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Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday January 27, 2004
Small card, big sound
While most PC motherboards include on-board multi-channel audio, for size and performance Creative's latest Audigy2NX external sound card is well worth a look.
About the size of a compact dial-up modem, the NX is the first 7.1-channel external sound card for the PC, capable of decoding Dolby DigitalEX audio. Being a small USB-powered external device, it is also well-suited to notebook computer use.
Multi-channel sound is the new way to make a big splash in any presentation and the NX works easily with any USB2.0-enabled notebook. It features line-in and microphone inputs along with optical-digital inputs. Unfortunately, it lacks a coaxial digital audio input or output - a bad miss.
One of the few ways to get multi-channel sound from a notebook, the NX offers a level of audio quality you won't often see with an integrated audio solution. As an external audio device, it is well away from the digital "noise" created by devices in the PC case.
Upgrade tested the NX with some high-end audio test gear and found the results from this card to be among the best we've seen. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 74dB turned out to be at least 10 to 15dB better than several internal PCI sound cards also tested at the same time. SNR measures the range between a reference audio sound and the low-level noise generated by the NX itself. The NX also exhibits low total-harmonic-distortion (THD) of about 0.01 per cent. THD is a well-used test for measuring the amount of unwanted harmonics added to the audio by the device under test. While it can handle encoded audio up to 96kHz sampling rate and 24-bit resolution, the NX cannot handle the DVD-Audio standard of 192kHz sampling rate.
Given that no notebook has multi-channel sound built in, the Audigy2NX and its Extigy predecessor look to be the best options for getting the best audio quality possible.
-- DARREN YATES
Creative's Sound Blaster Audigy2NX retails for $299. For more details call (02) 9666 6100 or visit australia.creative.com
Sunny suite
StarOffice7 is Sun's latest attempt to at an office suite that is functional, relatively cheap and runs on different platforms. On all three fronts, it appears to have arrived. Its word processor, presentation tool and spreadsheet deal more than adequately with files generated by their Microsoft counterparts. It has a drawing and graphics application and a relational database and supports XML but the killer feature is its PDF conversion tool.
-- SAM VARGHESE
StarOffice7 retails for $190. For more details visit au.sun.com
Memory in a flash
Kingston's 128MB and 256MB Elite Pro Hi-Speed Secure Digital (SD) flash memory cards weigh less than two grams and support 4-bit data transfer at up to 10Mbps - five times faster than standard SD cards. Incorporating enhanced cryptographic security data protection, they can be used in the latest SD-compatible digital devices such as PDAs, digital cameras, digital camcorders and MP3 players.
Kingston's Elite Pro Hi-Speed Secure Digital Cards retail for $116 for 128MB and $182 for 256MB. For more details call 1800 649469 or visit kingston.com
Fast storage
The proliferation of digital video and high-resolution digital photography has seen an explosion in storage requirements. LaCie's d2 triple interface hard drives cover every base by sporting two FireWire800, one FireWire400 and one USB2.0 port. Inside is a 7200RPM hard drive ranging from 160GB to 500GB. The multiple FireWire ports allow daisy-chaining of FireWire/iLink/DV devices.
LaCie's d2 triple interface hard drive retails from $479 for 160GB to $1199 for 500GB. For more details call (02) 9669 6900 or visit lacie.com/au
© 2004 Sydney Morning Herald
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