Xonar STX chipping away faith in expensive audio equipment

This 200$ soundcard is practically blasting it's way through audio equipment of similar cost, and rivals those that cost 10x as much, as far as measurements and specifications go. I have painstakingly tried to find some measurement, some objective means to try to justify spending a big bunch of money on dedicated audio gear like DACs and headphone amps, but in every test I see the Xonar is nearly perfect in every measure. From what I understand it rivals or beats gear costing multiple times it's price, such as the Benchmark DAC-1 ( based on Stereophile's measurements ). In addition, it's capable of 192khz/24-bit, while many expensive DACs only go up to 96khz.

It's headphone amp produces similarly impressive numbers and basically humiliates my Heed Canamp, which alone costs over twice the card's price. While I may prefer how the Canamp sounds on a given recording, I'm not entirely sure it's the Canamp being less sibilant and more refined, or if it's the Canamp actually being WORSE and simply smearing all over a sibilant recording to make it seem better. Which piece of gear is closer to the holy grail of audio reproduction; complete transparency?

I can tell the Musical Fidelity V-DAC sounds different than the STX. It has a lusher midrange and a tamer treble, but this might very well be another case of the V-DAC being the inferior component, as measurements would suggest, and it's simply smearing and coloring the sound.

In short, is there any scientific way to explain why these expensive dedicated components are supposedly better than a cheap, small soundcard?

Quote:

Originally Posted by leeperry 

you didn't mention what headphones you're using?

 

The STX cons:

-noisy shared PSU with all the other computer components

-jelly bean $2 headphones amp IC

-crappiest drivers ever(not on Linux, though)

-very upfront and agressive sound, great for agressive music though

-24.576MHz(48kHz*512) clock, so 44.1kHz is a jitter feast...don't take my word for it, listen to an ST whenever you'll get the chance.

I use the HD650 and the K701's. Will soon be adding the HD800's.

What I'm really asking about is how this cheap chip in a noisy PC, with jelly bean $2 headphone amp IC, crappiest drivers ever, aggressive sound and a jittery output measures so incredibly well compared to all the supposedly better gear? How can we call expensive gear that measures significantly worse better than the STX on any objective scale?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elanzer 
There are even better units than the STX at the $200 pricepoint if you look hard enough, see: Audio-gd NFB-12, FiiO E7/E9, and a few other ~$150-200 external units. In the NFB-12's case, the headphone amp is over twice as powerful as the STX. The same goes for the Sparrow, FUN, etc by audio-gd.

Here's a good example again. You call all these units better than the STX, and while I don't know their exact measurements, from previous findings I'd wager they all measure significantly worse than the STX. How are they, then, better in any way other than possiblu subjective listening tests, which are highly dependant on personal preferences and frankly tell very little about how transparent the gear is?

I'm not getting any noise at all on the STX that I could tell. The thing is dead silent even at the highest gain setting and volume maxed out. My Heed Canamp starts hissing at around 50% volume. I also hear snaps sometimes when electric devices in the house go on or off, while the STX remains silent at those times, too. Probably not the Canamp's fault per se, but I think it tells volumes of how well the PC with the Xonar are handling themselves in comparison.

But isn't "sound quality" rather subjective if it's not measurable in any way? Not to mention many like sound that isn't necessarily true to the original intent, including me in many cases. What if a sound system creates something that sounds good but simply isn't there on the album? Is that good quality? Subjective listening would say it is, but from the Hi-Fi perspective, it really isn't. You might have a badly produced album, but it sounds good on your system because your system either adds something that sounds good to it ( midrange lushness, bass impact ), or substracts something that sounds bad ( sibilance ). I'd think that undesirable for the ever elusive holy grail of audio reproduction.

Note that I'm not arguing anything you said. Just bringing up questions that I'm curious about. I personally do prefer the sound of my Heed Canamp over the STX, but I just can't be sure if it's because the reproduction is closer to the original, or further away from it.