[P.J]

Which one has better SQ ?

 

[LawnGnome]

x-fi hands down.

Once you mod it, it becomes very very good source.

 

[P.J]

How can I mod it ?

 

[Susilo]

Read,
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f46/ho...no-56k-226975/

 

[Dr. Strangelove]

Or you could just get a X-Fi Prelude and save your self the trouble lol.

 

[LawnGnome]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr. Strangelove /img/forum/go_quote.gif Or you could just get a X-Fi Prelude and save your self the trouble lol.

This still doesn't equal the quality of the mods.

 

[Behemot]

I have yet to see a decent review for Xonar card - so far anything I saw seems rather uhm... incredible, and no, not in a positive manner
If Xonar card is half as bad as ASUS efforts to hype it I would stay away from it. Just as an example: yesterday I saw a Xonar review on planetx64, here is a quote:
"Unlike Creative’s X-Fi (which decodes in software and is very bus dependent), Asus decided to move just about everything into hardware. The nice thing about this is you lose much of the PCI polling that is common with the Creative Cards."

Now, this is BS - Dolby Decoding is always done in software on X-Fi, Xonar or whatever else. Other then that X-Fi can process any other audio in hardware.
This is why X-Fi hardware offloads CPU.

This is just an example. This and any other Xonar review I saw is full of similar stuff.

 

[Dr. Strangelove]

Quote:

Originally Posted by LawnGnome /img/forum/go_quote.gif This still doesn't equal the quality of the mods.

I doubt that, care to explain why?

 

[s4nder]

Yeah, the X-Fi mod is pretty much just replacing the factory opamp with an LM4562 and the Prelude has that in stock. Plus all the other electronics components are of higher quality and the card is optimised for audio quality not 50 different CMSS3D settings.

 

[maarek99]

Quote:

Originally Posted by s4nder /img/forum/go_quote.gif Yeah, the X-Fi mod is pretty much just replacing the factory opamp with an LM4562 and the Prelude has that in stock. Plus all the other electronics components are of higher quality and the card is optimised for audio quality not 50 different CMSS3D settings.

Prelude has all the same "50 different cmss3d settings" as creative's x-fis.

 

[ROBSCIX]

Modding a X-Music won't give you a Prelude. The Xonars are very nice sounding cards and they can wipe the floor with a stock X-fi much like the X-Meridians do..

 

[s4nder]

Quote:

Originally Posted by maarek99 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Prelude has all the same "50 different cmss3d settings" as creative's x-fis.

I'm aware of that. I just wanted to stress that Auzentech have taken a slightly different approach, focusing more on sound quality instead of innumerable yet completely useless features. The drivers are still somewhat bloated, yes, but hopefully they'll get around to making their very own instead of using modded Creative ones.

 

[brotherlen]

How about rating the razer card as well if your doing a comparison of gaming cards?

 

[n00bler]

xonar d2x (the pci-express version) has an lm4562 for the front l/r channels, texas instruments for the surrounds. (nigh impossible to replace op-amps, closely encircled by rectangular caps - film? polycarbonate?) I've had an op-amp modded xtrememusic, modded elite, stock prelude, and stock xonar d2x in my system. I couldn't hear a difference between the cards on my klipsh/alx 5.1 speakers, however with my senns hd595 and beyer dt770's, I settled on the xonar d2x

as for the prelude, aren't solid-state caps more sensitive to emf?

found some rightmark scores comparing d2x/prelude/x-fi by elite bastards:
Elite Bastards - ASUS Xonar D2X sound card review

 

[LostOne.TR]

Would more people care to chime in? We seem to have mixed results.
Thus far "Asus Sonar D2X >= Prelude > X-Fi" And "X-Fi modded > *".

I'll probably be looking for a sound card in a few months, so I'm interested in this too. The test results by elite-bastards shed a favorable light on the D2X overall. However a considerable amount of members here may prioirtize the music over the gaming performance/overall use.