[Morph91]

I'm a big fan of the Asus Xonar Essence STX and i was wondering if it's worth upgrading the STX to the STXII?

Thanks in advance

 

[PurpleAngel]

I'm a big fan of the Asus Xonar Essence STX and i was wondering if it's worth upgrading the STX to the STXII?
Thanks in advance

 
My two cents.
You better off just replacing the 3 op-amps ( 3 x $18 = $56) on the STX.

 

[Morph91]

Thanks for the reply, is there not much difference then?

 

[PurpleAngel]

Thanks for the reply, is there not much difference then?

 
To me there is not a lot of differences.
There might be some improvement that I'm not aware of, but so far I think a (used off eBay) regular STX is the better value
 
10 months ago I replaced my Essence STX (with AD797BR op-amps) with a Audio-GD NFB-15.32 ($270+shipping)
Dual DACs and more amp power.

 

[Morph91]

I'm wondering if the STX II can handle lower impedance headphones better seeing as they have actually added a gain setting specifically for IEM's.

 

[PurpleAngel]

  I'm wondering if the STX II can handle lower impedance headphones better seeing as they have actually added a gain setting specifically for IEM's.

 
If you want to use IEM (or other really low impedance) headphones with the STX or STX II, buy a FiiO E11K headphone amplifier ($60) and plug it into the STX/STX II RCA line-outputs, plug IEMs into E11K.
The E11K has an output impedance of less then 1-Ohms.