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Asus Xonar Essence STX PCIe

Based on 12 reviews

Excellent:

11
Good:

1
Average:

0
Bad:

0

Pros

Truly Audiophile Sound Quality, Incredible Separation and Sound Stage, Excellent Clarity and Detail While Retaining Warmth, Especially Through Headphones, Swappable OPAMPs for Personalized Sound Coloration, Full Size Audio Inputs/Outputs, Outstanding Deep
Crisp audio output, Near flat frequency response, Respectable headphone amp, Very low noise levels on both linein and lineout, Toptier components, such as the capacitors, DAC and opamps, Opamps are user replaceable, Drivers work flawlessly on Vista
It has a very high signaltonoise ratio.
Made with high quality components, Exceptional sound playback, Stable, intuitive driver, Compatible with Windows 7
Clean and pure sound output and control over headphone impedance.
Superb audio quality; dedicated headphone amplifier; swappable op-amps; Direct3D, EAX emulation for XP, Vista games
Remarkably clear and crisp audio; terrific headphone support; almost too good for low-to-midrange bitrate MP3 listening!

Cons

No Phono Input, gold, Discuss this review in our forums
Need pricey equipment to appreciate the added quality of sound, EAX emulation isn't quite as good as a native hardware solution, No hotkeys to quickly alter settings in Xonar Audio Center
There is no S/PDIF input, output only.
Expensive
Pricey and lacks full EAX support.
List, and also the well-deserved Editors Choice award. We apologize for this oversight, Discuss this article in our forums!, Have a comment you wish to make on this article? Recommendations? Criticism? Feel free to head over to our related thread and put.
Analog output is stereo-only
Limited support for multichannel speaker systems

By Hi Tech Legion on October 04, 2011

For the serious, or even not so serious, music listener the ASUS Xonar Essence STX is an awe inspiring piece of equipment. Now, let’s keep it in perspective, I am not going to tell you to go out and sell your 1968 MacIntosh tube amp and replace it...

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By Benchmark Reviews on December 16, 2010

As the performance graphs show, the ASUS Xonar Essence STX is a high achiever. It blitzed all tests, bar one, where the Xonar Xense got a slight upper hand in frequency response. The Essence STX absolutely obliterated the onboard solution in all...

91
By TopTenREVIEWS on June 01, 2010

This is a great sound card for streaming audio from the pc to a home theater...

88
By TweakNews on April 23, 2010

Asus' Xonar Essence STX may be pricey, but for audiophiles or those with the money to spend on an excellent sound card, this is the one to get. It looks good and performs even better. It's made with high quality components throughout, right down...

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By The Tech Report on August 11, 2009

When you get down to their core feature sets, the Xonar Essence STX and X-Fi Forte really are quite similar. Both fake EAX effects in Vista, both support 24-bit audio up to 192kHz, both offer a measure of headphone amplification, both sound fantastic,...

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By Maximum PC on July 23, 2009

Headphone audiophiles rejoice 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. Sure, we...

90
By X-bit Labs on June 04, 2009

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...

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By Overclockers Club on May 14, 2009

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 answer is, it...

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By InsideHW on April 27, 2009

We should also mention other aspects of ASUS Xonar Essence STX as much as those are secondary in this case. If you want to watch movies with surround speakers this card won’t disappoint you because there is S/PDIF output for optical or coaxial...

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By TechRadar on April 26, 2009

This isnt 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...

90