ASUS Xonar Essence STX and Dolby Headphone

I'd appriciate some help here guys. I've been concidering a very long time now to try a newer soundcard such as the Essence ST/X. I do think I'd wanna go for STX as I'm a computer hardware nerd and overclocking enthusiast and I usually do some major upgrades once every 1 - 2 years so I'm worried that motherboards may not have any PCI slots anymore in say perhaps 2 years and I'd wanna feel safe to be able to use this card without getting limited in future hardware upgrades for the next 4-5 years so. What I've read is that ST has more ports for surround speaker sets but that's insignificant to me as I'd only need the analog headphone jack but I also read ST would have slightly better sound quality but then I read STX is like slightly warmer and has tiny bit less pronounced highs (which is actually more to my liking), is that correct or just some wrong info? 

I'm already VERY satisfied with what I have, Audigy 2 ZS using kX Audio 3rd party drivers that are coded from scratch and shares nothing in common with Creative's own ones. While I do expect better sound quality from the Essence STX thanks to better hardware I'm somewhat unsure if the software part is up-to-task compared to kX Audio drivers. I love its configurability and like especially the components of it such as the  10-band EQ and Surrounder+ plugin. The EQ is like a hardware DSP EQ (whatever that means lol) and works just insanely good, I tried just for sake of testing check when the bass would start distort when upping the sliders and it turned out it didn't even distort when I loaded 3 EQs and all were set to +12 O_o (ofc low volume was used to not damage the drivers :p). It's much thanks to this EQ I think I can turn very cheap headphones sounding like many more expensive ones, in my case I think XB500 turns from a $50 headphone into $200. Also I like to use just a tiny bit reverb effect pretty much constantly just to the point it won't become bothersome while gaming so it would be "echoing", I just use a tiny bit it sounds so you can hear it fading away rather quickly when hitting stop/pause on a mp3 player like you'd be in a "bigger room" like the soundstage would be slightly bigger and I just don't like very "dry" sound either I guess, I couldn't stand to listen without that tiny bit reverb effect but I don't want it to be very noticable ingame either. With kX Audio drivers I can tweak the volume of it using a reverb effect plugin that allows the usual "auditorium" (which is the one I use in this case), bathroom etc presets and there's a reverb volume slider I can tweak from 0 - 100% to get it just right. I also love what Dolby Headphone plugin for foobar2000 does, it increases what the kX Audio drivers's surround plugin already somewhat provides, the depth and soundstage and often you're able to picture where the different instruments or singers stand like when you try to picture the layout of the concert you're listening to and I'd gladly have this kinda effect on everytime, not only while listening to music. I also wonder if any of you have tried comparing your Essence STX's dolby headphone support vs the foobar2000 plugin how similar it sounds like or if it differs quite a bit.

Here's the thing I concider gaming capabilities just as important as overall good quality sound. I know there's Auzentech Forte too but I would rather not deal with the X-Fi chip or the crappy Creative drivers, I'd be all over an X-Fi card if something like kX Audio drivers existed for those cards though (PaX is just scratching the surface which doesn't help a lot if the problem lies deeper inside). The Surrounder+  plugin in the kX Audio drivers is able to add extremely good working "pseudo" surround/positional sound to even a stereo/headphone setup, you can hear every direction so you know if enemies are one level above or below and behind or front or to the side etc. The positional sound is so accurate I could for example in Left 4 Dead (which I don't play anymore but it's perhaps the game where it was most evident and provides the biggest advantage) I could kill zombies hiding behind trees or on another side of a wall based on the direction the noise they make comes from. In Unreal Tournament 3 which I've played a lot and played for like perhaps europe's 2 best warfare clans and it's such a huge aid to be able to locate enemies based on footsteps and weapon or vehicle noise etc. But I don't want it only for online-gaming in mind but also single player for better immersion when gaming. 

So to summarize points I'd like to know more about:

1. Dolby headphone and anything about it, your experiences with it and especially how accurately you can tell the directions the sound comes from in games.

2. How great the EQ that's bundled works, like can you actually boost up to 20dB without getting audible clipping/distortion?

3. Can you tweak the reverb effects? (volume or how quickly it fades away etc)

4. Difference between ST and STX (sound quality mainly)

Any feedback would be greatly appriciated.

Any1? I'm sure there are lots of Essence ST/X owners around here. :p

It's true that Dolby Headphone boosts lower frequencies quite a lot but I adjusted EQ in foobar2000 to balance it out what it amplifies like this and then everything sounds clear like without it:

Thanks a lot for that reply! I live in Finland btw, so shouldn't be too expensive to send with airmail IN CASE you'd sell the DX card. :p

I installed Realtek HD integrated soundcard drivers yesterday and noticed it had support for Dolby Headphone (never saw that option b4 with Realtek, cuz of newer drivers perhaps?) and I tried comparing it to the kX Audio's surround sound implementation while trying to disregard the awful sound quality of Realtek onboard audio (can't EQ my headphones with it either as it brings a noticable sound quality loss if turning on equalizer).

