worth upgrading from Asus Xonar Essence STX 1 ?

ShiWarrior

ShiWarrior

ShiWarrior

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i have had this sound card now for a very long time

is it worth me upgrading it ?

i use my Berrydynamics DT 770 PRO (250 Ohm) plugged directly into the headphone socket

i very rarely use my M-Audio 2.0 Studio speakers

but in the future, i'll be using both, or more towards the speakers, but for the next couple of years headphones, then speakers for the rest of the years

gaming mostly
 
I doubt it..

It's a pretty decent card even by todays standards.

However with my DT770's I found that when I started getting in to EQ and wanted more bass in quantity and quality so having an AMP that could deliver more current at 250ohms allowed me to achieve that.. however for normal listening and default EQ, I never noticed any real difference going between any of my sources/amps which included the STX and bunch of FiiO DAC's and Amps..

I would say the DT770's really responded well to EQ which is now something I do more with headphones although not all respond positively!
 
ok thanks i'll leave as it is

just out of curiosity, what do you recommend as the best setting? i use game mode, dolby headphones
 
Yep, really nothing wrong in hardware wise and because of 250 ohm headphones that 10 ohm output impedance of TPA6120 doesn't have negative effects.

Though software side is different thing with that mediocre Dolby Headphone, whose bass bloat must be pretty horrible with closed design's strong bass.
 
ShiWarrior said:
i have had this sound card now for a very long time, is it worth me upgrading it ?
Click to expand...

I've got 2 x Asus ST and 1 Asus STX II.

The STX (1) is on par with the Asus ST, it's still a very good card.

One of my Asus ST's is connected into my main HiFi system using a pure silver Van Damme lo-cap 55 interconnect. I would not be using interconnect cables that quality if the card was no good, so just keep using the card.
 
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ShiWarrior said:
ok thanks i'll leave as it is

just out of curiosity, what do you recommend as the best setting? i use game mode, dolby headphones
Click to expand...

GX mode is supposed to emulate EAX protocols, so for games guess your better with this.

However for purest sound I run the card with all DSP settings off, and the equaliser set completely off - so the card is neutral with no effects/colouring. The one thing I do is enable is the source level adjustment as it can help with quiet sections of films, and can minimise if sections of music go very loud.
 
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