Asus Xonar Essence STX Backside of the Essence The sound card seems to have fallen out of favor with the hardware enthusiast over the past few years, as on-board solutions have provided multi-channel surround sound that functions as well as dedicated cards.

James is back in business and this time he looks at a special Xonar offering from ASUS, essentially a headphone pre-amp for discerning audiophiles.

The Xonar Essence STX sound card offers stellar sound, and it's one of the best choices available if you listen to music over quality headphones.

Superb audio quality; Dedicated headphone amplifier; Swappable op-amps; Direct3D; EAX emulation for XP; Vista games

Analog output is stereo-only

Based on my long term testing with the STX card, from engineering sample to final production version I have been highly impressed with the Xonar Essence STX. ASUS set out to build a new flagship card for stereo and headphone use and definitely pushed the bar much higher for other companies who want...

After running the rule over Auzentech's latest discrete sound card offering, the X-Fi Forte, recently, today we have the treat of getting to spend some time with the latest offering from another current discrete audio giant, ASUS.

Last year at COMPUTEX, I came across a product at the ASUS booth known as the "Stereo X". My interest in this product led to an enthusiastic...

The best music experience you'll ever have on a set of headphones on a PC; Extremely high quality audiophile build with swappable OPAMPS for those with a need to tweak

Not for gamers or casual listeners; Price may be hard to justify for some

As with most products, I was slightly apprehensive about the Xonar Essence STX before I heard it. I asked myself, how could a small, simple amplifier on a soundcard perform anywhere near as well as a standalone headphone amplifier?

The DAC; capacitors; and op-amps on the card produce an extremely pure and transparent sound; Hugely dynamic and accurate sound on any headphones using the onboard headphone amplifier; Headphone amplification works for the front panel (case) audio sockets; Flawless driver compatibility in Vista...

The GX mode isn't a 100% exact emulation of EAX

This isn't just a fancy sound card, you know. Oh no. Let us quote from the included Audio Precision Test Report, a fancy document bound with gold string to compound its obvious legitimacy: "The development of the new Xonar Essence line has triggered us to engage a new quest in search for true...

When I had been listening to the Auzen X-Fi Prelude, I had not expected any card to surpass it. Later on, the ASUS Xonar D2 showed the weak aspects of the Prelude. And now, the Xonar Essence STX sounds better than the Xonar D2 and Prelude, and better than the X-Fi Elite Pro, and perhaps even better...

There are a few dirty secrets in the tech industry, and one of the best-guarded among them regards multichannel audio-everybody wants multichannel audio but almost no one actually runs the speakers to use it.

Clean and pure sound output and control over headphone impedance

Pricey and lacks full EAX support