USB 2.0 Audio Shootout: Creative vs. Philips

So, why would you want to even think about an external solution? One consideration is portability. An external sound module is potentially a great way to upgrade the audio on a notebook PC. We’ve reviewed other USB-based audio products, such as Creative’s Sound Blaster Extigy, Xitel’s INport, and M-Audio’s Sonica Theater. While each had its merits, they also had limitations — the main one being USB 1.1’s limited bandwidth. USB 2.0 knocked out that shortcoming by delivering a 40X speedup to USB, removing one of the main impediments that’s held back audio (and for that matter, video) on this bus. We took a look at two new USB 2.0 audio offerings from Creative and Philips, and while neither solution is perfect, they do represent major steps forward for outboard consumer-focused PC audio.

. . . Although neither of these products made an especially poor showing, we have to give the nod to Creative here. The better signal quality, more versatile speaker output configurations, SoundFont-compatible wavetable synthesizer, larger array of included audio applications, and more compact form factor make the Audigy 2 NX the better way to go. True, the Aurilium did have better CPU usage but neither unit did especially well on that front. Philips also has an advantage in that it didn’t need an external power supply.

ExtremeTech
USB 2.0 Audio Shootout: Creative vs. Philips