Is Essense STX audibly better than Xonar DX ?

[gryph0n]

I have an Asus Xonar DX, which currently fulfills my "Audiophile" needs. I was planning to get a decent integrated amp this year, but due to wallet constraints the plan is being postponed till next year. So, diverting my attention towards the source.

Will there be an audible difference if I upgrade from Xonar DX to Essense STX ? I am aware specs wise, the Essense STX beats the DX, but I am not sure if there would be a big difference when listening.

FWIW, the kind of music is mostly Pop Vocals/Rock - Bob Dylan, a-ha, Springsteen, U2, Smashing Pumpkins, Pink Floyd, Dire Straits. Sometimes listen to Western Classical, mostly Bach & Chopin.

The speakers are Usher S-520s, separated from Psychotropic Shall be pairing them with an Ampino amp, and MX/Monster interconnects & speaker cables. I don't have any faith in Audiophile "Cable voodoo" :lol:

Are there any other "Audiophile" SC/DAC which would beat the STX at their price ? (~8k). I am aware of the HT Omega whose US prices seem close to STX, but from the specs, I don't think it would really whip the STX.

Cranky was giving me his inputs in another forum (TE), and he thinks it'll be a good upgrade to go for STX, although he was advising for even an better upgrade (Lynx Two B/Prodigy DACs). But even if I were to go for these, it sure will not be this year :sad: They're heavy on the wallet

 

[venkatcr]

In the sound card (consumer) market, there are essentially only two players - Asus and Azuntech.

Creative did some consolidation a few years back by picking up Aureal and Sensaura. They even deigned and brought out new processors - the Creative CA20K2 and X-F1. For some reason, Creative decided to focus on the gaming market and completely ignored the 'audiophile' market.

Analog Devices had a short run in the market, but they also exited the market completely.

Essentially for the consumer market you have Asus using it's own AV100 processor, and Azuntech using Creative processors. For DAC, Asus uses Burr Brown, while Azuntech uses a combination of AKM and Cirrus Logic.

Though both products can go upto 24/192kHz, both products have faced problems in the Vista environment where they down sampled audio to 48kHz. This issue does not exist in the XP environment, and I am not sure what happens in Windows 7.

Though Lynx2 and other similar brands are very good they are designed for the professional market and, as you said, expensive. Strangely the Asus beats most cards in the market with their dynamic range as well as SNR.

TheVortex and others have personal experience with Asus cards. I am not sure if any member uses Azuntech cards.

Cheers

 

[reignofchaos]

The Asus AV100/200 is nothing but a C-Media 8788 rebadged.

 

[gryph0n]

In the sound card (consumer) market, there are essentially only two players - Asus and Azuntech.

Creative did some consolidation a few years back by picking up Aureal and Sensaura. They even deigned and brought out new processors - the Creative CA20K2 and X-F1. For some reason, Creative decided to focus on the gaming market and completely ignored the 'audiophile' market.

Analog Devices had a short run in the market, but they also exited the market completely.

Essentially for the consumer market you have Asus using it's own AV100 processor, and Azuntech using Creative processors. For DAC, Asus uses Burr Brown, while Azuntech uses a combination of AKM and Cirrus Logic.

Though both products can go upto 24/192kHz, both products have faced problems in the Vista environment where they down sampled audio to 48kHz. This issue does not exist in the XP environment, and I am not sure what happens in Windows 7.

Though Lynx2 and other similar brands are very good they are designed for the professional market and, as you said, expensive. Strangely the Asus beats most cards in the market with their dynamic range as well as SNR.

TheVortex and other have personal experience with Asus cards. I am not sure if any member uses Azuntech cards.

Cheers

Venkat, I believe you have a HTPC. What Soundcard/DAC are you using with it ?

 

[spirovious]

Though both products can go upto 24/192kHz, both products have faced problems in the Vista environment where they down sampled audio to 48kHz. This issue does not exist in the XP environment, and I am not sure what happens in Windows 7.

Cheers

I dont think it with D2X as it can handle 24/192kHz easily in XP/win7(not tried with Vista).

 

[venkatcr]

Venkat, I believe you have a HTPC. What Soundcard / DAC are you using with it ?

I don't use a soundcard. The HTPC is only for movies. I transfer the sound through the graphic card's HDMI for processing outside.

Cheers

 

[gurubhai]

I have used the STX on vista & now on win7 & haven't faced any problem of resampling.

 

[thevortex]

Windows 7 (and I presume, Vista - because I have not been brave or foolish enough to try it out ) has funky controls for resampling at the OS level. And it also adds funky features going up to "room correction".

I feel that if you connect the PC to an AV Receiver, we will find that the final resampled output would be as set at the OS level rather than at the card level. Have not tested this. But somebody with an AVR and Windows 7 could. Am curious.

