I purchased the Philips Aurilium USB external sound card yesterday. Since everyone seems to buying the external Audigy NX 2 for their laptops I though I would post some info on the Aurilium.
First off some specs...
8890 3ghz, 1 gig RAM, 60 gig 5400rpm HD
Klipsch 4.1 THX 400 watt speaker system
Philips Aurilium USB sound card
I purchased it at Fry's. I looked at Comp USA and another local chain computer store and they did not carry/never heard of it. 4 on the shelf at Fry's, no returns. Price $99.00US. I did not bother to ask a salesperson about the Aurilium... you go to Fry's and buy stuff when you know what you want not when you need to find answers to your questions.
First impression when compairing the Audigy to the Aurilium was size. The Audigy NX 2 is much bigger, felt bulkier then the Aurilium. The NX offers additional features (MIDI, Dolby Digital ect..) so this is understandable. Both of the cards have the ability to sit flat or upright. The NX is "made" to sit flat (writing is readable that way) while the Aurilium is made to stand up. I perfer having the card standing up, it takes up less space on my desktop that way. Not a big issue but something to note. The silver case of the Aurilium matches the silver/black color scheme of my computer set up. There is a mute button on the top of the Aurilium which is kind of nice. The volume control knob makes it so that I have 3 diffrent ways of changing the volume comming off my 8890; knob on the speakers, wheel on my Duo MX wireless keyboard and the knob on the Aurilium. Opps, stepped a bit away from the compairison of the two cards there... in any case I perfer the look and size of the Aurilium. Creatives card is larger and not a attractive looking but you do get more features from it.
I'll let you look up the specs for each card, there are a lot of reviews out there about that kind of stuff. I wanted to put down more of a personal feel as apposed to a tech review. I was slighty conserned about the lack of Dolby Digital support. Then I remembered how I felt when I about my Klipsch speakers. I spent 375 bucks and found out that they were THX compliant but did not support Dolby Digital without buying a seprate converter... I was miffed. Over time I reilised that I loved the speakers and frankly did not miss the lack of Dolby Digital. Such is life. Considering this the "loss" of Dolby Digital was not a big deal to me and the other extra fetures of the Extingy were features I would never use so saving a few bucks and going with the Aurilium was the right choice for me.
The biggest reason to get a USB sound card was the signal interfearance comming from the internal sound card in the 8890. It drove me nuts to hear the HD access over my speakers. I have not had any signal interfearance issues at all so that porblem is solved.
The Aurilium Sound Agent its fairly intuitive and easy to use. They give you a visual of what effects are active, if you have the enviroment set as being in a forest it shows a forest as the "wallpaper" for the short bald guy with no leggs that they use as a listener referance.
Music is clear and crisp. It stays clean beyond a volumes that I can stand to listen to so that is good. I have little reason to use more than half of the volume that this system is able to produce.
I haven't tested it in a game yet. Oddly enough I don't have a single game installed on my system at the moment. Just ran my "standard" sound test... Chapter 29 of the Matrix. I was able to get clean and clear sound from both the gunfire and the sound track. That scene is my classic sound perception test. The Aurilium worked quite well I must say.
I am not an audiophile but I do have a higher then avarge expectation of audio quality. I do not need every little piece of audio tech available... I just want good clean, clear sound. So far the Aurilium does it for me.
Tech stuff
I did D/L RightmMrk 3D Sound to do some tests but I don't know what I am doing or what the results really mean. but here is some info from the CPU uitilzation test...
Right Mark 3D Sound benchmark v 1.0 prefinal 5
Monday,03,November,2003, 15:36 50 PM
DirectSound 2D
16 buffer used
44100 kHz
13.22113609
9.62457275
9.51009369
9.55077934
9.44793987
9.47758389
9.61148357
9.36193371
9.54004669
9.85522556
DirectSound 3D software
16 buffer used
44100 kHz
27.51683998
28.28148651
29.49213982
30.11078835
28.22892952
28.62897491
29.18648338
30.15833473
29.37045097
29.67283058
DirectSound 3D hardware
16 buffer used
44100 kHz
13.48998928
9.69883728
10.10060692
10.18735218
9.35557556
9.78749275
10.14935684
9.67011929
9.96612930
10.30069065
DirectSound 3D + EAX
16 buffer used
44100 kHz
11.04639816
10.21403790
9.89623070
10.54154301
10.06936073
10.25067806
10.75433064
10.16722965
10.23114109
10.92057133
Take what you may from it.
