[MightyMany]

Differences in sound and soundstage are there, no doubt about that. But some headphones are less sensitive to amps.
I can recommend x2 LME49720 or Muses 8920 for I/V. Headphones have live v-shaped sound. And x1 Muses 01 (Buffer)
Different sound is with 2x Muses 01 for I/V (hp's). They have less bass and very flat frequency resp. and soundstage.

Thanks a lot for that hint. I've just received my new MUSES01 OpAmp and placed it in the buffer of my STX ii. I left the 2 8920 in the I/V. First impression is that the sound is wider, more calm and clearer. I also have the feeling that I hear more hiss out of the speakers. Is that normal or could that eventually come from the fact that the MUSES01 are J-FET OpAmps?

 

[MightyMany]

Essence STX II 7.1 is very good card but i dont know if windows 10 supports the drivers

It does. I have it installed on my Windows 10 64bit system.

 

[MightyMany]

@Amarok and the rest of the community,

Now that I have replaced my first OpAmp I'm really getting curious about different options I guess that's how a lot of you feel as well. I'm thinking about 3 potential options and I would be really interested in your opinion/experience:

2x 8920 I/V & 1x MUSES01 Buffer (current setup - rather bright and clear)
2x MUSES01 I/V & MUSES02 Buffer (I read that this setup would rather sound warmer overall - closer to a tube setup)
2x 8920 I/V & 1x MUSES02 Buffer (Amarok you mentioned that the MUSES01 might be too calm in the I/Vs, therefore I see this option as well)

Looking forward to hearing your opinion!

Thanks!

My current setup:
Soundcard: Asus Essence STX 2 (2x 8920 I/V & 1x MUSES01 Buffer)
Speaker: 2x Focal Alpha 50
Headphone: AGK K712 Pro

 

[xxAMAROKxx]

Muses01 in Buffer section is very detailed, with extended treble. Great for vocal or instrumental music. Really Hi-Res stuff. For rock, edm, etc. is maybe better Muses02, which is not as detailed and has smooth treble (yes, sort of tube-ish sound). Both are darkish in sound.

 

[Jay Callen]

It’s been said before on this and other threads, and worth repeating: ASUS Essence STX II owners swapping Muses and other lesser op amps (been there, done that) are simply wasting time and money. To achieve full potential of STX II soundcard, get Burson V6 or V5 discrete op amps (V5i is a distant second choice).

Unlike many on this forum, I’ve never received free samples or other compensation from Burson Audio for my endorsement. Just a hard-earned-cash-paying customer, completely satisfied and thankful.

Jay

 

[ZappaMan]

Can anyone help me with this, i have stx II and i'm using Roon, and trying to get roon (or i suppose any other music app), to take exclusive control of the audio, as the output on the toslink is picking up windows sounds. And whenever a window pops up, its halting the sound. I am on windows 7, maybe i need to come to windows 10 in order to get a better experience as the custom drivers seem more kitted towards windows 10?

 

[xxAMAROKxx]

...

 

[avo7007]

For the life of me, I don't understand why STX ii headphone out sound better on Xonar Unified Drivers than on Asus official driver. Anybody got an answer?

 

[EternalChampion]

For the life of me, I don't understand why STX ii headphone out sound better on Xonar Unified Drivers than on Asus official driver. Anybody got an answer?

Because it takes time, effort and extra expense for the last bit of "unnecessary" driver tweaking. Unless we are talking about some really devoted people with true love for what they're doing, driver optimization isn't the main priority for most companies...

What UNi Xonar drivers do is simply to finish the job. Nothing more, nothing less!

 

[PurpleAngel]

For the life of me, I don't understand why STX ii headphone out sound better on Xonar Unified Drivers than on Asus official driver. Anybody got an answer?

If Asus is smart, it would not release a driver update unless they had tested it to be stable.
And to Asus their current driver might be good enough (sound quality wise)
Where as the people over at Unified Xonar Drivers have more freedom to experiment with the drivers and really have no requirement to do a lot of stability testing before releasing a driver update.
Asus has to pay someone to do driver updates, where as the people over at Unified Xonar Drivers might work for less compensation.

 

[xxAMAROKxx]

For the life of me, I don't understand why STX ii headphone out sound better on Xonar Unified Drivers than on Asus official driver. Anybody got an answer?

Hi, can you describe, how Unified driver sounds compared with Original driver?
It's not 100% safe to install it and I would like to know some observation before. Thank you.

 

[avo7007]

I get intermittent distortions when playing high rez music thru foobar. Problem solved after installing the unified driver. Strange.

 

[Webber1]

I've been using STX II and 3x Buson V6 Vivid on JBL LSR305 for a year now...for me it's a match made in heaven....latest UniXonar divers are working great on Win 10...I noticed that V6 need quite some time to burn-in, some 500-600 hours on STX II to settle. Burson transforms this card, you get the magic of holographic 3d sound. Headphones also benefit from this upgrade, HD660s & True-Fi sound great. Cheers.

 

[xxAMAROKxx]

I've just install latest UniXonar driver and found out, there is no option for "16 - 32 ohm IEMs or Headsets" in Audio Center. That is bad, because my Meze 99 Neo or Sony xb950 or many IEMs are whistling at higher option.

 

[dB Cooper]

I've just install latest UniXonar driver and found out, there is no option for "16 - 32 ohm IEMs or Headsets" in Audio Center. That is bad, because my Meze 99 Neo or Sony xb950 or many IEMs are whistling at higher option.

You can go into the Xonar Audio Center and change it there, <64 64-300 and 300-600 are the options.