ASUS Xonar Essence STX PCI Express Sound Card

Comments about ASUS Xonar Essence STX PCI Express Sound Card:

I bought this card to serve as a primary music source for a vintage, high-end audio system. Once installed, it provided superb D/A, A/D performance, as shown by FFT spectral analysis for harmonic distortion, noise and digital artifacts. Sound quality through ER-4S earphones or electrostatic speakers was excellent. The Audio Center software worked well with a 2-channel audio system. This is not an appropriate product for a home theatre installation with 4+ speakers, or for a multi-track recording enthusiast.

Installing the card was rather tedious. It requires a 4-pin Molex power supply connection in addition to PCI-e. Software and drivers on the distribution CD(v. 6.12.8.1756)failed to work on my Win7-64 computer. After uninstalling the software, I downloaded updated software from the Asus website, then unpacked the *.rar file and installed v. 7.12.8.1794. Now everything worked as it should.

Comments about ASUS Xonar Essence STX PCI Express Sound Card:

Beautiful sound, easy installation, and incredibly sturdy craftsmanship.

The only thing I would advise is that after you install the ASUS drivers and sound software, check to make sure that the new soundcard is your default device for audio output in the control panel and that you have the correct channels selected (headphones, speakers, etc). This is important because you may not initially get sound and it'll drive you NUTS trying to figure out why.

Comments about ASUS Xonar Essence STX PCI Express Sound Card:

The card has great sound but it can caused problems with your computer. I have an ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 motherboard and after installing the Xonar sound card problems arose. Computer failed boot on startup which required the PSU to be shut off and turned back on each time the computer started, also Windows 7 failed to recover from sleep mode. Upgrading the BIOS did nothing to solve the problem. In a last ditch effort to solve the problem I moved the card to another slot and after Windows reconfigured its self everything seems to work well at this time. I have used Creative soundcards for many years and I believe that the Xonar is a better choice for sound quality but the need for more outputs is needed to really make this card the king of the hill. The price is competitive to the cards produced by Creative. Driver and software installation went smooth and like most installed devices it runs several background programs at startup and as yet haven't caused any problems and the required memory to run are reasonable. My hope is that ASUS will keep the drivers up to date as that has been a real problem with Creative, causing you to abandon a good sound card when the OS changes versions. I did my research before purchasing this card and believe it is the best as of this date. Also B&H had the best price and through in free shipping. I use the card to record through and it produces an excellent recording.

Comments about ASUS Xonar Essence STX PCI Express Sound Card:

I have been very happy with the purchase as the the quality of sound is quite good, much better than anything I've heard on any other onboard/PCIe sound card.

As the literature says it is optimized for use with headphones which is very true. Over the last month I have tried it on the different sets of headphones & in-ear monitors I own. The card makes lower end headphones sound much better, but the card doesn't realize its full potential until you use a higher-end headphones.

Installation of the card was very straight forward. THe one gotcha you may hit is the card requires a 4-pin male molex power connector, The PC I got from HP only had Sata power connectors which required an adapter.

As far as the bundled software. It is easy to use and has enough options to please all but the most demanding folks.

There are two downsides to the software:

-it doesn't allow for saved profiles. I find my self having to make many of the same adjustments based on which content I want to send over the connected sound systems.

- The control app isn't digitally signed windows 7 prompts you each time you want to run it.

Comments about ASUS Xonar Essence STX PCI Express Sound Card:

The product is used as a headphone amp with bose headphones and pre-amp to a rotel stereo integrated amp for audio and video editing and playback.Setup recommends disabling any Bios and high end video card sound drivers, but once set up the quality of listing experience is exceptional.I highly recommend this product. Its definitely worth the extra few dollars over main stream audio cards coming in @ 100.00 to the $150.00 range.

Comments about ASUS Xonar Essence STX PCI Express Sound Card:

I purchased this sound card to get better quality audio out of my computer than is possible with the motherboard built-in audio, and it really improved my sound. The card is simple to install. The best place to get the software and driver is from the Asus website. The software allows you to very easily switch the output from speakers (stereo only) to headphones, meaning both can be hooked up at the same time and the card will only send signal to the one you select. There are also a lot more advanced audio controls in the software, but I have not investigated these yet, so I can't comment.
Make sure you have a 4 pin Molex power connector available from your power supply before purchasing the card, because it will not work without power directly from the PSU. Direct power is required to get a cleaner power signal than is available from your motherboard. Cleaner power input contributes to better sound quality.
The card is a bit expensive, but is very high quality, and worth the investment if you care about getting the best possible sound from your computer and don't need surround sound.

