I'm looking to upgrade my Auzen Prelude - I've finally had enough of Creative drivers, and won't ever go back to any card that uses them. I'm considering either the Asus Xonar D2 or the Essence STX. I already have a dedicated headphone amp (Matrix M-Stage) so won't be amping my HD650 using the soundcard. I also use only stereo output. Is there any real difference in SQ between these two cards, factoring out the headphone amp on the STX?
Reason I ask is that the D2 is around £50 cheaper. The DACs seem comparable (I'm not convinced I can hear the difference between -118 and -124db SNR!), as do the stock opamps. Has anyone used both, and if so do you have an opinion on whether the difference in line-out quality (unamped), if there is any, is sufficient to justify the price difference?
