Asus Xonar Essence ST soundcard - experience

[Thad E Ginathom]

Contentious, as I said

 

[sivakuru]

A sound card will make noise. If you want a silent PC then do not install a sound card.

I think the above means
"If you want PC to be silent then do not install a card that makes sound(noise)" and not the noise (electrical interference) that you guys are thinking of.

See it is from g0bble

 

[cha_indian]

Nobody answered my question

By silent PC i mean a PC that does not need cooling fans.....Atom D510 is passive cooled processor and it it is also quite cheap. My EHP 606 sounds very good on my Amp and Speaker setup. Very detailed and crisp sound....not tinny. As you must be knowing EHP company is dead and i think very soon my device will also die. I am looking for a high end Music HTPC. I am not interested in Video at all ... All i want is that the sound card should have RCA socket for Left channel and right channel. I don't need Dolby, nor 5.1 channel support.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

I think the above means
"If you want PC to be silent then do not install a card that makes sound(noise)" and not the noise (electrical interference) that you guys are thinking of.

See it is from g0bble

Suddenly I feel very silly. It's happened before; it'll happen again. Gg0bble, please consider your post guffawed at hyeah:

cha_indian, please excuse us.

I can't give any useful comparison with the things that you have mentioned, but this card will certainly meet your basic needs, hopefully in a far-more-than-basic way

Here's a review from Stereophile. I'm sure there are many others online. What a shame the author compares the card against a squeezebox (Apples and oranges, anyone?) rather than another sound card, but anyway, his conclusion about the card is very positive. Competitors? ESI Julia@ is a favourite, and the M-audio is a long-standing success.

Apparently, the DAC used on this card is the same as in the Musical Fidelity V-DAC

 

[gobble]

I think the above means
"If you want PC to be silent then do not install a card that makes sound(noise)" and not the noise (electrical interference) that you guys are thinking of.

See it is from g0bble

Haaarrg! <BackSlap!> :lol: I owe you a Coffee treat when you ever visit Bengaluru. But I had my share of amusement reading Thad's responses hyeah:

--G0bble

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

:clapping:

And I fell straight into the trap, which was well set indeed!

I'm going to read your posts much more carefully in the future, especially when they seem to touch on my nerve-ending subjects.

 

[hydra]

can anyone tell me the sound quality of Asus Xonar vs Digital players like Popcorn hour ? or Elektron EHP

My plan is to assemble a silent PC with Intel Atom processor and Asus Xonar sound card and retire my existing media player. The thing is that my present Elektron sounds very good to me and i have a DAC to it so it increases the SQ but the firmware issues and other software availability makes this cumbersome. If Asus Xonar can sound as good as a Popcorn hour then combined with the ease of a PC, there is very little that can beat the user friendliness.. What do you say ?

...

... I am looking for a high end Music HTPC. I am not interested in Video at all ... All i want is that the sound card should have RCA socket for Left channel and right channel. I don't need Dolby, nor 5.1 channel support.

The Xonar ST will take care of your needs. I used to use the digital out of WDTV via a Caiman DAC to play music. I then shifted to a Music PC with a Xonar STX installed. I used the analog outs of the Xonar STX for some time.

There was substantial improvement over the WDTV > Caiman combo when I played music off the PC (Foobar > WASAPI > STX analog outs). So I'm reasonably certain the same will be the case with the Popcorn Hour Player.

I think it will be difficult to significantly improve upon the analogue outs of the STX with a DAC + Digital Cable combo under 20K. The STX, at about 8.5-9K is very good value. The ST is about 1K costlier, but is supposed to sound a bit better.

Yes, you will get two RCA sockets (L & R) in the STX and the ST, and both are pure 2-channel cards.

The ESI Juli@ should cost lesser than the ST/STX and will be a worthy (or maybe even better) alternative, if you can manage to find one

 

[spirovious]

The ESI Juli@ should cost lesser than the ST/STX and will be a worthy (or maybe even better) alternative, if you can manage to find one

Xonar are said to have better analoge out(musical)& Julie@ better digital out.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Juli@'s USP is having a choice of two physical setups, one for balanced, and one for unbalanced analogue.

I have wondered a bit about this, as usually the requirement is simply for one or the other, and also balanced i/o is rare among domestic equipment except for very high cost or "pro-sumer" stuff.

I remember now, one reason why I have had a reservation about Asus, and it comes from the Foobar 2000 FAQs:

I have an Asus Xonar card and I'm experiencing problems...

Asus Xonar drivers are known to be completely broken on multiple levels. Get rid of this card and get a card from another manufacturer.

I don't have any experience; I don't know if anyone else agrees or disagrees with this; I can only say that it comes from the developers of [perhaps] the most popular and respected Windows audio player, and I guess they must know a thing or two about audio drivers. On the other hand, the Asus cards seem to have many happy users ...and, not everything one reads on the net is up-to-date!

 

[hydra]

@Thad, that bit from the Foobar 2000 FAQ is a bit misleading. What they've written there was true till about a year back. The first batches of drivers for the Xonar cards were (from what I've read) very bad and buggy, especially the ones for Vista and Windows 7.

The driver releases for Windows 7 from the beginning of 2011 are quite alright (from personal experience). Perhaps the last release in 2010 (October, I think) was also relatively bug-free.

The Foobar guys should update their FAQ

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

What they've written there was true till about a year back

I had some kind of intuition it just might be out-dated info. Thanks for confirming that. I've quoted it twice, I think . I will not do so again.

