21. Behavior At 24 Bits/96kHz

Frequency response : Philips evidently strongly filters frequencies above 20kHz. A rather strange choice for a card which can work at 96kHz.

Noise level : the noise level is less than at lower sampling rates but still high for 24 bit card.

Dynamic range : good behavior, in line with the noise level.

THD (Total Harmonic Distortion) : distortion itself is low, but there are quite a lot of artifacts.

IMD (Intermodulation distortion) : quite satisfactory in practice, though not as good as many other models.

Stereo crosstalk : separation is a bit tight, but satisfactory in practice.

3D And Games

While its audio performance was frustrating, the Aurilium did very well in the processor occupancy test where it turned out the least greedy of all. A pleasant surprise. However, this encouraging result was not completely borne out in the game tests. Though not worthless, the Aurilium was not up there with the best in Quake 3 and Comanche 4. It was only in Splinter Cell - with more sophisticated sound - that it took the lead, with just the MP3+ on its heels, though the MP3+ only has two channels while the Aurilium has six. So it's a good choice for games.