Xonar DG - ultimate budget headphone card?

Does this amp thing for headphones make all the difference? i have a xonar DX PCIE card with goldring dr 150s. I also notice that my card does 2.0 GX. But all these new cards do 2.5. Is that higher EAX levels?
 
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dmxdex2020 said:
Does this amp thing for headphones make all the difference? i have a xonar DX PCIE card with goldring dr 150s. I also notice that my card does 2.0 GX. But all these new cards do 2.5. Is that higher EAX levels?
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Your card also does 2.5 if you run recent drivers.
 
I have the latest asus drivers and it states that its 2.0 in the information screen in the asus control panel. What are those new UNI asus drivers like?
 
dmxdex2020 said:
I have the latest asus drivers and it states that its 2.0 in the information screen in the asus control panel. What are those new UNI asus drivers like?
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I wonder if it's anything to do with installing new drivers over old ones. Might be good to uninstall older ones first. Not sure if a driver cleaner would be needed to clear the old ones out.
 
Marsman said:
I wonder if it's anything to do with installing new drivers over old ones. Might be good to uninstall older ones first. Not sure if a driver cleaner would be needed to clear the old ones out.
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No because i formatted my windows not so long ago. If you download the latest asus driver in the info screen it states 2.0 GX mode. But i do beleive that is what the asus card were before it got patched.
 
dmxdex2020 said:
No because i formatted my windows not so long ago. If you download the latest asus driver in the info screen it states 2.0 GX mode. But i do beleive that is what the asus card were before it got patched.
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Yes it was, however GX is emulation, which is software not hardware, so it cannot be that newer cards have 2.5, and the older ones don't. My guess is, Asus has failed yet again to address an issue, what a surprise there. Friend of mine was quite surprised when I told him Asus were just as useless as Creative when it comes to drivers. He thought Asus were much better, but then so did a lot of people.

I'd try the Uni drivers, see if that sorts out the problem.
 
Uriel told me my card does 2.5 with the latest drivers. Hmm. I have the asus third party driver now that some guy has made with aload of fixes.
 
Yes it should be 2.5, as all Xonar's should. Asus however are not particularly good at fixing things that don't work, hence the Uni drivers.

I have used the Uni drivers, which are very good. I didn't have any problems with Asus' own drivers, so I cannot compare them to non working drivers. I wanted to try them out of curiosity. :)
 
For what it's worth, Asus being slow to address things on the driver front was one reason I switched back to Creative.

It's a shame. My old Xonar D2 seemed like a superb bit of hardware but diver issues, especially for older games, made it frustrating.

Creative get criticised a lot for drivers but my X-Fi Prelude just seems a lot more user friendly than the Xonar.
 
Well...

I pearsonally don't trust the uni-driver thing, if it is the way to go, why didn't Asus do it?
You can put all the .ini file into the install file package and make it work, but that doesn't really make sense to me.

OTOH, the Asus driver is rock solid on my system since day1, I'll crosss my finger to all those have issues with Asus drivers.
 
Headphone amps and auto switching

Guys, does front panel switching still work on the DG when running soundcard--> amp--> headphones? I presume you just plug the headphone amp into the front panel EAR jack and take it from there?
 
silverlai3 said:
Well...

I pearsonally don't trust the uni-driver thing, if it is the way to go, why didn't Asus do it?
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Email them, and ask them, why don't they make their drivers work for some people.

Either one of 2 reasons, I'd say. 1. They don't care. 2. They have no damn clue when it comes to drivers.

Asus drivers work for you, and they work for me, and countless other people, but for quite a few they don't. If you find the Asus ones work fine, then there is no reason to use the modified ones.
 
When I turn my PC off with headphones in the front panel I lose front panel detection, it just stays fixed to front panel audio and won't switch. Do the Uni drivers fix this? Only a minor gripe but annoying enough.
 
Uriel said:
For what it's worth, Asus being slow to address things on the driver front was one reason I switched back to Creative.

It's a shame. My old Xonar D2 seemed like a superb bit of hardware but diver issues, especially for older games, made it frustrating.

Creative get criticised a lot for drivers but my X-Fi Prelude just seems a lot more user friendly than the Xonar.
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I guess they might have different group focusing on different models... cause you might have noticed that sometimes some models have new drivers while others don't. Anyway, I would still think ASUS is better than Creative. You would never imagine how bloated the Creative's driver package is....

Also hope Xonar DG would come the new driver soon.
 
Just ordered one of these from OcUK (normal supplier had no stock, same price).

Hopefully it arrives tomorrow so I have something to pee around with this weekend!
 
Well, it arrived, and first impressions are...

not good.

1. Annoying buzzing / static with headphones through front panel.
2. Very little bass, EQing it upwards just makes it sounds muddy.
3. Generally doesn't sound nearly as good as my X-Fi Xtreme Music.
4. Auto output-switching does not work.

Unless something drastic changes this weekend, I'm going back to it, front panel support or not.

Adios.
 
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1) I'd check your wires to be fair, I have no issue what so ever with my case, I do however have proper shielding on my front panel cabling.

2) I have the bass up a tad on my EQ and through my DR150s I have no issue. What headphones are you using?

3) Can't comment on this.

4) The Unified drivers appear to fix this, although I don't have an issue myself so I can't fully comment, but it might be worth trying them out as it's fixed issues for a few people.
 
Robbie G said:
Well, it arrived, and first impressions are...

not good.

1. Annoying buzzing / static with headphones through front panel.
2. Very little bass, EQing it upwards just makes it sounds muddy.
3. Generally doesn't sound nearly as good as my X-Fi Xtreme Music.
4. Auto output-switching does not work.

Unless something drastic changes this weekend, I'm going back to it, front panel support or not.

Adios.
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I'm sorry you're disappointed with it :(

1. Had this yesterday after fiddling around with FiiO E5. Sorted by turning the PC off and sorting out the wires.
2. NS1000 with E5 here, excellent bass.
3. It would probably be headphones/speakers dependent but I wouldn't expect a £25 sound card to sound as good as the £50 one...
4. Never had a problem with this.
 
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