to manually select whether
are using a 5.1 system, headphones, etc., just connect
whatever the system is and the program will figure it out
for you. No doubt a great convenience for everyone and it
functioned exactly as specified when I tested it, swapping
at ease through several output configurations. More detailed
information & demos of Sound Agent 2 can be found over at
http://www.soundagent2.com.
If you want to skip
on Technical Specifications (next page),
click here instead.
