ASUS XONAR_DG Xonar DG Sound Card

Comment:
I bought this to replace my Xfi extreme Music card that died after about 5 years . My realtek HD on board was just not loud enough. For the price I was shocked at just how good it sounded . I would be tempted to say that I like this card better than my extreme music .It seems to have more base punch .

Comment:
I bought this card because I needed a toslink (optical digital audio output) to attach a 5.1 receiver to a Linux MythTV system. The card does require Alsa drivers v 1.0.24 for support which required downloading the latest Alsa sources and recompiling the modules for MythDora 12.23 to work with this card(easy thing to do if your well acquainted with Linux,probably hard if you are not).The digital output works well with Alsa drivers v 1.0.24 and MythTV. Did a quick test to see if I could get anything to come out the analog outputs - didn't seem too, but I didn't try too hard. Seems to be a brand new Alsa driver, so analog will presumably work with Linux in the near future if it isn't working now.

Comment:
I bought this sound card about a month ago and I think for the price it is really decent. For me, the highlight of the card is the headphone amp. It works well with cans driving up to 150ohms of impedance which represent most mid-range headphones. It does sound a lot better than realtek's integrated audio chipsets found on most motherboards, which by the way, don't offer any headphone amplification. If you are a gamer mostly playing with big headphones and don't want to spend 150$+ for a sound card with a dedicated headphone amp I highly recommend this card; you'll notice the difference for sure. You can also use dolby headphones (which emulate surround) and the Xonar GX2.5 engine which emulate EAX quite well in games that use it (mostly older games now).

Comment:
Bought it at NCIX.com on sale for about $15 after 10 Asus mail in rebatenothing want to complain about it , cause always better the on motherboard 'sound cardthe sound is much much better than on board sound cardSpent extra $25 , but i can get better sound , worth itVery happyt about it

Comment:
I can't say i'm not satisfacted with the card, but if I could go back, I wouldn't get it.The Dolby Headphone thing is cool and the difference is noticable.However, I didn't see a difference with this soundcard for my speakers.You can't expect much more for a low-end soundcard.

Comment:
Very impressed with the quality of this sound card..for the price ... its an easy choice ...Would I upgrade over Realtek onboad? yes! .. the Dolby headphones feature alone is worth it!Realtek does not simulate .. or at lease I could not get it working. 5.1 on headphones.It has Smart Volume Control ... great to keep the sound from movies at ONE volume .. (don't need to keep tweaking the sound to not bother the neighbor)

Comment:
I bought this for my HTPC so I really have no use for the headphone amp but its a great feature to have at this price range. The 5.1 audio quality is great at this price range and for a mere few bucks you can have an upgrade in sound quality over your onboard that comes with a headphone amp and Dolby support. Hard not to like.

Comment:
Bought from ncix as special order.Dolby Headphone + 7.1 VSS is highlight of this product:With correct setting, it gives excellent result in games in terms of directional cues and surround feel.For movies with 5.1 sound source, Dolby headphone is readily available in software media players, and it gives same result which is good.For songs and stereo source, virtual surround is less effective.Headphone AMP is probably useful only for those with high impedance headphone(64-150ohms).At $30ish, its feature set is quite attractive. Excellent choice for those who want to try a sound card over onboard sound before moving onto expensive sound cards.