First off some specs...
8890 3ghz, 1 gig RAM, 60 gig 5400rpm HD
Klipsch 4.1 THX 400 watt speaker system
Philips Aurilium USB sound card
I purchased it at Fry's. I looked at Comp USA and another local chain computer store and they did not carry/never heard of it. 4 on the shelf at Fry's, no returns. Price $99.00US. I did not bother to ask a salesperson about the Aurilium... you go to Fry's and buy stuff when you know what you want not when you need to find answers to your questions.
First impression when compairing the Audigy to the Aurilium was size. The Audigy NX 2 is much bigger, felt bulkier then the Aurilium. The NX offers additional features (MIDI, Dolby Digital ect..) so this is understandable. Both of the cards have the ability to sit flat or upright. The NX is "made" to sit flat (writing is readable that way) while the Aurilium is made to stand up. I perfer having the card standing up, it takes up less space on my desktop that way. Not a big issue but something to note. The silver case of the Aurilium matches the silver/black color scheme of my computer set up. There is a mute button on the top of the Aurilium which is kind of nice. The volume control knob makes it so that I have 3 diffrent ways of changing the volume comming off my 8890; knob on the speakers, wheel on my Duo MX wireless keyboard and the knob on the Aurilium. Opps, stepped a bit away from the compairison of the two cards there... in any case I perfer the look and size of the Aurilium. Creatives card is larger and not a attractive looking but you do get more features from it.
I'll let you look up the specs for each card, there are a lot of reviews out there about that kind of stuff. I wanted to put down more of a personal feel as apposed to a tech review. I was slighty conserned about the lack of Dolby Digital support. Then I remembered how I felt when I about my Klipsch speakers. I spent 375 bucks and found out that they were THX compliant but did not support Dolby Digital without buying a seprate converter... I was miffed. Over time I reilised that I loved the speakers and frankly did not miss the lack of Dolby Digital. Such is life. Considering this the "loss" of Dolby Digital was not a big deal to me and the other extra fetures of the Extingy were features I would never use so saving a few bucks and going with the Aurilium was the right choice for me.
The biggest reason to get a USB sound card was the signal interfearance comming from the internal sound card in the 8890. It drove me nuts to hear the HD access over my speakers. I have not had any signal interfearance issues at all so that porblem is solved.
The Aurilium Sound Agent its fairly intuitive and easy to use. They give you a visual of what effects are active, if you have the enviroment set as being in a forest it shows a forest as the "wallpaper" for the short bald guy with no leggs that they use as a listener referance.
Music is clear and crisp. It stays clean beyond a volumes that I can stand to listen to so that is good. I have little reason to use more than half of the volume that this system is able to produce.
I haven't tested it in a game yet. Oddly enough I don't have a single game installed on my system at the moment. Just ran my "standard" sound test... Chapter 29 of the Matrix. I was able to get clean and clear sound from both the gunfire and the sound track. That scene is my classic sound perception test. The Aurilium worked quite well I must say.
I am not an audiophile but I do have a higher then avarge expectation of audio quality. I do not need every little piece of audio tech available... I just want good clean, clear sound. So far the Aurilium does it for me.
Tech stuff
I did D/L RightmMrk 3D Sound to do some tests but I don't know what I am doing or what the results really mean. but here is some info from the CPU uitilzation test...
Right Mark 3D Sound benchmark v 1.0 prefinal 5
Monday,03,November,2003, 15:36 50 PM
DirectSound 2D
16 buffer used
44100 kHz
13.22113609
9.62457275
9.51009369
9.55077934
9.44793987
9.47758389
9.61148357
9.36193371
9.54004669
9.85522556
DirectSound 3D software
16 buffer used
44100 kHz
27.51683998
28.28148651
29.49213982
30.11078835
28.22892952
28.62897491
29.18648338
30.15833473
29.37045097
29.67283058
DirectSound 3D hardware
16 buffer used
44100 kHz
13.48998928
9.69883728
10.10060692
10.18735218
9.35557556
9.78749275
10.14935684
9.67011929
9.96612930
10.30069065
DirectSound 3D + EAX
16 buffer used
44100 kHz
11.04639816
10.21403790
9.89623070
10.54154301
10.06936073
10.25067806
10.75433064
10.16722965
10.23114109
10.92057133
Take what you may from it.
