ASUS Xonar Essence STX 124 dB SNR / Headphone AMP Card

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Both the Hardware and software are great but I really suggest people purchase a high quality headset with this, obviously. I'm using a 600Ohm headphone and it has no problem powering it!

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Great sound as usual from asus. a must buy if you are working with music and have a large set of cans that need powering. the op amps are swappable if you are into that. the stock ones are pretty good already

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I was skeptical at first wondering if there was a clear difference between on board audio and dedicated sound. After using this sound card I was amazed at the difference it made when listening to music and gaming. It has a wide range of effects and modes for anything you would want to listen to. I definitely recommend this product for anyone who can spare the money and enjoys high quality sound. This review was modfied by poster @ 04-13-13 07:53 PM

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Overall I'm satisfied with my purchase but I was expecting it to perform better to my expectation. You'd notice a big difference in sound coming from an on board audio w/o dedicated headphone amp but this sound card can just be considered as an entry level audiophile in terms of its headphone amp, however, its DAC chip is proven to be a very high end unit that are sold in ~$1,000 DAC receiver/external unit. You may still consider this a good purchase just for the DAC performance alone and it's got front R/L analog output in case you ever want to pair it with a better external amp.

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Pretty good sound card. much better than what the other major companies offer at this price range

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It's all set up for audio reproduction so out of the box it does sound a little flat, with the included software though there are dozens of preset combinations to choose from, after a few minutes you'll have it sounding just how you want it.looks great, sounds great and my favourite feature is the software switch to go between headphones and speakers, so you can leave both plugged in all the time and just slect the one you want at the time from the dropdown menu.

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It's so pretty, like honestly this thing looks classy but it's not what's on the the outside but the inside that counts and this thing can count, not litterally but you know what I mean, It's very very good.

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The ASUS Xonar Essence STX, You get a 12dB boost for 300-Ohms & 18dB boost for 600-Ohm headphones. You can use it with the 32-ohm headphones like me. I bought it just for the amplifier. The DG sound card gives you 6dB boost I guess. The max windows volume you can set the STX at is between 40%~50% depending on the headphones, Any higher you'll get distortion. Distortion that you really can hear on the Sony MDR-XB500, set the XB500 to 30%-40% windows volume at +18dB gain or, 50% at +12dB gain. You want loud EarRinging bass?!?! ? The AKG K414P is louder then the XB500 due to it's efficiency, It can be loud on a iPhone or iPod. With the K414P You can set the windows volume to 50% at +18dB gain & You can even turn up the 30Hz & 60Hz equalizer 5 notches by simply clicking on the bar above the adjuster to automatically move it up 5 notches. To get to the equalizers click on the Effect button in the ASUS Xonar Essence STX Audio Center Software & To adjust the gain In Main Tab click on the button that looks like a hammer by the "Analog Out, Headphone select ed" There you can select  high Gain 12dB & Extra High Gain 18dB. You can also check boxes for Dolby Headphone & 7.1 Virtual Speakers Shifter, It may give you more bass.

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I love good sound and this card delivers very warm tones without that bite of the onboard chips.

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this soundcard is crazy!!! with an even crazier price tag, but the sound is amazing!! it better be the best at this price. dedicated jack for headphones so no need to play with an adapter, it looks funny anyways with all that baggage at the back of the pc lol

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Best sound card I have ever owned. I'm 31 yrs old. My first sound cards were 8-bit. I've gone through various Sound cards throughout the ages. This is by far the best sound card I have ever owned.

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This sound card is one of the best I've ever used. Many think that with most modern onboard sound options that a sound card is a thing of the past. That's not true at all especially when this supports 6.3 mm plugs so that no adapters are needed for high quality headphones.The only downside to the card are the drivers and software it runs on. It looks slightly outdated and can take some getting used to.

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No fooling around...im looking for one of the best sound cards on the market, excellent reviews card looks good..pretty well can't top this card no doubt its a audiophile card.

