Member Reviews: Asus Xonar D1 Sound Card (Black)

This is a decent card for the price. This card comes with good but not great components. If you want better you will have to dish out more $$ but for the $67 I spent for this I think the quality is more than adequate. This was a breadth of fresh air coming from the Creative camp which has been problematic ever since direct sound was dropped from Windows. This is not to say that the D1 had its fair share of audio issues in games like Fallout 3 but then again I had these same issues with the Creative Fatality Pro which leaves me to believe that this may be an issue with the game engine not supporting add on sound cards. Holding the D1 in your hand will give you an idea of the workmanship...

This review focuses mainly on the performance of the card from a technical point of view. It most likely also applies to the Xonar DX, which is basically the same card, but with PCIe interface instead of PCI.   The strongest point of these cards is the (CS4398 based) DAC, which supports sample rates up to 192 kHz, and 24 bit resolution (I tested mainly at 44.1 to 96 kHz). The specs claim 116 dB A-weighted signal to noise ratio (112 dB for the input) relative to the 2 Vrms full scale output, and 0.00056% harmonic distortion at 1 kHz/-3 dB. As far as it can be determined with loopback tests, the card can come fairly close to those values in an electrically "quiet" PC. The...