Anyone else receiving a popping noise with their Asus Xonar STX?

[Starfishland]

One last bump.

 

[leeperry]

did you try it in another computer w/ another pair of headphones? sounds like your mobo is playing tricks on ya, or maybe your electricity home circuit is foobar'ed?! you gotta troubleshoot I'm afraid.

 

[Starfishland]

Quote:

Originally Posted by leeperry /img/forum/go_quote.gif did you try it in another computer w/ another pair of headphones? sounds like your mobo is playing tricks on ya, or maybe your electricity home circuit is foobar'ed?! you gotta troubleshoot I'm afraid.

Have not done it yet but I will tomorrow. Thanks for reminding me!

 

[Starfishland]

I'm just going to get a refund. I don't even want to test the card on another computer in the house - this issue is unbearable. I snooped around online and found quite a few others that are experiencing this same damn thing, and only one found a solution. I went about the same process as the one successful individual and found no success myself. I'm planning on getting this amp+dac combo.

eBay.com.sg: ZERO (Tianyun) 24/192 DAC + Headphone Amp (OPA627+USB) (item 260435246535 end time Dec 22, 2009 09:51:48 SGT)

Thoughts?

 

[leeperry]

there's been several reports of very poor QA on the Zero's, so before pluggin it open it and make sure that the op-amps are not backward(maybe haloxt is working at their factory

), and that it carries a solid warranty...but there's also been reports of Zero's killing headphones, so be VERY careful

 

[Starfishland]

Quote:

Originally Posted by leeperry /img/forum/go_quote.gif there's been several reports of very poor QA on the Zero's, so before pluggin it open it and make sure that the op-amps are not backward(maybe haloxt is working at their factory ), and that it carries a solid warranty...but there's also been reports of Zero's killing headphones, so be VERY careful

And you recommended the $150 Auzentech as a substitute for the Asus Xonar STX? Anything else that's comparable/superior for $180 or less? As I mentioned earlier, I'll be primarily listening to music, and if I was to dice it up, it'd be 70% music, 15% movies and 15% games.

 

[leeperry]

"recommend" would imply that I tried it and would advise a friend to buy it...this, I would only do for the card in my signature

but the newest Auzen's have a discrete headphones amp(far better sounding than a $2 IC chip), bit-perfect/bit-matched ASIO drivers(thanks to the X-Fi windows core drivers) and great games compatibility(X-Fi again)...but some ppl have reported noise issues on the Forte 7.1: Buzzing noise in Forte headphone only during 3D audio - [H]ard|Forum

maybe their newest card would be better, or maybe the 7.1 would work fine for you...there's only way to find out

what I could recommend is this thing(you can get it directly from the manufacturer on ebay I think): HA INFO NG27 - Headphone Amplifier USB - iPod - PCM2702 DAC

the main drawback is that it's 16/48 max(might not be a problem to you)...but a friend of mine who has an STX has put some nice op-amps on it(2*LT1028ACN8 and 1*OPA2132P) and he enjoys it a lot more than his STX(he's got zillion headphones like K501/601/701, HD650, SA3k, I dunno why he's got so many tbh

)

and it's compatible w/ the ploytec USB drivers, so he gets fully bitmatched KS/ASIO...that's the Achilles' kneel of most PC audio solutions nowadays(especially those that are based on the CMI8788 DSP, that have a fixed samplerate and KS/ASIO not running in exclusive mode...sloppy drivers

).

don't pay attention to the DAC specs, anything over 100 dB is commercial bs: iXBT Labs - ASUS Xonar D2 Sound Card
Quote:

ASUS apparently fights Creative with the same marketing weapon - high SNR. Measured in the standard de factor, Audio Precision, the ASUS D2 demonstrates 118 dBA, while the Creative Elite Pro offers 116 dBA. In fact, SNR values above -100 dBA do not make practical sense. Such values are lower than quantization noise power of a 16 bit signal with TPDF (Triangular Probability Density Function). As no one has complained about noises in AudioCDs yet, high SNR for audio playback is overkill.

and most op-amps have a max CMRR of 100/110dB anyway..

 

[Starfishland]

Quote:

Originally Posted by leeperry /img/forum/go_quote.gif "recommend" would imply that I tried it and would advise a friend to buy it...this, I would only do for the card in my signature but the newest Auzen's have a discrete headphones amp(far better sounding than a $2 IC chip), bit-perfect/bit-matched ASIO drivers(thanks to the X-Fi windows core drivers) and great games compatibility(X-Fi again)...but some ppl have reported noise issues on the Forte 7.1: Buzzing noise in Forte headphone only during 3D audio - [H]ard|Forum maybe their newest card would be better, or maybe the 7.1 would work fine for you...there's only way to find out what I could recommend is this thing(you can get it directly from the manufacturer on ebay I think): HA INFO NG27 - Headphone Amplifier USB - iPod - PCM2702 DAC the main drawback is that it's 16/48 max(might not be a problem to you)...but a friend of mine who has an STX has put some nice op-amps on it(2*LT1028ACN8 and 1*OPA2132P) and he enjoys it a lot more than his STX(he's got zillion headphones like K501/601/701, HD650, SA3k, I dunno why he's got so many tbh ) and it's compatible w/ the ploytec USB drivers, so he gets fully bitmatched KS/ASIO...that's the Achilles' kneel of most PC audio solutions nowadays(especially those that are based on the CMI8788 DSP, that have a fixed samplerate and KS/ASIO not running in exclusive mode...sloppy drivers ). don't pay attention to the DAC specs, anything over 100 dB is commercial bs: iXBT Labs - ASUS Xonar D2 Sound Card and most op-amps have a max CMRR of 100/110dB anyway..

What about that Aune external DAC? Heard much about that?

 

[leeperry]

I can't say that I have, but it only has a 24Mhz clock apparently...so jitter in 44.1kHz might suffer.

a proper design should use 2 discrete clocks, it's actually mandatory on the Envy24 DSP:

 

[ROBSCIX]

LOL, proper design according to who?

 

[Gibertus Jeunus]

I also have an essence stx with a cosair hx520w psu and I hear this popping noise only at bootup while windows is loading drivers, I also have a hifi rig and the same sound is produced by the amp when turning it on. Absolutely normal, but after every listening session... I'm sure this is a computer's rig issue, the motherboard is a suspect, have tried to update the bios?
Besides there are some very nice products to build a hifi rig from a computer, dac inculding an usb input is the solution, there are fine but expensive ones like the headroom or redwine isabellina... there are lots others. In my case I've chosen to use the essence for its very good Burr-Brown PCM1792A 24bit/192khz DAC, then rca output to a Woo WA6 amp. This DAC is why the essence is such a bang for the buck, but its headphones amp is poor. Besides op-amps can be upgraded since you can't afford an integrated amp.

 

[Bojamijams]

The pop on the bootup is the relay switching from RCA to Headphone mode.. or vice versa.. anyway, completely normal

 

[ROBSCIX]

Yes, if the pop is the relay clicking.
You can test this by going into the recording panel and switching recording inputs. You should hear a Click as the relays route your signal to and from certain inputs.
If this is the sound your hearing then it is perfectly normal.

 

[foureight84]

The popping sound on bootup and on shutdown is normal.
 
But i'm having a different problem, when i'm listening to music, regardless of headphones or speakers, if another program interrupts with a sound (like an instant messenger notification) then there is a loud popping sound interrupting the music. I've searched all over and I can't find what the issue is other than it may be caused by the 7.x drivers as the 6.x drivers didn't have that problem.