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I bought this sound card to use with my Senheisser HD595 headphones, and have been very pleased so far. The difference was really night and day. The desktop UI is dated, and could really use a refresh. Also, it doesn't seem to keep your settings if you regularly switch between headphones and speakers, which is annoying. But these are minor annoyances and worth the hassle for the incredible sound this card puts out. I would suggest it to anyone with a quality set of headphones.

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I took it back and bought an X-Fi Titanium. No problems.

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I am using this with Sennheiser 555 right now and I was previously using onboard sound from Asus' newest motherboards. I found the sound to be much more clear, it was as if the sound was being blocked before. The quality is absolutely amazing. This card is rated number one on head-fi.org as well many people use this as an internal sound card. If you don't want to do this setup I recommend doing external DAC's instead and there are all kinds of different prices and companies with those. I purchased DT 880 600ohm but it did not power it good enough and I have to have my sound on the max to be able to hear the headphones so the onboard OPAMP by texus instruments isn't the strongest for a 600ohm headphone so I bought the Little Dot III online from David on his website for 250 shipped! Look on head-fi.org for reviews of it with DT 880's and other higher impedence headphones.

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I bought this card to replace a Auzentech Forte sound card (which I was very unhappy with). Sound quality is pretty good, definitely on par or better than my previous Creative chip based cards. Provided control panel tool somewhat sucks, imo, comparing to Creative panel, but it gets the job done (although does look like Winamp from mid 90s). Build of this card is pretty impressive, definitely not your flimsy regular audio card. During installation Asus drivers crashed, however on subsequent install everything went fine, also had a minor issue with drivers detecting the card, however subsequent reboot solved this issue.Very pleased. Would definitely recommend.

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after downloading and installing driver from website everything pretty much worked right away. have spdif to onkyo receiver and sound is a little better then onboard. it shines when you plug in headphones. my hd558 now sound amazing plugged in to this card.

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Thing is awesome. It's too bad more motherboard manufacturers don't take more care with the placement of the PCIx1 slot though. That's not a knock on the card of course. If you have some high impedance phones to drive and you don't want and external amp, this is the ticket. I love it.

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Reason why I bought this card was because my X-Fi Forte died and I read quite a lot of good reviews on this card. Furthermore, its one of the most popular cards out there right now. As expected from the reviews, these do not perform as well as my previous X-Fi Forte in games. Frankly, I don't hear a difference with music (however i did notice slight improvement in movies). If your a gamer, i would definitely go with the forte.The sound is muffled in games (the bass isn't as loud and tight) I looked into this, and apparently forte has quite a good op amp.

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Excellent sound quality for the price tag and a definite improvement over Xonar DG 5.1. I've used it with Sennheiser HD-598 and HD-650 and music sounded lifelike and beautiful on both. Great introductory entrance into audiophile world for those with decent headphones or speakers. If you are still listening to mp3s on mediocre headphones or desktop speakers, do yourself a favour: purchase this sound card along with good headphones and CD quality source material and be amazed at how much you have been missing out on. This review was modfied by poster @ 11-01-11 06:47 PM

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I've been using the sound card with an M-Audio AV40 for 3 months and the sound is very good and I have no regrets buying the card. I did some test with my old onboard sound card and you can hear the difference in terms of volume and clarity. Now I run it to a NAD and PSB speakers and it really rocks. Just have to make sure the audio quality of music files are good.

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Currently paired with my AKG k701 and so far I've enjoyed listening to both new and old tracks in both FLAC and mp3, No regrets on this purchase, even though the price may seem daunting.

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For 170$ I saved myself having to buy a DAC and Headphone Amp... Sure it might not be on the same level, but for a soundcard, with these features... I am very impressed. Of my new computer ( Core i5 2500k, Radeon 6950, 8 Gb of ram) this is the part I am most impressed with. It makes my Sennheiser Hd 580s come alive. I am looking forward to having some good study music.

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Seriously the best sound card available. When paired with good headphones or speakers you will never want to go back to a different sound card. Well worth the money if you're serious about our audio quality.