Indeed, they should update!

 

[hydra]

Yup. Their FAQ, and many other similar posts by users on various forums, has given the Xonar cards a bit of a bad rep in terms of driver stability. Asus themselves didn't help a lot by releasing stable drivers in a timely manner either.

 

[gobble]

I just woke up to my dormaant HAPC project and now dilly dallying between ESI Juli@ and Xonar ST. The reason being the Juli@ has a true 44.1khz clock while the Xonar actually uses a PLL logic to derive the clock which is reputedly tough to implement with ultra low noise and jitter in a sound card type of product. My requirement is primarily digital out of course.

Still savouring the audiophool neurosis as I type this ... hyeah:

--G0bble

 

[spirovious]

With unixonar drivers I get 44.1khz as default unlike 96khz with asus.

 

[hydra]

I just woke up to my dormaant HAPC project and now dilly dallying between ESI Juli@ and Xonar ST. The reason being the Juli@ has a true 44.1khz clock while the Xonar actually uses a PLL logic to derive the clock which is reputedly tough to implement with ultra low noise and jitter in a sound card type of product. My requirement is primarily digital out of course.

Still savouring the audiophool neurosis as I type this ... hyeah:

--G0bble

Isn't the 44.1khz clock problem only with the STX? I'm not really sure of this, but I think the ST is kosher with 44.1khz and 48khz, and the problem is with the STX which is ok with 48khz, but does some uh, stuff, to process 44.1khz.

This is second hand info that I've heard somewhere (and not even read somewhere). I'd love to get concrete info on this (though I use the STX, and it will most likely be bad news for me).

In any case, the ESI Juli@ seems to be the preferred card for digital out and you need just the digital out for your Shigaraki, right?

 

[reignofchaos]

Yup ST seemingly has a dedicated 44.1 clock.

 

[gobble]

Isn't the 44.1khz clock problem only with the STX? I'm not really sure of this, but I think the ST is kosher with 44.1khz and 48khz, and the problem is with the STX which is ok with 48khz, but does some uh, stuff, to process 44.1khz.

This is second hand info that I've heard somewhere (and not even read somewhere). I'd love to get concrete info on this (though I use the STX, and it will most likely be bad news for me).

In any case, the ESI Juli@ seems to be the preferred card for digital out and you need just the digital out for your Shigaraki, right?

Yes!

Yup ST seemingly has a dedicated 44.1 clock.

No. It has a CS2000 chip (CS2000 Family : Clock Generation and Multiplication/Jitter Reduction Solution) that is used to derive all required sample rates. Good for a sound card to accompany video certainly.

As discussed here: SPDIF Sound Card Choice - diyAudio

To paraphrase a comment in the thread

The jitter numbers aren't bad but a dedicated crystal can be significantly lower.

The Jitter from the CS2000 is lowest at certain frequency ratios (see the datasheet for the math) so probably a multiple of 48 will give the best results.

The ESI Juli@ has dedicated crystals/clocks for

22.579 MHz --> multiple of the 44100 / 88200 / 176400 Hz sample rates
24.576 MHz --> multiple of the 48000 / 96000 / 192000 Hz sample rates

The reason for this dilemma is that I just realized the Juli@ has a breakout cable for digital coaxial out . I just spend $$ on a bluejeans coaxial cable and I'll be damned if that moondust coated specially constructed cable is plugged into a mass-market breakout cable.

And the EMU cards with their dedicated crystals are all PCIe that are prone to high electrical noise / EMI that make me toss and turn in bed Damn these neuroses!

--G0bble

 

[gobble]

See now that I have a $$$$ DAC that I can't blame for the pimples and blemishes, I need a transport that brings the flow in to the music (like vinyl?), not just a chance buy that sounds "decent".

Hence the nitpick hyeah:

--G0bble

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

And the EMU cards with their dedicated crystals are all PCIe that are prone to high electrical noise / EMI that make me toss and turn in bed Damn these neuroses!

Buy the EMU and get a counsellor for those neuroses!

But, breakout cables ... I hate the look of them, and I know that mine will be magnets for bird-nest-proportion dustballs, and I hate to think of it all going into the open ones that aren't being used because maybe I'll want to use them one day and I'll find they are covered in oxide and dust deep inside and ...I'm coming to that counsellor with you!

Even the RME stuff has break-out cables

Have you looked at Marian? One of the trace models. Pleasingly expensive

 

[gobble]

Buy the EMU and get a counsellor for those neuroses!

But, breakout cables ... I hate the look of them, and I know that mine will be magnets for bird-nest-proportion dustballs, and I hate to think of it all going into the open ones that aren't being used because maybe I'll want to use them one day and I'll find they are covered in oxide and dust deep inside and ...I'm coming to that counsellor with you!

Even the RME stuff has break-out cables

Have you looked at Marian? One of the trace models. Pleasingly expensive

Thanks for that but the absence of ALSA driver makes it useless. Besides spending $$$ on a sound card that runs of dirty SMPS does not make sense to me. After some close listening I can make out the artifacts/effects of a non-linear psu inside the Oppo when used purely as a transport. It has a tiny smps compared to the linear psu of the cd6002.

Edit: If all products have a breakout cable, might as well settle for a Juli@ as originally planned. I will search for a quality convertor/connector without cables once Its in my hands.
Or better still I will unsolder the original and replace with a rca for the coax taking care of the signal pins.
--G0bble