Nice review, sounds like a very interesting unit but unfortunately I don't think Asus has any plans for releasing it in N. America. Glad other markets are able to enjoy this though!

"Technically" those mini-xlrs have the correct orientation. In pro audio usage, the male ends point in the direction that your signal goes. Mics/mixers/processors point to amp, amp points to speakers. It would make more "sense" for headphone cables terminated in XLRs to have the female connectors.

Ah, then it makes a bit more sense. They must have made their own balanced cables during design and testing and not noticed that the XLR ends are reversed out in the consumer world.

Still... it's something they really should have done their research on. If front panel space were a concern, ten minutes researching other headphone amps would have shown the 4-pin XLRs coming into prominence. Or if they went with the dual XLR(f), they probably could have just made the case a little bigger or shifted everything over. The only other dac I can think of that used mini-XLRs was the HRT Microstreamer Pro, which in that case was understandable since the HRT chassis is so narrow.

Except that no off the shelf balanced headphone cables terminate to female XLR.... Technically you could just get a custom cable made with the appropriate female mini xlr's I guess.

Nice review, thank you for sharing.
It has a nice design, but still, I think the price is a bit too high for an Asus.........

Hah, another EIII happy owner here. And funny story: I wrote to ASUS about that odd mini to XLR wires they put in the box. Lady from ASUS was arguing for a bit that balanced 3-pin XLR headphone outputs can be male OR female, that there's no standard for that and it is manufacturers choice... She couldn't believe that actually there is one Oh well, people from marketing often don't know what they are talking about. Anyways, EIII is a great brick, to my ears it's one of the smoothest and organic DAC's I've used thus far. Because of EIII my DAC-9 went away. Unique device, that EIII, for sure. But it works as a DAC only. Amp is way different story.

How does its sound compared to Grace M903 or M920? Do you have any opinion?

Unfortunately I haven't heard either the M903 or the M920.

TheManko, thanks for the in-depth review, I just wanted to know how does this DAC compare to the DacMagic Plus.

I used to own a DacMagic, from which I later upgraded to a Hegel HD10. I haven't heard the DacMagic Plus, but if it's like the original DacMagic then it's roughly on the level of the Xonar Essence STX sound card. From what I remember the DacMagic sounded a bit thin with the HD 800, but was pretty solid with most other headphones. It's been so long since I heard it that I can't remember more than that. It was well rounded from a practical sense as I could plug plenty of stuff in and out of it. But the sound left me wanting.

Hmm...
 
God damn it, Now I have to scour the country looking for someone who has it so i can test it side by side ;-;.
 
Thanks for the detailed response TheManko, If ever you happen upon a DacMagic Plus, please do a side by side comparison (not thorough though, just enough to differentiate in their strength/weaknesses) since it's a supposed step up from the original DacMagic.

first of all very nice review! i'm glad to hear that the next step up from asus is a success! from my understanding the hdvd 800 focuses more on the amp and the dac seems to be a "add-on" function. I was wondering if u used the hdvd 800 as an amp for the E III? wonder how the dac on the E III is when compared with the north star design essensio? food for thought...

I've done the majority of my listening using the HDVD 800 as the amp with the Essence III. I hadn't even heard of the North Star Design Essensio until you mentioned it. There's so many DACs and amps out these days!

Great review.... I was a big fan of the E1 Muses sound signature and your review makes me want to go out and find a E3 to hear the difference for myself...
 
Kudos for time and effort in this review

After reading your review, I auditioned the E III, pairing with the hd800. Very decent indeed. But if you can use the balance headphone inputs, do so. For me, the enhancements are tremendous; much more balanced and the instruments are better positioned. I also tried the hd800s with mytek 192 and they are great as well! Too bad the 192 doesn't have balanced headphone inputs...