ASUS DX V Asus Xonar Essence STX Sound Card

Ohm basically is a headphones resistance rating. In more simple terms, it's how hard the phones are to drive. For eg, 32 ohm phones are low impedance so are easier to drive, so will work well with sound cards that have no headphone amplifier, or with MP3 players. Sennheiser HD600 for eg are 300 ohm, so need more power to be driven to their potential. A normal sound card with no amplifier, will not drive them to their potential, same goes for MP3 players etc. They need a dedicated headphone amplifier, which the Essence has.

Some lower ohm phones can be harder to drive than others, and will benefit more from an amplifier than others. Some phones that are low ohm need no amplification at all, so connecting them to one would only increase volume, and not increase sound quality they provide. HD555 may benefit from being amplified, they may not.

HD555 are 50 ohm btw. So 64db to 300db setting should be sufficient.
 
Last edited:
Don't expect miracles though. The HD555s won't have been too far off their potential with the DX - they're not that hard to drive. You'll get some improvement but you may need to 'train' your ear to pick it out.
 
Why yes - Sennheiser HD800 or Orpheus if you're feeling flush... ;)

Do you have a budget in mind? Presumably you want something that will be an improvement on your HD555s?
 
Senn HD600 - or a second hand pair of HD580s would be my first suggestion.

Edit: having said that - phone round some Hi-Fi shops and ask for a demo. Take some CDs you know well and your HD555s with you. Don't just buy because people are telling you it's better.
 
I've never listened to the HD650s. From what I've read it's something of a taste thing as opposed to the HD650 being significantly better. Why not listen to both and base your decision on whether you think they're worth the extra money?
 
hd650 are basically a differently flavoured hd600.

hd800 are a lot more transparent detailed and have greater soundstage.
 
hughythomas said:
Nope thats not it.

I disable ALL dsp effects at the driver level and make sure the sample rates are matched from the soundcard to windows.

You are talking to a sound engineer here bro...staying accurate to the source is my OBSSESSION!

There is no doubt in my mind that the X-Fi Audio PCI card I had produced a more pronounced high end and a tighter low end and I can say this faithfully as I had both the X-Fi and the Xonar installed in my computer at the same time. All I was doing was switching between them in Winamp and playing back the same FLAC file. What I find so amusing is the fact that the X-Fi I had was the budget X-Fi card which uses the old Audigy soundchip - and I still thought it sounded better than the Xonar!!!!!

To my ears, the X-Fi had a wider frequency response but we are talking about harmonics here and not every pair of ears is attuned to these psychoacoustics like mine.

At the end of the day sound is so personal and subjective its almost impossible to recommend soundcards based solely on sound quality becuase we all have different ideas of what high fidelity sound is! I would never buy another gamer card again though having heard the difference in sonic quality between the budget pro cards you can buy for less money than you would spend on a spangly gaming card. No match.
Click to expand...

If you are a sound engineer, than you would know a decent external dac is much better than soundcard.
 
r2d2 said:
If you are a sound engineer, than you would know a decent external dac is much better than soundcard.
Click to expand...

Well, I can't say I have any personal experience of external DACs although in theory I'm a fan!

I bought a hi-fi seperates system simply for mastering in my live room and assumed my firewire audio interface would be of sufficient quality to do a good job of conversion and it does. I would love to hear an external DAC - can you recommend any good ones? I have a friend who heads a large music retail store across the UK who I could ask to try.

Do you connect your speakers directly to the DAC? so you get:

Digital Audio from PC (outputted through interface/soundcard) -> DAC -> Amplifier -> Speakers

Cheers in advance

Tom
 
I'm no expert but I've heard a lot of good things about Cambridge Audio's Dacmagic.

They're quite expensive though...

An external DAC also has the advantage of not being tied to a single pc/source, which is nice.
 
hughythomas said:
Well, I can't say I have any personal experience of external DACs although in theory I'm a fan!

I bought a hi-fi seperates system simply for mastering in my live room and assumed my firewire audio interface would be of sufficient quality to do a good job of conversion and it does. I would love to hear an external DAC - can you recommend any good ones? I have a friend who heads a large music retail store across the UK who I could ask to try.

Do you connect your speakers directly to the DAC? so you get:

Digital Audio from PC (outputted through interface/soundcard) -> DAC -> Amplifier -> Speakers

Cheers in advance

Tom
Click to expand...

Theres many out there. You can connect to the dac from the pc using usb, firewire and toslink etc. With USB you bypass your computers soundcard. Though with toslink you dont need a soundcard either as it gets the digital signal from the motherboard digital output.

Each has its own merits. Some dacs have many methods of connection, which is great if you have many transports (cd player/pc etc).

You get what you pay for. The more you pay the law of diminishing returns comes into play.

You will notice a large difference in sound quality to a good external dac, and from a sound card. The analogue output stage is normally implemented in a "better" way giving sound/ music more detail, transparency etc etc.
 
Yes, the ST includes an onboard timing device of some sort, which is supposed to reduce jitter, IIRC.

Otherwise, they are very similar.

Edit: FWIR on head-fi, both Essence cards are supposed to compare very well with external DACs in their own price range. You will have to spend significantly more on a DAC to get one that will out-perform them.
 
Uriel said:
Yes, the ST includes an onboard timing device of some sort, which is supposed to reduce jitter, IIRC.

Otherwise, they are very similar.

Edit: FWIR on head-fi, both Essence cards are supposed to compare very well with external DACs in their own price range. You will have to spend significantly more on a DAC to get one that will out-perform them.
Click to expand...

I agree. You will have to spend twice as much imo at least.

I use it on my pc, awesome for films and games.
 
I recently bought an Essence ST. Using my Goldring DR150's, the Xtreme Music in my gaming PC sounds lifeless in comparison. I believe the PC350 use the same drivers as the HD555/HD595, so it will depend on whether or not they improve with amplification. Some phones that are pretty easy to drive do benefit from amplification, DR150's for eg. A friend has some HD25's, which are also easy to drive, also benefited from the amplification of the Essence.

You may hear a difference without any amplification, but if you have phones that will benefit from amplification, then the Essence really shines.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom