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Product Specifications
| General | |
| Brand: | Asus |
| Item Height : | 6 centimetres |
| Item Width: | 19 centimetres |
Technical Details
- Plug-in Card
- Frequency range: 10 - 90000 Hz
- DAC data width
- Audio modes: sound card, audio adapter (optical)
- In the box: sound card, audio adapter (optical)
Product details
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Product Description
Manufacturer's Description
ASUS' Xonar Essence ST audio card with world's first precision audio clock tuning offers a revolutionary listening experience.In its search for the purest essence of sound, ASUS have broken the boundaries with the soundcard on the market, the Xonar Essence ST. This PCI card is the world's first audio card to incorporate precision clock tuning to minimize audio jitter, bringing the user a clearer, crisper listening experience.The Xonar Essence ST is capable of achieving an industry-leading 124dB SNR (Signal-to-Noise Ratio) in signal clarity and offers a built-in headphone amplifier to obtain the best performance out of any available pair of headphones. Thanks to ASUS' exclusive Hyper-grounding and EMI Shield design, even the most demanding audiophile will be satisfied with the unprecedented sound quality.
Product Description
ASUS Xonar Essence ST - Sound card - 24-bit - 192 kHz - 124 dB SNR - stereo - PC
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Amazon Verified Purchase
I bought this sound card to replace an M-Audio 24/96, which has been the leading high-fidelity sound card for many years. The Essence is an amazing advance on the older card. I listened to Mackerras' performance of Mozart's Jupiter symphony direct from an uncompressed flac file downloaded from Linn Records. I compared it with the same download, converted to wav, burned to CD-R and played on my Naim CD player, which is priced in four figures. There was little difference. Eventually I decided the CD player was better after all, but the ability of this sound card to reproduce the vitality of the music (some call it "prat") is quite remarkable, certainly better than a cheap CD player.
So far I have not tested its recording (A-D) capabilities, something the M-Audio 24/96 does very well.
Why is there always a drawback? At the moment it only works with Microsoft operating systems. If you use Mac or Linux you are out of luck, although I think there is a Linux driver coming in 2010.
So far I have not tested its recording (A-D) capabilities, something the M-Audio 24/96 does very well.
Why is there always a drawback? At the moment it only works with Microsoft operating systems. If you use Mac or Linux you are out of luck, although I think there is a Linux driver coming in 2010.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
I bought this card with a pair of Audio Technica ATH M50 and i can say the sound is more detailed and crisp..I had an Xonar DX with a pair of AKG that had a price of around 30euros.I didn't tested the ATH M50 with the DX so i can't say if the clarity is from the card or Headphones.The problem with this card is you need to learn technical tricks to get things right.For example in games you have to activate the 7.1 virtual speakers on a 2.1 system to get corect sounding and positioning.This is valid mostly in EAX games where Creative have the market..In the future all games will move to openAL.This card is more for music quality..I love the fact that you can plug both speakers and heaphones simultaniosly in the sound card and is just a matter of switching from control panel from one to another.Before i had to change cables all time behind the computer.My 2.1 Altec Lansing 5021 speakers had a headphone hole in the volume unit but the speaker system also add aditional bass / treble to the sound of the headphones.Also the volume output was very low compared to one when you connect directly the heaphones to XONAR DX.Now with Essence is much more simpler but the card is at leaset 50% more expensive than Xonar DX.Better buy a good pair of speakers / headphones to get some value from this premium card.Otherwise is not really worth..The DX and even the DG will do the trick at much lower price..
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
The best sound from a PC that I have ever heard!
Have spent the morning listening to the Xonar ST and have to say it's an awesome improvment over the D1/DX!
Everything is clearer, there is better balance, a better soundstage, better bass and more detail.
The highs and upper midrange are much better now and vocals stand out.
Before with the D1 I couldn't help feeling everything was a bit muddy and vocals felt slightly buried. I even had to tweak the Xonar equalizer at the 2k, 4k and 8k mark to brighten them up a bit even though my amp was nearly set at full treble.
Now with the ST I can leave the Xonar equalizer at neutral and finally can roll the treble and bass back on my amp.
The overall sound is much more pleasing and listenable. I don't know what I was doing with that D1. It was obviously the weakest link in my setup.
Overall very happy with the ST indeed!
Have spent the morning listening to the Xonar ST and have to say it's an awesome improvment over the D1/DX!
Everything is clearer, there is better balance, a better soundstage, better bass and more detail.
The highs and upper midrange are much better now and vocals stand out.
Before with the D1 I couldn't help feeling everything was a bit muddy and vocals felt slightly buried. I even had to tweak the Xonar equalizer at the 2k, 4k and 8k mark to brighten them up a bit even though my amp was nearly set at full treble.
Now with the ST I can leave the Xonar equalizer at neutral and finally can roll the treble and bass back on my amp.
The overall sound is much more pleasing and listenable. I don't know what I was doing with that D1. It was obviously the weakest link in my setup.
Overall very happy with the ST indeed!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
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Listmania!
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