ASUS Xonar Drivers

I'm thinking of getting a Xonar Essence STX together with some HD650's.
I know the sound card is great but whats the opinions on ASUS's drivers??

Cheers

 

Solely based on reviews and information that goes up and down, what I unerstood was that the STX is one of the very high end cards out there, and asus (unlike creative) provides pretty solid support for their components, in both the driver department, and when contacting them.

Once again - it's all speculation, I have no personal experience with Asus sound card products (Although I will soon enough, once the door rings and a fat dude with a ton of boxes asks for my signature )

 

Drivers are fine with no problems. The last update was a few months ago!

 

You Can alway use Uni Xonar drivers if you do have issues.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't they basically just reference C-Media drivers with Asus branding and control panel added?

 

Although Xonar drivers have high DPC measurements, I think it's very solid. The default stereo upmix to 5.1, for example, is way better than Creative CMSS-3D. I'm using a Xonar Xense for 2 weeks and I didn't find any problem. It would be great, however, if we could change channel output (headphone <-> surround) without the need of lauching Audio Center, but I'm a minimalist guy.

BTW, I bought together a HD650 too. It works flawlessly with Xense headphone amplifier (the same as Essence ST/STX).

 

As far as i know i thought the default stereo upmix to 5.1 was a bug, and not a feature, as it does it with everything, and i generally hate upmixing music.

The UniXonar ones are pretty good, especially the low DPC latency one, i blamed older Nvidia drivers for sky high latency issues, when it was actually the official Asus ones.

 

There are more to them then just being C-media drivers, there modified with features that normal C-media drivers doesnt have. Features talior to Asus cards. Like DSGX 2.5(GX mode) and the headphone amp settings that done thru the software and not directly on the card it self. Like other C-media chipset cards uses.

 

Thanks for the replys
So it looks like the only issue is DPC latency??
I guess where i'm at is would it be worth getting the essence stx and deal with dpc issues or get a Auzentch meridian 2g.

 

if DPC latency is an issue for you, then download the unixonar drivers.

you can read all about them here: http://brainbit.wordpress.com/category/uni-xonar/

 

It is not a bug, but I agree that Asus did a mistake in not allowing users to enable/disable this feature. Of course you'll like it or not depending of your preference. I like it because it adds more immersion to the sound and more power (as there are more speakers playing) without any change to the sound (it only clones front channels to rear channels). IMO, some upmix are REALLY bad, as 'Dolby Pro Logic IIx', that messes with sound. But it isn't this Dolby chaos that comes enabled by default with Xonar (at least with Xense).

The only thing that UNi Xonar does to decrease DPC latency is disabling Audio Center and GX service from Windows startup; you can do it manually if you want.

Believe me, it won't be an issue for you. Here DPC never exceeds 180 with Audio Center opened. With Audio Center closed without any effect enabled, the average DPC measurement is 85. Remember: as long as it doesn't reach 500 you're just fine.

 

Its a bug if you can't disable it, audio purists would have a fit and could end up returning the card, and i personally dislike most upmixing, thankfully i found a way round it, but shouldn't have to.

I'm actually the opposite, while DPLII does pull far too much towards the centre, destroying the stereo image, i dislike cloning the front speakers to the rear even more as it creates a mess of sound, but sound quality is purely objective, especially when it comes to upmixing.

DTS Neo6 is pretty good though, and best one i've heard.

Yeah, i know all it does is disable the Asus Audio centre, but it shouldn't be up to third parties to fix these issues.

I'm using the official Asus 1793 ones myself though, as the Uni ones crash the second you try and change something in the Audio Centre for some reason, and i have my own workaround for the issues anyway.

 

Thanks for the comments.

Does anyone have any opinions on the essence ST over the STX??
I'm thinking of going for that over the STX since the ST has the ability to connect analoge 5.1/7.1 speakers when using the H6.

 

They are both the same, except as you say the ST can use the H6 and is PCI only where as the STX is PCI-e.

 

Actually the uni Xonar drivers is a 4 pack driver combo, the DPC is just one of the drivers in the pack. It has the muiti choice option of C-media with GX disabled, C-media panel with GX enabled, DPC and then the orginal Asus panel.

@leo the ST also has the jitter protection, When you use the headphone amp on the ST/X the I/V iop-amps are used, in the future I suggest changing them to better op-amps like OPA2107APs,LME49720NA;s etc. or roll to find a op-amp that you like with your headphones or speakers.

 

The new Uni Xonar 1793 v1.30 drivers are out, as well as a build 6 version of them. Thought I'd let everyone know if they didn't already. Rolled them ontop of my stock ASUS 1793 drivers and they work very well using the Low DPC install option.

 

Hmm... i prefer music on stereo too, i didn't now Xonar cards are upmixing everything to 5.1! No workaround to disable it? I'm about to order a Xonar D1

 

uni Xonar drivers by default have the upmixing disable, with a option to enable it thru the driver. Tho i never heard it auto upmixing even with normal drivers.

 

Yeah, the new Uni Xonar ones give you the choice of disabling it, or you can use something like Foobar2000 to upsample it to 96khz, which seems to disable the 5.1 upmixing.

 

Been Running an ASUS Xonar D2 in Win 7 64bit, and it's been flawless. The sound is crispy and clear, better than and Creative card I've used. The only glitch I've had is with a game (RIFT). When I close the game no matter what hz I run it on, the audio hangs and repeats which causes me to have to reboot. I'm sure that it's an issue with the game though, as it's the only problem I have.

The drivers and Control Panel are very easy to use and straight-forward.