Well, firstly this is a nicely made item, sadly though it told me that i needed to install "Windows Vista" after I had installed it... REALLY?! Need I say more?

I'll start with the cons: The driver support for win 7 64 was so bad. You can look throughout forums for hours and find that no one's resolved this simple issue. After countless screwed up installs, restarts, driver sweeping, I said screw it.

New to sound; but I can yell you I've never been happier

took ages to figure out driver issues...; HOURS

This thing is simply incredible. Really worth every penny for any audiophile.

, founded in 1990, is somewhat a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to designing and manufacturing computer hardware and components these days. Currently, the company is pushing their tablets, notebooks, and all-in-ones, but they have firm roots in the manufacturing of computer components that are...

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

I in tend on using this for gaming and for home theater and have found the sound quality amazing! Once the software was installed it works well. The CD that came with it only had VISA drivers which crashed multiple programs on my computer and I had to restart in safe mode uninstall them and then...

Easy To Use; Quality Output; Reliable Performance

Difficult To Install

Asus's latest high-fidelity sound card is expensive compared to most home PC audio processors, but the Xonar Essence STX has a few unique features to justify its high price. Asus is so proud of the card that it includes an audio precision report in the box.

I am thrilled with the sound quality of this card. I can't imagine anyone complaining about it regardless of the cost of the rest of their equipment be it cheap or ridiculously expensive. It really is worth switching to analogue for music listening and then back to digital for games and movies.

Behind every pair of headphones should be a good sound chipset. That's the idea, and hopefully anyone who knows anything about good audio would adhere to that. For those who can't figure out why their big expensive headphones aren't quite performing as well as they'd imagined, read on; Large and...

Great quality; beautifully packaged; forms a deadly duo with high-end headphones

None come to mind

This card is great for sound quality, but lacks analog outs for surround sound, and there is no EAX support. Good for audiophile music and movies, but don't use this for gaming and definitely not audio production.

Great audio clarity; and selectable ohm setting for built-in headphone amp

-Requires a 4 pin molex power connector -Useless gimmicky EMI sheild, A clean power supply makes this feature redundant -Not a true PCIe card, it's actually a PCI card with a PCIe bridge chip -Slow ASIO 2.0 drivers; You're lucky to get 30 or 40ms latency.