Comments about ASUS Xonar Essence STX PCI Express Sound Card:

When I moved in with my friend, we had a problem: too many CDs, not enough wall. So I built a computer out of spare parts and bought this sound card, and ripped all our CDs to the hard drive (no compression). The CDs live in boxes in the basement. Now we just select what we want to hear, and it comes through the stereo sounding better than many CD players I've had.

One concern I had was whether I could use the card with Ubuntu Linux (10.4), or would have to spring for a copy of Win-doze. It turned out to be no problem at all. Installed card (easy!), turned the machine on, selected some music files, and they played perfectly the first time using Jukebox, which comes with Ubuntu. I do not (yet) have the advantage of using the product's specialized software, but Jukebox certainly gets the job done.

I have already recommended the Asus Xonar card to a number of friends who have been trying to figure out how to manage their CD collections, and could easily replicate the system I built.

Comments about ASUS Xonar Essence STX PCI Express Sound Card:

As a headphone only listener this card solved all of my previous complaints of on-board audio through headphones. This card drives the headphones with its built in amplifier chip allowing a simple direct connection to the PC. Previously I had external amplifiers and signal processors. I no longer have the noisy transitions between songs with the media player and the occasional 'digital noise' glitches are gone. I am hearing things I never heard before (good things).

Comments about ASUS Xonar Essence STX PCI Express Sound Card:

Fantastic quality output used to drive my Sennheiser HD650 headphones.
Supported right out of the box with Ubuntu Linux and ALSA.

Comments about ASUS Xonar Essence STX PCI Express Sound Card:

easy to install for me but could see how some people would have major trouble installing,using windows 7 you will need to download driver windows won't do it automatically just go to the website on the box. I have a Yamaha RX-V2500 amp with 7.1 surround high end Yamaha 777's and yamaha's flagship amped subwoofer. I hooked up to computer using toslink (I prefer because there is no possibility of static) and the difference in playing Pandora (192 bit rate) internet radio was instantly noticeable. Spacing is much better even though my stereo when set on 7.1 Stereo will try and space; this is audio spacing the way it was intended and couldn't get any better all the extra icons light up on your stereo - dolby digital surround. 124db to noise ratio. Well worth every penny.

Comments about ASUS Xonar Essence STX PCI Express Sound Card:

Excellent sound the best card in its price

Comments about ASUS Xonar Essence STX PCI Express Sound Card:

Very good product.[...]

Comments about ASUS Xonar Essence STX PCI Express Sound Card:

I popped this Asus sound card right in and was instantly amazed.I have an older high-end stereo system that is in prefect shape.I listen to online streaming audio and iTunes and could not believe the difference in the Asus card vs. the old one I had. There is no comparison. The qualities of highs,lows, separation and "absolutely no distortion" are unparalleled. I haven't heard this quality of sound since the high dollar stereo systems back in the eighties. B&H you have out done yourself on the pricing on this one. For what you get, this "deal is a steal."

Comments about ASUS Xonar Essence STX PCI Express Sound Card:

Worked like a charm. Software is NON-problematic. Great outputs,,no problems!

Comments about ASUS Xonar Essence STX PCI Express Sound Card:

Nice upgrade from Creative SB Xfi Fatal1ty xtreme gamer. I needed a sound card with built in amp to better drive my Sennheiser PC350 headphones. Had a number crashes early on, ended up running regedit to fully eliminate Creative's drivers in the root directory. Also disabled chat ex in the ASUS software, so not certain which fix solved the problem but works without issue now. Additional, make sure to remove old ASUS driver before updating to different driver. Currently running their beta driver. I primarily use the card for gaming and some music. The eax support is emulated, but I find the Dolby headphone option superior to Creative's eax.

Comments about ASUS Xonar Essence STX PCI Express Sound Card:

Turns your PC into a quality music server. Best low price solution for PC's poor sound. This boosts it to a serious player in high-fi audio.

Comments about ASUS Xonar Essence STX PCI Express Sound Card:

This sound card is fantastic for listening to music with headphones, however if you wanted to use it for a 5 or 7 piece sound system you should probably get either the Xonar Essence ST (because it is compatible with the expandable daughter card ASUS offers while the STX is not) or the ASUS Xonar D2X. Also if you place the card right next to a monstrous video card like I did it is still possible to pick up some minimal electronic interference even through the cards shield.