Digital Trends

Philips Sonic Edge 5.1

June 18th, 2003 | by Bert Mathis

Introduction

We all know Philips is a leader in consumer electronic devices, but its time to take notice to some of their computer line up as well. Philips manufactures 4 sound card flavors to suit just about everyone. The Dynamic Edge 4.1, basic and inexpensive; the Sonic Edge 5.1 which is the entry level music and game card; the Seismic Edge 5.1 which has the Thunderbird Avenger audio accelerator to free up your CPU for gaming; and finally the Acoustic Edge 5.1, the ultimate sound experience with all the features of the Seismic Edge and adds DVD and digital I/O features. Philips sent us a sample Sonic Edge 5.1 from their computer audio lineup, so let's take a closer look.

Installation

Installing the sound card was no different from any other sound card. There is one thing to mention with any add on sound card and onboard motherboard audio. You must go into bios and turn off onboard audio to prevent conflicts in your OS. Once the sound card was installed, I popped in the included CD and started the driver installation procedure. For those newbies out there, there is even an installation video to walk you through the entire process. After a quick reboot, you get a tray icon for easy access to Sound Agent 2.

Sound Agent 2:

Sound Agent 2 is an easy customizable way to tune your audio experience by providing an appealing interface with standard and graphical representations of control.

On top is the main volume control; big and easy to find while navigating throughout Sound Agent 2. To the left is the default and help buttons. Be careful with the default button, as it will reset everything to factory defaults. Below are six on-off buttons to control various features: Reverb, QSizzle, QRumble, Normalize, 3DEffects, and EQ. I will discuss what each of these is below.

Next I will discuss the setup button, since this where you want to start out configuring Sound Agent.

To the left you will be able to choose with speaker configuration best matches your computer. To the right you have a few slider adjustments. Preamp basically amplifies the entire input before any individual adjustments are made to the output. Then of course fader, balance, and center are self explanatory. To the far right is a low frequency adjustment for the subwoofer in 5.1 systems. The test button allows you to play a sample through each of your speakers.

The effects tab allows you to change QSizzle, QRumble and QXpander.