A question of sound.

hughythomas said:
The former was too 'pumpy' - its like it had a multi-band applied to it at the driver level even when all the DSP effects were apprently disabled. Obviously, if you go surround you kinda have to go for a gaming card due to all the Dolby/THX standards but if you are just listening in plain old 2.0 stereo - the Xonar WILL be a downgrade.
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i dont know why, the outputs are ruler flat on the xonars :confused:
 
Personally I found the sound to be lacking punch whilst also sounding 'pumpy' - a type of normalisation that I would normally associate with a multi-band compressor. Couple this with the messy low-end which particularly confused me as I don't particularly 'like' the muddy frequencies of 280-300hz but to be denied of it all together by ASUS in favor of a ~+3dB boost of 80-100hz so that I lose a lot of the lower-mids of guitars and such? Couple this with the inferior sampling (despite both the driver and win 7 being set @ 96kHz) and I just wasn't at all impressed. Likewise, I KNOW the sound of my room/speakers/amp as I do most of my listening in my live room on my mastering PC. I am finding it VERY difficult to describe my negative reaction to the Xonar as it's SO hard to describe a sound in writing and it is SO personal at the end of the day so this is JUST AN OPINION. Best advice I can give is don't just take my word for it - find someone you know who has even a budget pro card and A/B them and see if YOU notice a difference. Heck, any of you are more than welcome to come down to my studio and have a listen if you want (that is if you live near Surrey :P).

Anyhow I feel I've added to this thread in as much capacity as I can (and I don't want to anger happy owners of the Xonar any more) so I'll lay low for a bit haha! Best of luck with your decision LeJosh either way you can rest assured whichever route you take, you won't look back!
 
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I think the confusion is youve been speaking of your experience of the lower end gaming xonars, D2 etc, where as we were referring to the essence, which is far superior, as you say its all subjective though at the end of the day, but I am looking forward to getting my new Audioengine A5s tomorrow :D
 
Thanks again hughy. You have helped, I can't say wether you're right or wrong really I havn't had any soundcard for years...just need a good one. :D :p
 
hughythomas said:
Personally I found the sound to be lacking punch whilst also sounding 'pumpy' - a type of normalisation that I would normally associate with a multi-band compressor. Couple this with the messy low-end which particularly confused me as I don't particularly 'like' the muddy frequencies of 280-300hz but to be denied of it all together by ASUS in favor of a ~+3dB boost of 80-100hz so that I lose a lot of the lower-mids of guitars and such? Couple this with the inferior sampling (despite both the driver and win 7 being set @ 96kHz) and I just wasn't at all impressed.
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I used to own an original d2. with everything defeated, it was as flat as it could really be, measured and confirmed. there was no 3db boost at all across any of the range, which will be confirmed by any review testing the card with RMAA. such as these:

http://vr-zone.com/articles/asus-xonar-d2-rmaa-results/5135-3.html?doc=5135
http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/asus_xonar_d1/images/45.htm
http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/asus_xonar_essence_stx/images/080.htm

neither did i hear any issues regarding resampling :confused:

95thrifles said:
I think the confusion is youve been speaking of your experience of the lower end gaming xonars, D2 etc, where as we were referring to the essence, which is far superior,
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far superior as a source? have you compared the stx to the other models?
 
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James that review is much better than the other one previously mentioned. I think my +3dB was a little over the mark but I still stand by my view on the actual 'sound' of the card. It's not musical to my ears.

Again, I want to re-iterate the personal nature of musical equipment (in this case sound cards) which I think to a DEGREE, cant be accurately portrayed verbally or by a review. I appreciate the numbers are sound (no pun intended) but we must briefly think about how, where and when we listen to music.

How?

What equipment are we using? How good is the intial production? Is the SPL high or low (volume)? Are our monitors accurate to the original source? Is our D/A - A/D conversion on the money? What leads are we using? Compared to what we are used to - how does this new gear sound?

Where?

What are the acoustics like of the listening environment? Is it a large/small room? What is the natural reverb time of the room? Are there standing waves? etc

When?

Music sounds different to our ears depending on a number of things. Are we drunk? Have we lost 18kHz+ if we are? Are we tired? Same effect. Have our ears got used to EQ? This DOES happen. Spend enough time trying to mix a track and you'll know what I mean.

Anyhow. Aside from my massive tangent, the point I am trying to make is that you can try and measure something scientifically like this and lose the whole 'essence' (again, no pun intended 95trifles) of what it is that makes something sound pleasing to the human ear.

How our brain interprets soundwaves proprogating through mediums (like air) and hitting our ear drums to be music is a bit of a mystery. Why does organised patterns of sound produce such a wide range of emotions within us?

All that I am trying to say is that I think in a way, it is kind of pointless to review soundcards not because of the technology, which is obviously aiding our lives to better achieve the goal of listening to music, but because 'good quality' is SO personal.

I hope I've sort of made sense here It's quite late and I've found this thread to be interesting and informative.

