Audio Nirvana: Cards to Speakers

Music Starts On The Inside

Give your audio a boost with a multichannel sound card (from top to bottom, Philips, M-Audio, Mad Dog Multimedia).Photograph: Marc SimonIf your PC came with integrated audio or an older card, upgrading to a new card is probably your best first step to better audio (although integrated audio that supports 5.1-channel surround sound comes in many current systems--via the NForce2 chip, for example--many older PCs with integrated audio may lack this capability).

To get satisfying sound out of games and DVD movies, you'll want a card that can handle at least 5.1 audio (also known as six-channel surround sound, where satellite speakers provide center, front-left, front-right, rear-left, and rear-right channels, plus a subwoofer--the ".1" in 5.1).

Midrange and high-end cards increase the number of speakers supported to 7.1 (adding two side speakers to the mix). They also have more powerful digital-to-analog converters (DACs), which take the digital format your audio is stored in and change it into an analog signal that the speakers can understand.

Lower-end cards like the $40 Philips PSC605 Sonic Edge 5.1 use 16-bit DACs, while higher-end models like the Audigy 2 ZS Platinum and M-Audio's $100 Revolution 7.1 use 24-bit DACs, which generate a broader spectrum of sound.

To our ears, however, a 24-bit DAC does not guarantee better sound. Playing a Beatles track in our tests, the 24-bit Audigy 2 ZS Platinum and Revolution 7.1 produced superb vocal tones. But Mad Dog Multimedia's midrange $60 Entertainer 7.1 DSP sounded flatter than the Philips card, despite its 24-bit DAC.

Better cards also have built-in support for true surround sound. To replicate at home the lifelike effects you're used to hearing in the theater, you'll need two elements in place: A 5.1 or 7.1 speaker set whose speakers are appropriately spaced around the room to achieve a sense of fullness, and a surround-sound decoder such as Dolby Digital EX--which both the Audigy 2 ZS Platinum and Revolution 7.1 support. Sound cards like Mad Dog's Entertainer and Philips's Sonic Edge lack a Dolby Digital decoder, which means you'll need speakers that have a decoder built in (as the Klipsch and the Creative GigaWorks S750 we reviewed do).

All of the cards we tested came with software that lets you fine-tune your audio--adjusting bass and treble, for example, or optimizing your sound for stereo, 5.1, 7.1, or headphone setups. Philips's software makes it especially easy to test that you've hooked up your speakers correctly, while M-Audio's has helpful presets for configuring popular speaker systems.

Our pick, Creative's Audigy 2, has a few unique features that account for its relatively high price tag. Its input/output hub mounts in an open 5.25-inch drive bay on the front of your computer and adds FireWire and MIDI ports, a handy volume control, and the infrared receiver for the included audio and video playback remote control. (You can buy the Audigy 2 ZS without the hub for about $100.)