In order to provide maximum expandability (and avoid bundling an additional I/O daughter card), Philips has deviated from the standard sound card back-plate that we've grown used to over the years. Rather than using mini-jack connectors, the Acoustic Edge utilizes two mini-DINs for analog output as well as digital S/PDIF in/out. The analog connector branches off into three labeled 1/8” mini-jack plugs to accommodate Front Right/Left, Rear Right/Left and Center/Subwoofer channels while the S/PDIF cable braches out into S/PDIF Out and S/PDIF In. Also present is the standard Mic In and Line In.

Like Turtle Beach's Santa Cruz and the Sound Blaster Live!, the Acoustic Edge offers an internal S/PDIF input for digital CD audio. However, since the playback software bundled with the card utilizes Digital Audio Extraction (CD audio is transferred over the PCI bus, rather than the digital/analog cable), neither the S/PDIF nor CD-In will really be necessary. Standard analog CD-in, TAD-in and Auxiliary-in are also available.

QSound Multi-Speaker System is the algorithm that has been designed to take an ordinary stereo (2-channel) source and re-map it for quad or 5.1 speaker output. Rather than mirroring the front stereo output to the rear, QMSS creates 4 or 5.1 channels of sound.

Now, the challenge behind such a feat lies in taking a stereo signal, which contains information for two channels of audio, and transforming it into six channels of output (or four, depending on the speaker setup). Our experience with QMSS was mixed – on one hand; we were definitely able to differentiate unique sound coming from in front and behind us while on the other, the sound was not quite what one might expect when they think of 6-channel audio. For the most part, it seemed as though QMSS was focusing on highs for the front two channels with the center channel serving as a conglomeration of the left and right front speakers. Sounds coming from the rear channels were more midrange, and seemed to have a bit of an echo. The effect was most easily recognizable in pop songs, with plenty of vocals and not so apparent in Rossini's William Tell Overture.

QMSS also functions in a gaming environment, however, in order to see the benefit of QMSS, the application cannot be accessing a 3D sound API such as EAX or DirectSound3D. If the game has no 3D sound support, QMSS will then step in and generate the necessary four or 5.1 channel output. Generally, games that support a variety of 3D sound API's (our primary platform was Sacrifice, which recently went “gold”) sound better while the application controls the sound system. For games that merely support DirectSound, the Acoustic Edge does a good job of adding extra depth to the sound stage.

Overall, QMSS fares well in some stereo applications and is not quite as convincing in others. Games that lack 3D sound API support make good use of the technology, while classical fanfares are obscured somewhat by the re-mapping algorithm.