[HaBBarN]

in the program that comes with the card you should be able to choose gain for higher ohms. here is a pic of it : http://www.guru3d.com/article/asus-xonar-essence-stx-review/4 (scroll down)

 

[Head Injury]

Quote:

Hi there,
 
sure glad i found his thread, but 172 pages ~gulp~
 
so i'm going to be quite straight-forward with a question here, so excuse the noobness.
 
proud (not that proud because of the drivers) owner of an essence ST. after using the headphone output for about 2 weeks, i figure i try the RCA out, and found that i like that sound more -bass++
but after reading the datasheet for the LM4562 the figure of 600ohm load impedance is everywhere.
so i find myself asking, why the need for the hi impedance headphone output? i thought it was ok, but compared to the RCA out it lacks bass, maybe my HD555 are at fault? am i doing something wrong?
and the most important question, can i hurt the LM4562 chip by using these 50 ohm headphones on the RCA output if the datasheet states 600ohm value as "default" output impedance?
 
also, due to the thread being this long, i am going to ask if someone can recommend a pair of amps to use in the I/V section, so that, using the headphone output of the card, i get a deeper bass then default.
 
Thanks!

Are you sure you're reading the datasheet correctly, or do I have the wrong data sheet? The phrase "load impedance" never appears. The only mention of "impedance" is in the differential input impedance (30kOhm), common mode input impedance (1000MOhm) and output impedance (closed-loop is 0.001 ohm, open-loop is 13 ohm). When it mentions "load" and "600" together, it's talking about the load it can drive (the headphones).
 
I'm no engineer, but load impedance is not output impedance. As far as I know the output impedance of the Essence STX's headphone jack is 10.7 ohms and that does not change.
 
What are you feeding with your RCA outs? The headphones?

 

[misha0209]

Quote:

Are you sure you're reading the datasheet correctly, or do I have the wrong data sheet? The phrase "load impedance" never appears. The only mention of "impedance" is in the differential input impedance (30kOhm), common mode input impedance (1000MOhm) and output impedance (closed-loop is 0.001 ohm, open-loop is 13 ohm). When it mentions "load" and "600" together, it's talking about the load it can drive (the headphones).
 
I'm no engineer, but load impedance is not output impedance. As far as I know the output impedance of the Essence STX's headphone jack is 10.7 ohms and that does not change.
 
What are you feeding with your RCA outs? The headphones?

well yes, i kind of thought it was talking about the load (headphones), that's why i am asking if i can damage the chip in any way by connecting a 50 ohm load instead of a 600 ohm load.
yes i connect my headphones to the RCA out. i do not own any amps.
i actually moved over to the RCA out because i had this impression that the headroom was wrong. i felt that the sounds in the right phone took shape closer than the ones in the left. i do not seem to feel that with the RCA. it could be just placebo...

 

[Tacoboy]

Are there any other websites out there that have forums dedicated to all things Essence STX?

 

[d8n0g]

yeah but no detail like this thread-this is the only place where I could find all my technical questions

 

[ratedgprodigy]

Question regarding computer temperatures
 
My PSU died a few months ago from my a1450n pavilion. I replaced it with some $40 contraption that I bought at some local PC shop.
 
How important is it to have a high-powered PSU for these cards? I don't want the computer to overheat and I did notice my computer temperature jumped up about five degrees while using this card (According to SpeedFan). Usually runs around 60C but was running around 65C for a few minutes. I have a AMD Athlon processor so I check my temperatures frequently.
 
Just taking some precautionary measures.

 

[Tacoboy]

Quote:

Question regarding computer temperatures
 
My PSU died a few months ago from my a1450n pavilion. I replaced it with some $40 contraption that I bought at some local PC shop.
 
How important is it to have a high-powered PSU for these cards? I don't want the computer to overheat and I did notice my computer temperature jumped up about five degrees while using this card (According to SpeedFan). Usually runs around 60C but was running around 65C for a few minutes. I have a AMD Athlon processor so I check my temperatures frequently.
 
Just taking some precautionary measures.

I would assume that a decent 600 watt power supply is good enough for most people, what power supply did you get?
 
 

 

[HaBBarN]

600watts is overkill for most regular systems, you only need that much if your oc'ing your cpu or your gpu and have a high end system with like GTX480 and i7 960

 

[HaBBarN]

Quote:

Question regarding computer temperatures
 
My PSU died a few months ago from my a1450n pavilion. I replaced it with some $40 contraption that I bought at some local PC shop.
 
How important is it to have a high-powered PSU for these cards? I don't want the computer to overheat and I did notice my computer temperature jumped up about five degrees while using this card (According to SpeedFan). Usually runs around 60C but was running around 65C for a few minutes. I have a AMD Athlon processor so I check my temperatures frequently.
 
Just taking some precautionary measures.

dont use speed fan to meassure temp's use hwmonitor or core temp, speed fan is ****  
 

 

[ratedgprodigy]

Quote:

I would assume that a decent 600 watt power supply is good enough for most people, what power supply did you get?
 
 

The PSU I bought around February I believe uses 500-W to 550-W. Nothing special...just came from some computer shop since I was broke and needed one immediately. I think they might have made it from spare parts.
 
Changed to Core Temp. Reads 63C consistently. Haven't seen it jump to 65 since that one incident
 

 

[HaBBarN]

try apply some load to the cpu and see if it gets hotter then you might need to change the cooling paste

 

[d8n0g]

has anyone had an icute hooked to the rca outs yet?-how is it?

 

[giedrys]

Someone here on HF tried to persuade me that by swapping PSU to Hi-end gold efficient 750W one will make ST(X) sing. I'm still not convinced.

 

[sagatman]

Quote:

Someone here on HF tried to persuade me that by swapping PSU to Hi-end gold efficient 750W one will make ST(X) sing. I'm still not convinced.

Maybe you can use two PSU in one computer, that is, one PSU supplies the ST only to isolated all electro-interference from other components in computer (fan, hard disk...).
http://www.lian-li.com/v2/tw/product/product06.php?pr_index=108&cl_index=2&sc_index=10&ss_index=19
A kit like this can start the secondary PSU on starting-up.
In this way I found the sound improve hugely.
 
 

 

[Tacoboy]

Quote:

Someone here on HF tried to persuade me that by swapping PSU to Hi-end gold efficient 750W one will make ST(X) sing. I'm still not convinced.

 
A good quality PS (power supply) might feed an STX more stable power, over a cheapo $19.95 no name.
(I've had fairly good luck with those cheapo PS....mostly).
Nothing wrong with spending extra dollars for a quality PS.
But what would i know, I've only been building and repairing Windows PC for 15 years