Chuff me the Xonar D2x looks/feels/sounds amazing

mrk

mrk

mrk

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Should have switched earlier lol.

I love it, it looks amazing, it sounds amazing, it has freaking lights! it makes clicky noises like my amp when powering up and down!

pc_xonar_rear.jpg


Best of all the driver installation was pee easy!

*goes off to listen to music*
 
I would not get a good sound card if I had a poo system :p

Listening to Jill Scott [Beautifully Human] is something else, I can make out more details in the background now and the card brings out the mp3 fallbacks (some compression artefacts noticeable on some low areas of song) but the original source is awesome.

And no distortion like the XFI !
 
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mrk said:
I would not get a good sound card if I had a poo system :p

Listening to Jill Scott [Beautifully Human] is something else, I can make out more details in the background now and the card brings out the mp3 fallbacks (some compression artefacts noticeable on some low areas of song) but the original source is awesome.

And no distortion like the XFI !
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I felt the same when i first got some good headphones and used an old Sound Blaster live card with some modded drivers for the first time. You never appreciate random stuff in the background of the music when you listen to it using a crappy sound system.
 
I'm just really really happy now hehe, kept telling myself maybe Creative will fix the drivers as I wanted to keep the card for gaming but the DS3DGX engine on the Asus gets gaming sound results with very little difference to the XFI I am finding!

Btw I'm outputting via analogue to the amp then to headphones/speakers.
 
It's overpriced, what distortion on xfi ? I have an x-fi xtreme music no distortion here just crystal clear detailed sound.
Glad you like yours but it should be no more than £60 tbh.
 
It's competing with the Auzentech Prelude and has better hardware so no way over priced. Check out Creative forums for the latest driver sound quality issues.
 
C64 said:
It's overpriced, what distortion on xfi ? I have an x-fi xtreme music no distortion here just crystal clear detailed sound.
Glad you like yours but it should be no more than £60 tbh.
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you can buy the DX which sounds identical to the more expensive models for £60 ...i got one for my htpc and to be honest it's all over the X-Fi like a bad rash.

i've still got an X-Fi in my gaming machine which has always worked well for me but the Xonar range are superior.
 
Have had my Xonar about a week now. The huge improvement for me over my X-Fi XtremeMusic was finally being able to enable all 4GB RAM in my machine and get any sound at all other than barely audible clicks and pops.

I have listened to both so far with SpeedLink Medusas, Sennheiser HD600s and finally my weird cobbled together speaker set up*. I have a set of Logitech z-680s attached to the other PC but haven't got around to using them yet though.

There has been a minor jump in sound quality over the XtremeMusic but nothing like the huge difference between my old Audigy 2 and the XtremeMusic. It's enought of a difference to tell, even on the Medusas, thought and they're not the greatest headphones out there.

The only thing I miss about the XtremeMusic so far is the Alchemy software. The DS3D GX part of the Xonar Drivers just isn't as user friendly. Once you'd set up profiles for games in Alchemy it just worked. With Xonar you have to remember whether it needs to be on or off. For example, in Rome: Total War and many older games it must be on to get surround sound but if you leave it on for Mass Effect, everything apart from front left and right go missing.

*At the moment I'm using a Sony STR-D511 amp and SS86-E speakers. I'm also using analogue connection to 3 satellites and the sub of a set of Creative Inspire Digital 5700 speakers to give 5.1 for movies and gaming (I know - odd setup - just a way to salvage the creatives after the DD / DTS decoder in them broke - gives me the option to just use the Sonys for music though).
 
C64 said:
It's overpriced, what distortion on xfi ? I have an x-fi xtreme music no distortion here just crystal clear detailed sound.
Glad you like yours but it should be no more than £60 tbh.
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I'd say its the other way around, the dx is far better value when compared to the xtreme music. Let alone the more expensive models which trash creative all the way through their price ranges.
 
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C64 said:
It's overpriced, what distortion on xfi ? I have an x-fi xtreme music no distortion here just crystal clear detailed sound.
Glad you like yours but it should be no more than £60 tbh.
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The Xonar is a lot better than the X-Fi imo. I used to have an X-Fi but moved to the Xonar and like the OP, the difference is soo much better. You should try it. ;)

Plus the software... easy to use and so far not one driver issue. :)

I think most reviews will also agree that it's better than the X-Fi...?
 
It's like a re-occurrence of the time I ditched the Soundblaster Live! And moved to a Turtlebeach Santa Cruz ((Switched due to the exact same issues under XP, random clicks, random distortions, random driver bugs etc))which had the last drivers released in 2003 which never needed an update because they were flawless in everything.

That card kicked so much ass but I had to upgrade after getting Vista as the drivers were only for XP :/

Glad I’ve found a modern day Santa Cruz now though hehe with hardware Dolby Digital too for future amplifier upgrades!
 
I didn't generally suffer any distortion problems with my X-Fi - the 24 bit crystalliser could cause problems. Did you have it turned off?
 
I still think the PCi model is overpriced it's not really doing anything £40 better than an xtreme music apart from work better in vista.
Never heard one myself granted but have read opinions of xfi-xonar uptakes and can see it's hardly any better really, it's the whole vista and ram thingy going on ? just like my audigy 2 zs- x-fi music very little difference really.I was very underwhelmed when i swapped out my audigy 2 zs for the X-fi.
Agreed on the Asus Xonar DX 7.1 PCI-Express Sound the price is right and the PCI model should be the same.
 
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Uriel said:
I didn't generally suffer any distortion problems with my X-Fi - the 24 bit crystalliser could cause problems. Did you have it turned off?
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I don't use any such settings in any sound card for music/movie watching - Tone Defeat all the way if I can help it!
 
Well sold the XFI Gamer today for the bargain price of £42.50 :p GG tbh and the Xonar is going strong still :D it's quite amazing how so much sound can come through such a little PCI Express slot :p
 
Seriously thinking about one of these as Vista (32-bit) refuses to recognize my X-fi Xtrememusic after upgrading my graphics card.
 
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