I thought Dolby Headphone added slight distance to all sounds, even those that come from your own player in FPS games, it didn't sound as close to like without it or like with the kX Audio drivers. As for the positional sound, it worked actually pretty well with the games I tried. It however didn't always provide a smooth transition in sounds when it came to moving objects that moves closer or further away, not as great as kX Audio's anyway, it sounds more natural with kX Audio drivers and it seems more accurate when it comes to definition of distance. Also I thought while the sound on a 2D stage was great, but height-wise i thought it was slightly more inaccurate compared to kX Audio drivers. Dolby Headphone also interferes quite a bit with the low-end range so it would really need slight EQ adjustment to EQ out the added bass.

I don't trust Creative when it comes to drivers, the kX Audio drivers take the Audigy cards to a whole new level, it's like comparing Realtek HD onboard audio vs a 3rd party solution when comparing Audigy 2 ZS using Creative's own and kX Audio 3rd party drivers, the difference is night and day! I can't speak for Creative X-Fi Titanium HD but at least I had rather picked an old Audigy 2 ZS card using kX Audio drivers rather than X-Fi XtremeMusic card and Creative's drivers when I compared at some friends place. Yes the kX Audio drivers simply are that good, what the cards lacks in hardware the software part easily makes up for it.

I'm not only looking for a solution that works great for gaming only, the kX Audio driver's EQ is soooo important for me as it works so bloody good. It honestly is able to improve the headphone sound quality a lot for me, especially for these $50 headphones like Sony XB500 which aren't optimally balanced but has great sound quality if you take care of the imbalance. I'm actually able to use it like a "software amp" boosting all frequencies a lot without adding any sort of distortion/clipping, I mean how many EQs can you list that you can boost by +24 (using 2 EQs at same time even) for the whole range without ruining sound quality with distortion or other things. I used to be a 5.1 speaker user before I got into headphones as I simply had to settle for headphones to either not disturb my parents or neighbours depending where I stay, what I often missed at first was how "leaner" the sound of the headphones sounded compared to the speakers until I found kX Audio drivers and how great the EQ worked. By boosting values I can get a more warm and powerful sound which sounds much more like speakers, not what is heard by default untweaked, it's very similar to using a powerful amp for the headphones. I don't know how this EQ is different but I've heard people saying it's a "hardware DSP EQ" on the forums, whatever that means. No typical software EQ has worked close as good as this one. I can boost bass a lot too without affecting the other frequencies too much, it stays very well separated. As reference I can say it worked better boosting the EQ values than using FiiO E5 or Gary's PA2V2 which are both amps that strengthen the bass but they also muddened up the rest of the frequency range more than tweaking the EQ on kX Audio drivers would to get similar bass quantity response.

Then there's ofc bunch of other plugins but I love using especially CLEAX2Reverb plugin, using the Auditorium setting and then tweaking the volume of the reverb effect so it won't be too obvious so it works even when playing games and don't want to miss out on stuff because of the reverb, these days I can't stand to listen to no reverb but I hate it just as much when it gets overdone, with kX Audio drivers I can get it just right to the point I can hear it helps out on making the soundstage seem larger and overall more natural sounding like when you you listen to speakers in different environments, especially clubs like that but it doesn't make it annoying in games either during speech as it's configured right up to the point it won't be that obvious, I just don't like when frequencies cut out instantly as you hit pause button or whatever, I dislike a "dry" sound.

Online gamers have to concider themselves lucky that I'm not into the FPS games where you can shoot through walls as that would make me almost a cheater being able to kill enemies I can't see but can tell the position of based on the sound. It worked well in Left 4 Dead killing zombies hiding behind trees or on another side of the wall based on those grumpy noises they constantly keep doing, especially boomers and in this game the noises reach very far. It was like that you could close your eyes, point your gun towards the noise and kill it when it was coming straight ahead of you! Amazing!

It's one of the things I'd really want to demonstrate to fellow headphone enthusiasts to get some confirm it's not hopefully just me. I mean I can't really recommend it to other people either as the support is very limited for such old cards and no1 would expect such an old and cheap card (that you can get for like 15 - $20 2nd hand) to work so well only because of using some 3rd party drivers, would be nice to get at least some confirmation exactly how great it really is compared to today's popular choices even solutions such as ASUS Xonar Essence ST(X), Auzentech X-Fi Forte or Creative X-Fi Titanium HD. Since I'm still a student I don't quite have the cash or will to buy them all and compare and possibly what doesn't necessarily have to be a better working solution for my needs. I've recommended it to one IRL friend though and he was instantly satisfied but he's using speakers. It has quite a few bugs for Windows x64 especially but for strictly headphone use there's no issues that is stopping you from using it.

BlutoSlice> That sounds interesting if that guy could compare those. As far as the surrounder+ settings I've found to work perhaps the very best after lots and lots of finetuning and testruns would be this:

I have both an Audigy 1 and Audigy 2 ZS cards (actually 2 of both :p), keeping backups you know. ;p There's a noticable sound quality upgrade even with the kX Audio drivers when comparing Audigy 2 ZS to the Audigy 1. Especially how the Audigy 1 cards handles resampling is very poorly implemented. I feel Audigy 2 ZS (the one with gold plated inputs, not the platinum with those colored plasticky covered inputs) is the card to use with kX Audio drivers as it fully supports it and is perhaps the most popular card so it's easy to find lurking in some person's drawer and cheap today (I'd say worth $15~20 today). Difficult to beat it from a price/performance point of view at least. :p Also it seems to provide even better sound quality in Windows 7 compared to Win XP, better clarity and bass quality.