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With so much emphasis on 4 and 5.1 speakers, the Acoustic Edge manages to round itself out with an impressive support for those of us still using stereo setups (whether by choice, or because the pending upgrade to surround sound hasn’t happened yet). For movie lovers, QSurround is an amazing algorithm that takes a 5.1 stream from DVD movies, and virtualizes it into 2 speaker virtual 5.1 surround.

Testing with 2.1 speaker systems showed that Philips took their support for audio very seriously. Using any soft-DVD player capable of 5.1 outputs (such as Intervideo’s WinDVD, or PowerDVD from CyberLink), you can get simulated virtual surround from Qsound’s QDVD Surround algorithms. I did some extensive testing of the Acoustic Edge using 2.1 systems, namely a Boston Acoustics MediaTheater and a MidiLand S4 4100s. Both speaker systems have a form of virtualized 3d function to expand the sound into a more 3d like experience. MidiLand’s 3DSP processing is a patented inhouse designed virtualizer, while Boston Acoustics licences true Virtual Dolby Surround from Dolby Labs to simulate Dolby Surround using a 2 speaker setup. QSound’s QDVD Surround surpasses the quality of both 3DSP and Virtual Dolby Surround, in clarity, in detail, and in surround simulation. With QDVD, you actually enable 5.1 surround output in the soft-DVD player, and the sound card will take the full 5.1 channels and downmixes them using Qsound's amazing algorithm. To my ears, the sound is richer, the soundstage is vastly deeper and wider, and rear channel effects are blended in very, very cleanly and subtly. The center channel actually solidifies compared to plain 2 speaker output from the soft-DVD players, and the clarity of the entire output is startling. This is truly the most immersive and best sounding movie surround from a 2.1 speaker set up that I have ever heard before. And when I swapped out the regular 2.1 speakers with something from Monsoon (like our reference MM-1000), the sound was even more impressive (thanks to the added directional clarity of Monsoon’s Planar Focus technology).

CPU performance, and misc. On thing we've left out of this discussion so far is a look at the SPDIF support. The card supports coaxial SPDIF inputs and outputs, which burns me pretty bad because all my digital equipment uses optical inputs and outputs (most of you who have MD recorders will find yourself in a similar situation). The really cool thing is that you can apply the Qsound algorithms to the digital input and output. I don't put too much emphasis on digital inputs and outputs, but some of you need this. Some 5.1 speakers coming out now include support for direct digital streams, so that is something to consider too.

The only other thing to really settle on is the actual hit in CPU performance when using the sound card. Running our standard benchmarks, using ZDnet's Audiobench, we found the sound card definitely ate up some extra cycles. Compared to a stock SBLive and a Vortex 2 based card, the Acoustic Edge eats up from 2-5 times more CPU (up to 5% of the CPU, vs. 0.5-2.5% on the other cards). Philips intends on continuing to optimize drivers, but 5% CPU usage is actually quite good, when considering that on the multi speaker tests the QMSS was actually in effect.

Is it a Keeper?

After all the discussion, after all the testing, everyone wants to know the “straight up goods”, the “final say”. I can say without a doubt that this is the sound card I will be recommending to all my friends for a while. I haven’t reviewed the SBLive 5.1, but I have tried it out in demos, and the difference is pretty significant. In pricing, software bundles, and in all other aspects the Philips Acoustic Edge is in the same class as the SBLive and the Voyetra Santa Cruz. It’s hardware accelerated QMSS, Qsurround, and QEM (environmental mapping for reverb and other effects) push it over the top though. I think QMSS alone is what will drive the card to the top for owners of 5.1 and 4.1 speaker setups. For those of you with stereo speaker systems, Qsurround surpasses any other virtual surround algorithm that I know of today for movie playback. There’s a lot of value packed into the hardware that comes with this package.

So in closing, I guess the only other thing I can tell you is that it isn’t often that a sound card really stands out from the crowd. When Aureal first introduced their Vortex 2 chip, the ensuing cards impressed me. After that, nothing much moved me, not even the Sound Blaster Live Platinum. The Acoustic Edge is a superb product. One that deserves to be recognized with top of class standings.

Overall Score: 97%