Xonar Essence STX: Sneak Peek! - Page 12

All of my comments on the STX are interspersed in this thread starting at around page 9. I will be pulling my comments out into a more coherent review in a new thread in the next couple of days.

I''ve not tried using the card to run speakers, but as a headphone amp it is quite impressive. It's full, dynamic, sparkly, airy, with deep and full bass and a beautifully intimate, 3D soundstage and clear imaging. Now that the amp has burned in for about 50 hours I'd put it on par with my Corda Opera (EDIT: to clarify I mean it's on par with the sound I get from the Corda Opera being fed from the STX's RCA outs. I don't know how the STX's amp section would compare if it was a separate device fed by a different source.) and noticeably better than my Corda Blue.


At the risk of speaking for ROBSCIX, I'm sure he means warm in only the best possible sense. Oftentimes "Warm" is associated with gear that is strong in the mids at the expense of a boomy or bloated bass and/or rolled-off/veiled highs. This is not the case with the STX!!!

What he and I talk about when we say the STX is "warm" is that the sound has a fullness to it that brings the mids a little more forward than many other sound cards, which can sound a little thin/cold/scooped out in the mids by comparison. the STX's mids are strong so that they "fill out" sound sources. Instruments and voices have texture, body, and fullness to them that is stronger and more realistic to my ears than other cards I've heard in this category (Prelude, Xonar D2, Xonar HDAV), but it's not so much that sounds have that "too close to the mic" slurred mushiness to them that you get when the sound is too warm and the mids are too strong.

But the bass runs as deep as those other cards and is fuller and more detailed without feeling bloated, boomy, or out of control. And the Highs are quite clear, airy, extended, sparkly, pure, detailed, and holographic without being veiled, rolled off, truncated, or muffled in any sense. I believe that the STX is simply a better card for listening to music than the Prelude, D2, or HDAV. And not better as in "more to my tastes." It's just superior, much like those cards are superior to the X-Fi Xtrememusic that I have (though the difference isn't as big).

I've not heard the STX w/ a pair of HD650's but I'm confident that they will sound fine together.

Yes please do! Experiement your heard out

I'm loving this but I know it can get even better.

Anyone tried to do any gaming so far with it? I was playing Fallout 3 last night and I noticed that when a certain weapon fire sound effect happens, the D2X skips\repeats\glitches a bit and even crashed the game once. Just wondering if the STX's drivers are any better. Or maybe it's the games fault I don't know.

I've only played COD2 and Planetside with it so far. Sounds and works great! However, I'm not using GX2.5 with it. I'm not a fan of EAX so I'm using the "Miles Fast 2D" sound setting.

I've got a few more titles I'll play around with though over the next week or so now that the card seems to have mostly burned in. I have copies of COD1, FEAR, Far Cry, COD4, COD WAW, and Prey.

I haven't noticed any issues either but so far I've only played L4D. I'm using the optical connection and DDL to my speakers though.

To anybody who has purchased one of these, do you think it would be in the same class or better than an EMU 1212m? I love my 1212m for music playback, but it doesn't do so well with gaming. It works perfect for some games, but about 30% of the games I play will have problems like stuttering or no sound at all. Also, it doesn't support EAX at all.. and the drivers don't work very well under Vista which isn't a problem for me now, but it could be in the future if I decide to upgrade. Again, I love this card.. but I really would like to find something with similar sound quality but more compatibility.

Aha! Warm meant in the best possible way. So they have a great top end and good bass?

Well sir, you and Alydon have made a believer out of me. Since all my audio is PC oriented; I'm ditching my X-Fi Plat for this - never liked the extra bassiness anyways.

Thanks! And expect a review ^^since I'm another of those "SR 225 users"!

You can swap the friggin opamps on this thing!

That's great, Vandal, as I am one of "those" too. I'm strongly considering buying this card as something of a final audio source solution.
My Prodigy HD2 isn't bad, but it just can't drive the current hungry SR225 properly and it's gaming performance is not satisfactory either. So I was looking at buying some headamp and cheap Xfi or Asus DX just for gaming.

But now Essence has everything I would ever need from a sound card. So if it works reasonably well with SR225, I'm all in no matter what.

Could someone please let me know the exact length of this card excluding the mounting bracket please? I'm not sure it will fit in my mainboard owing to the northbridge cooler.

Also, does this card support the analog loopback (ALT) functionality that was a feature of the earlier Xonar cards?

Thanks

Sorry got another question please. Can dolby headphone be activated when listening from the dual rca output or does it grey out because it's not in headphone mode?

I just checked and no you can't. The RCA seem to be really made for speakers or receivers.

On another note, to anyone that owns this card, do you hear a clicking noise everytime you switch from Headphone to 2 Speaker mode?

Hi,

Thanks. I printed out a copy of the photo of one earlier in this thread and made a rough guesstimate that the card is approximately 16.7 cm long, excluding the slot bracket.

So it would fit my mainboard - with 1.5mm to spare. The lack of ALT is perplexing. For me this was the biggest selling point of the original Xonar series so far as headphone users was concerned.

I would often take original WAV files and run them through the "ALT" function using the inbuilt Xonar Dolby Headphone functionality and with some judicious EQ. I would then end up with WAV files I could play on either a DAP or my Sony D50 in my bedroom - complete with Dolby Headphone pre-encoded plus any EQ applicable to the particular headphone I was using.

So it seems that the Essence really would not be much use to me after all, as attractive as it seems. Very frustrating, as my original Xonar is on the blink and I have to replace it. And the other Xonars that do have the ALT functionality are all too long (as in card length).

Anyway thanks for the quick reply. You have saved me some un-necessary drooling