ASUS Xonar <?>, Like because with an x it means must be good! |
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ASUS Xonar <?>, Like because with an x it means must be good! |
 Mar 12 2010, 13:28
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probably afk  Group: NSF Member Posts: 156 Joined: 8-May 04 Member No.: 2  |
Mostly directly directed at Lupus and/or Zombie, but experienced answers from others are of course welcome too!
I was looking at soundcards the other day, but there's quite a few different versions/types from ASUS*. Like, Xonar D2, DX, D2X, Essence, Essence STX, etc. with prices ranging from ~60 to ~200+ EUR. I'm basically looking for a non-critical 'luxury' upgrade, or to be more honest looking to order something with my additional RAM so the delivery/shipping cost ratio will be less than 10%  So yeah, should I just go by the logic of 'the more X in the name the better', or can you tell me something particularly positive about your choice? Else I probably wait for Xonar Xense, because that sounds just perfect. -- * I know, Creative has Xi-fi or what not. Forget about it. -------------------- Number is not a word.
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Mar 13 2010, 00:35
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 The Other BOFH Group: Admin Posts: 2 684 Joined: 29-May 03 From: Finland Member No.: 4 |
As far as I know, Essence ST and Essence STX are the same card. 1st one is for PCI and the 2nd one is for PCI-express bus. I heard STX has a bus converter and under the hood it's a PCI card in disguise. Zomb and I have STX. The D-line is more like home theater cards if I've understood it correctly.
Having owned Essence STX since December I can say a few things: 1) The sound quality for music is just as good as they advertise. Everything about the card hardware has been designed and implemented for good sound quality. Very high quality, very. 2) Driver quality is quite bad. Drivers are not updated regularly (one update since December so far). Quote from foobar2000 1.0.1 release notes says it well: "Added a workaround for horribly broken Asus Xonar drivers." Bad driver quality is not a problem with music, but you do notice it with games. If a game should crash or quit unexpectedly (any game), the current sound can loop forever until you reboot. Edit (NOT was missing, dang!): As games go, the card "kind of works", but it's certainly NOT a especially good gaming card with super accurate 3D positional audio and such. Get Essence only if you care about the best possible music quality. Or if you need a very high quality headphone amplifier. This post has been edited by NSF·LupusLupus: Mar 15 2010, 08:12 |
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Mar 14 2010, 10:55
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#3
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 Dta's butler Group: NSF Member Posts: 202 Joined: 1-April 05 From: Norway? Member No.: 192 |
I have a Xonar DX, and tbh I'm very happy with it. Good sound for a fair price.
-------------------- our brain is like a grizzly bear with a midget on the back trying to control it.
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Mar 15 2010, 08:12
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#4
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The Other BOFH Group: Admin Posts: 2 684 Joined: 29-May 03 From: Finland Member No.: 4 |
Oops, one important "not" was missing from my post above. Fixed now.
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| Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 5th September 2010 - 11:24 |
