ASUS Xonar Essence STX Virtual 7.1 Channels PCI Express Interface 124 dB SNR / Headphone AMP Card
Product Description
Industry-leading quality for Audiophiles , Industry-leading 124dB SNR, Headphone amp with … More >>
ASUS Xonar Essence STX Virtual 7.1 Channels PCI Express Interface 124 dB SNR / Headphone AMP Card
Bayindir Ertugrul on Wed, 11th Nov 2009 6:08 pm
I had several problems with this card so far, and unable to find much information from Asus forums.
I had a sennheiser pc 350 connected to STX card, in addition to a stereo PC speakers. I also use 32 bit Vista ultimate.
Mainly the sound output of this card is not predictable. It is swaping the outputs. The driver of this card is a joke.
I got right and left channel somehow mixed and coming out from Right headphone output. This is the best working case I found so far.
If I play with settings, I can get right output from right headphone output, but left output goes to left of my stereo speaker.
That I call very wierd.
Robert E. Rice on Thu, 12th Nov 2009 1:56 am
I bought this card a week ago and initially loved it because the detail in sound playback was excellent. Then I tried to use it to record live audio through the line input and there is a totally unacceptable latency issue. You hear the sound about a half second after you play something. I have NEVER had a audio card do that (not even onboard audio). I called tech support and they were completely useless.
At the ASUS website this is part of the specifications listed: “ASIO 2.0 Driver Support:
Supports 44.1K/48K/96K/192KHz @16/24bit with very low latency”
Very low latency, NOT!!!!!!!!!!
If you do any recording of live audio, DO NOT BUY THIS CARD!
As an update to this review, I confirmed later with Asus technical support that the lowest latency this card will do is 20ms. To record live audio you need a card that will run at 5ms or less. Asus should put the 20ms spec. in the product description.