ASUS Xonar Essence STX II

Advantages: Sound, sound and sound again. This I have not heard before. Driver stability. Ability to replace without soldering OU for themselves. Etc. etc. Only external solutions from 50kr are better. But even there, the difference is in the form of an error.

Disadvantages: On the one hand the price. But if you look at the prices of "budget undercards", then the price looks adequate.

Comment: Without normal headphones and high-quality speakers 2 - 3-way such a card is meaningless. I advise.

Advantages: - pleasant sound in conjunction with Shure 1540 and AKG K612Pro
- dopilenny Uni Xonar driver, which understands separate outputs 2.0 / 2.1 and headphones
- full support for the 9-pin front panel connector of the system unit, there is where to plug in the microphone for the Diskord)
- the voice in the tracks is heard better, surely those same mythical mids?
- smells delicious varnish

Disadvantages: - jacks 6.3 mm? majority
- the only monopoly audio card pci-e for music lovers on the market that works adequately on Windows 10 x64

Comment: Space prices in the Russian Federation, even with delivery with cu, were 3k cheaper.

Advantages: Sound

Disadvantages: Software

Comment: I bought a Sound blaster Z for a shift, the sound from ASUS is more lively, natural. There was a desire to listen to Jazz, blues, live instruments and vocals. Power output to the ears allows you to connect high-impedance headphones (did not try).
The driver on Windows 10 is on the English-language site -
https://www.asus.com/us/Sound-Cards/Essence_STX_II/HelpDesk_Download/
Grieves that the software has not been updated (and is unlikely to be) for several years. It looks sad. In general, the card is satisfied.

Advantages: Sound worthy, better than many expensive DACs.

Disadvantages: Drivers are not updated for years.

Comment: Having bought a good sound card, many people think that on computer acoustics and even with an incomprehensible recording quality, they will hear Hi-End. To a good card you need a decent hardware, connect to the amplifier or receiver by analogy
, here you will hear the difference with the built-in. I have been using it for 3 years and never had any problems.

Advantages: ASUS Xonar Essence STX II purchased from reviews, the public is different reviews all sorts but nevertheless chose it. Very satisfied with the purchase) you can directly say - it’s not a pity for the money !! I got it, I put it, the driver will not become sly without a card. In the beginning there were problems, the driver flew off) This was put an end to! After disabling Windows updates. In the boxes were replaceable OU very fine print, and did not read what. Replaced thought it would be even better), but a quiet horror was waiting for me to translate ... The middle was gone, the bulging bottom. It dawned on me) this is for the fans of punk rock and Judas Priest. While not particularly fond of long-haired guys in the skin, circular movement of his head in time with the music, while not mine. For two weeks, all the same, oh, they stood, thought their ears would get used. Headphones preferably take from 200 ye. otherwise there is no point in this card. Resistance any pumps superb. The sound is expressive, juicy, the detail depends on the headphones. MP3 and FLAC are instantly noticeable by ear. Games in Hi-Fi sound great!

Disadvantages: 1) Included with ou are tweezers.I can not say that they are comfortable! 2) The cover with the lion cub is heated, quite strongly. Next to the video card I do not put it, I think it will warm the video chip.

Comment: Card is not expensive! People spend on motor transport to put it mildly much more! Here, every penny sounds in the soul, giving rise to joy and pleasure. It is not necessary to buy this particular card, the market is sufficiently full. But buying this you can no longer do without a good sound.

Advantages: Stereo sound ... And the better the speakers or headphones, the better)

Disadvantages: The absence of any hardware support for upmixa stereo or even 3d sound (dolby-joke does not count).

Comment: If you are a gamer or lover of multi-channel sound (especially upmixa), pass by. If you like stereo sound and do not want to bother with passive speakers, external DACs and so on. but you suddenly had headphones> 15 mp or active monitors 2.0 - then this is your choice)

Advantages: Superior sound thanks to headphone amplifier. Replaceable amplifiers included.

Disadvantages: It's not so easy to install the driver for Windows 10, because bundled it is not, and on the ASUS website it is not easy to find. There is no possibility of dividing "Playback Devices" in Windows so that you can switch between external speakers and headphones, and at the same time the volume would be maintained for this output.

Comment: To my taste it sounds great. Favorite compositions sounded in a new way, a large number of pleasant details appeared. I am not ready to rate it in games, since I practically do not play and took it exclusively for listening to music in headphones.

Advantages: Improved layout of the board, there is protection on the molex connector against improper connection, good opamp included, ASIO with low latency.

Disadvantages: Drivers hang without updating for years, the shell ie. skin driver from the last century.

Comment: Bought in July 2014, as soon as we appeared on sale. Then it did not cost as much as it does now. Immediately I connected a self-made filter to it on Molex, the filter was still from the old STX, which I died after repeated upgrades and the desire to improve everything). STX was used for almost 5 years, so I got used to the sound very much and heard the difference in the new version right away. The STX II sounds softer and doesn’t cut the ear; it was because of the harsh synthetic sound that I constantly modified the first STX, which could not stand the torment.

And here there is a pleasant sound out of the box, although I bought one more muses 8920 and put it in the adder and it turned out 3 pieces of muses 8920. The sound is good and suits everyone, though the drivers have not been updated for over a year and this is bad, there is some kind of bug which very rarely leads to BSOD after hibernation, this happens when an online music player remains active in your browser. ASUS support did nothing to help, except for standard tips - like to dance with a tambourine! By the way, there are alternative drivers UNi Xonar Drivers, you can use them!

A shell driver looks unpresentable, someone saved on the designers. But ASIO works better than the first STX, everything stuttered there very strongly on any buffer, and therefore you had to use KS, and everything is fine here. It stutters only at very low latency (which I do not use), but as I understand it depends on the power of the computer and the quality of the motherboard, the wiring of pci-e lines and the chipset.

In games with sound, there are no problems, as there was no first STX, it is desirable that the motherboard was not miniATX, but standard ATX with a large number of pci-e slots, so that you could stick the card in any other slot, if there is any incompatibility .

I advise everyone who loves a good sound.