Wow! Philips Seismic Edge Sound Card (1 Viewer)

[Wayne Ernst]

About a week back, my Sound Blaster Live! Value sound card started dying on me. I found a Philips Seismic Edge sound card being sold at Ebay for $29.99 (shipped) for the "buy it now" option. You can find better deals if you wait until the auctions end and you'll save a few bucks. I needed one quickly, so I was willing to pay a few more $$.
I currently have Altec Lansing (ATP-3) speakers connected to the sound card. I listen to quite a few MP3s and frankly, the SB Live! can't keep up with this sound card in regards to sound quality. I can't believe how good my music sounds.
Oh, the versions that you find on the auction sites are OEM cards, but do come with printed manuals, drivers on CD and also an analog sound cable - so essentially, the card is the same as the retail package, but doesn't have the full retail box with shrink-wrap. Retail versions of this card usually run about $55 + shipping.
Way to go, Philips!!

 

[Gabriel_Lam]

You're absolutely right, the SB Live! is one of the worst sounding cards available, musically. People choose it for the name, price, and gaming ability (low cpu 3d sound). The Seismic Edge is definitely a step up for music, and the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz is one step above that. A large large step up from that are the various 24/96 cards.

 

[Mark Hsieh]

The Live! and Audigy are horrible. Creative advertises them as being able to 24bit/96khz but in reality, they can only do less. Unfortunately their technical support is horrible as well as their driver/firmware updates.
Good purchase on the Phillips, haven't heard any bad stuff about that card yet.

 

[Wayne Ernst]

The Seismic Edge is definitely a step up for music, and the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz is one step above that.

Actually, I also considered the Santa Cruz card, but then decided on the Seismic Edge instead. Also, I did purchase the Hercules Muse 5.1 DVD from Best Buy - and then returned it. The Muse didn't sound very good for music - or, at least, not nearly as good as the Seismic Edge does.

I'm running a motherboard with a VIA chipset and did have some issues with installing the Seismic Edge. The card was detected by Windows XP, but would then bomb out when I tried installing the drivers. I also downloaded the latest drivers off of the Philips site, but they didn't resolve my issue. I then hit the 3D Sound Surge site and found some Beta drivers for the Seismic card. These finally resolved my issue. Although the installation was quite challenging -I've never had such issues with a sound card before - it was all very worth it in the end when I'm able to listen to wonderful sounding music while I'm working at my desk.