Date: January 6th, 2005
Article by: Jeff Caldwell (Hardware Reviewer)
Edited by: Nathan Glentworth (Owner, Head Editor & Hardware Reviewer)
Product Submitted by: Philips
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PRODUCT COMPOSITION & WALKTHROUGH

Upon arrival I saw this sound card in a glossy, flashy looking 8 ½" x 15" box. Covering the box, front to back are the "pros" of using this card, as well as speaker combinations that work best with it (Philips-made of course!).

Upon opening the box, you see the following:

- Soundcard
- Driver/Application CD
- Informational Pamphlet about other Philips products
- Warranty pamphlet
- CD of Philips slideshows
- Installation Instructions

The card itself is a nice black color, and is the average size of a sound card. This worked out well due to the color of my case also being black and the large window on the side of it. Ascetics are always a nice touch when it comes to expansion cards.

The card is powered by a VIA Envy24GT Chipset. This is well designed chipset that is also used on their high-end sound cards, the only exception is that the high ends are 7.1 and are classed the HT. The following specifics on the chipset are clearly printed on the side of the box.

- High definition Audio Quality Playback and Recording
- Full 2.0V Rated Output
- Signal-to-Noise Ratio (A-Weighted, typical) = 106dB
- Total Harmonic Distortion + Noise
- Full Duplex Audio

The PSC724 comes with one CD input and one auxiliary input. This was a small let down; two optical drives are rather common. The limitation to one optical drive for CD audio is sometimes annoying although you can use the AUX input for patching through the second optical drive audio signal.