For gamers, the card is EAX 1.0 and 2.0, and A3D 1.0 compatible. Aureal fans may be disappointed with the lack of A3D 2.0 support, although the supported APIs do put the Acoustic Edge on par with the SoundBlaster Live!. In addition, gamers will enjoy the available 4- or 5.1-channel output (either analog or digital), in order to fully take advantage of any environmental audio effects in modern games. For DVD enthusiasts, the Acoustic Edge supports digital 5.1-channel output (requires an external AC3 decoder), as well as downsampling into 2- or 4-channel analog output.


Fig 4. The Acoustic Edge PSC706.

One of Philips’ marketing points for the Acoustic Edge has been the card’s QSound 3D algorithms. These algorithms are essentially designed to ‘throw’ sound, or to produce the effect of a multi-channel sound system utilizing only two speakers. Here’s a brief description of the major effects:

QSurround is an algorithm that can be used with DVD software players to simulate a 5.1-channel system using only stereo speakers.

QMSS, or QSound Multi Speaker System, is essentially a general purpose version of QSurround, used to simulate 4- or 5.1-channel environments using only two channels.

QSound Environmental Modeling can be used with compatible EAX and DirectSound 3D games to enhance existing environmental audio effects.