Regards

Tom
 
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I give up, that review linked is a review of the D2, not the essence, why you comparing them??????????? its like banging my head against a brick wall
The review I mentioned did compare it against the older D2 yes, as do the many others that come up with the use of this amazing tool called google
 
95thrifles said:
I give up, that review linked is a review of the D2, not the essence, why you comparing them??????????? its like banging my head against a brick wall
The review I mentioned did compare it against the older D2 yes, as do the many others that come up with the use of this amazing tool called google
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i asked if you compared them. you said it was far superior, not that reviewer. So i'm asking you why you think that? There's no need to be an arse lol
 
No I havent personally compared them, unfortunately I cant afford to go out and buy one of each sound card to see exactly which one sounds best in my system, thats why I look at multiple reviews and trust a concensus (deleting any done by tomshardware, lol) that xbit one was first time Id come across it actually, but those 2 paragraphs in the conclusion seemed to summarise the point I was trying to make quite well
I wasnt meaning to be an arse, just getting exasperated
 
If you ever intend to hook up a mic or guitar etc it may be worth considering an external interface too, or even a cheaper one if you don't need inputs.

I have a presonus firebox which hooks up via firewire and gives me great sound quality. As a bonus it has a dedicated headphone jack too :).

Just throwing that out there too.
 
That's too much pennies for me. :\

All these suggestions and I'm getting lost. :p

It's either the E-mu 0404 or the Audiophile 2496... too much choice. :(
 
Lol @ my last post. Note to self: Don't try and post whilst inebriated!

LeJosh are you a musician? Or an audiophile?

I thought the E-mu 0404 PCI would be good for him purely down to the fact that its an internal and its cheap. I've heard there more expensive interfaaces and they sounded nice.

That firebox uses the same pres as a firepod if I'm correct? I used to use a 2x Firepods back in the day. Nice little interfaces. Once you hear Focusrite/Apoggee/MOTU pres however you don't really want to go back!

Where are you based LeJosh? Might be worth seeing if there's a music tech retailer near you so you can go and hear these cards in the flesh. Either that of just make a leap of faith and buy one of your two. Afterall, it'll only be £50 down the drain if you don't like it (which I'm sure won't happen) and you could easily sell on to a certain member of this thread to replace his borked Xonar...lol!

Tom
 
I'm both. I live in the centre of Edinburgh aswell. I don't think there is any music retailers that sell these cards but I'll look later on today. At college just now! I play guitar and *used to* piano.

I think it will be ok for 50 pound, certainly better than onboard. :)

Edit - To add I've been wanting to make my own music for ages just never had the means to. My bro wants to record aswell so it will benefit him if we get something like this.
 
Hmm interesting.

Have you got any microphones to speak of? If you want to record acoustic guitar there's no point D.I ing it it will sound bad. Grab a cheap condenser microphone (like a Rode NT1A for example). Or, if you are tracking electric guitar any of the previously mentioned pro cards will be fine although note that the E-MU does not have balanced 1/4" jack inputs therefore you might get a bit of noise/EMI depending on how well grounded your gear is. Also, I recently made the mistake of going for watercooling not realising the pump puts out a shed load of EFI thus rendering ANY PCI interface a noisy bugger. I rectified this by buying a firewire TC Desktop Konnket 6. Presuming you are on aircooling this shouldn't be a problem however.

Can you give us some more details over your music so I can advise you accordingly? I didn't realise you wanted to record as well! This will directly affect which interface will be best for you.

Regards

Tom
 
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I have nothin to be honest. I have a guitar and a marshall amp for that guitar, tis all. And a pc. :p I play a wide variety of music but mainly rock/metal/blues...I only have an electric guitar. I'm feeling a bit out of my depth here. :p But I got to learn!

Edit - I'll probably get the 2496. Could I connect my guitar straight to the delta 44's seperate box? And connect to my amp for starters then think about recordin later on whilst it being another option there. :)
 
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Lol - so much for lying low for a while eh hughythomas? :p Away 4 hours and you come back 'inebriated' lol

I'm also in the market for a sound card, having been on on-board sound and cheap speakers all my life I'd like to see (hear) what I'm missing.

Then again - until a while ago, I couldn't tell the difference between 56Kbps and 320Kbps so maybe my ear's getting better (and I'm a trained musician too, which doesn't say much for my 8 years playing :( ). Unfortunately, no-one I know has a sound card I can borrow, and there are no retailers around either - so it's straight in at the deep end for me :S

I will listen with interest to the outcome of this thread.

[/thread hijack]
 
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hughythomas said:
Omg that 0404 looks the dogs for the money. Look at the specs! For £50 thats a steal!
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Im presuming you meant 150? If not do tell where as that thing could be great as a combined DAC/headphone amp with occasional recording use for my laptop. Gonna use PCM output to my AV amp over HDMI which limits issues there (well when it returns from repair), but realtek onboard for headphone stereo is pretty nasty.
 
Alexrose1uk said:
Im presuming you meant 150? If not do tell where as that thing could be great as a combined DAC/headphone amp with occasional recording use for my laptop. Gonna use PCM output to my AV amp over HDMI which limits issues there (well when it returns from repair), but realtek onboard for headphone stereo is pretty nasty.
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The USB version is £150 the PCI version is £50
 
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