With XP, there is no issue at all. If you do use a software resampler (through a player) you have to make sure you set your hardware resampler at the same rate as well. Otherwise it does not make sense.

Finally I have heard people saying that the Xonar STX is miles better than even the Xonar D2X. So I would venture to say that there is going to be a whole lot more difference between the Essence the DX.

 

[spirovious]

I can see that my AVR acceppts 96/24 rate in both XP & Win7,cannot handle 192 as expected.

 

[gurubhai]

Windows 7 (and I presume, Vista - because I have not been brave or foolish enough to try it out ) has funky controls for resampling at the OS level. And it also adds funky features going up to "room correction".

I feel that if you connect the PC to an AV Receiver, we will find that the final resampled output would be as set at the OS level rather than at the card level. Have not tested this. But somebody with an AVR and Windows 7 could. Am curious.

With XP, there is no issue at all. If you do use a software resampler (through a player) you have to make sure you set your hardware resampler at the same rate as well. Otherwise it does not make sense.

Finally I have heard people saying that the Xonar STX is miles better than even the Xonar D2X. So I would venture to say that there is going to be a whole lot more difference between the Essence the DX.

You are correct that vista/win7 resamples all audio to the sample rate set in sound device property. The purpose is to defeat the poor hardware resampling done in el-cheapo onboard souond cards.
However one can easily bypass this by using the Wasapi exclusive mode - in this mode the audio is passed untouched to the driver.
The xonar driver would still resample the audio to the one set in xonar control center. It does not resample 96k/ higher samples though.

The latest xonar beta driver has a bit perfect asio driver which completely bypasses any OS/Control center settings.

 

[venkatcr]

The latest xonar beta driver has a bit perfect asio driver which completely bypasses any OS/Control center settings.

When Stereophile tested the card, this was basically the issue. The drivers were being used by Asus Audio Centre software, and this was down sampling the signals. Of course you can easily over come this by installing ASIO4.DLL and using that for all players and bypassing the Asus Audio Centre.

I am glad this has been solved by Asus, even if it is at a beta level. It should be one hell of a card now.

Cheers

 

[corElement]

multichannel

d2x > hdmi 1.3 > d2 > vanilla

 

[suprateep]

wow i love to see a lot of wild suggestions thrown in for a simple question !!!

coming to the question - yes a STX is essentially better than DX - I would pay 4k more for the STX anyday.

And from your taste of music and equipment - I would say an external CDP or a low end CDP + DAC combo is better. I had a HTPC with a STX (HTPC still there for movies via HDMI AVR processing) - STX sold off. The listenability is way better than my pioneer DVDP + DAC combo. STX was great but sometimes was too harsh......(maybe harsh is a wrong word to describe it but sometimes the pacing was off)l. For e.g. sometimes with a large soundstage things did not gel well - well I can blame some parts in my chain like speakers but somehow my speakers agree now. I have had talked to a few people who have owned/own a STX - most say the card is awesome but listenability often suffers.

 

[iaudio]

Suprateep, Didnt get you on the part when you say the card is awesome but not listenable??

 

[iaudio]

Repeat post.

 

[gryph0n]

multichannel

d2x > hdmi 1.3 > d2 > vanilla

Sorry if I didnt mention it: I'm only looking at Music reproduction. So multichannel capability is not high up on my list. In fact, the Essense STX is a 2 channel only soundcard (The ST, not STX, can be made into Multichannel via a daughtercard).

Suprateep, Didnt get you on the part when you say the card is awesome but not listenable??

Yep, even I think it would be great if you could elaborate on this aspect.

By the way, I brought the Ampino today :yahoo: Managed to hook it up to my SoundCard & Speakers for about 30min before wife shut us up since it was late (21.00). However right away, I can tell that there is something lacking. It sounds like a mid-fi system, with details missing, and mids not sounding as great as when I had auditioned.

I've heard the Usher S-520's at ARN's audition room with the Ampino, and it sounded very detailed there, with excellent mids. On my system, the mids weren't so clear, although the Bass became somewhat more pronounced. I believe that ARN was using an Ayon CDP in their Audition room, costing ~1L.

Since Speakers and Amp remain same, it is apparent that my Xonar DX is not upto the task.

I will have to get a better soundcard/dac soon. Guys, what other options than the Essense STX do I have for ~10K ?


Off topic:
I thought that Monster cables were not expensive, but was I in for a surprise !!! Most of their InterConnects were ~1k+, and speaker cable for 180/m.

I'm using MX OFC Interconnect from SoundCard to Amp (Rs. 190), and some No-Name cheapo speaker cable obtained from SP Road (Rs. 20/m). I will probably upgrade to MX OFC speaker cables & banana plugs when I also upgrade soundcard/dac. And no, I don't believe that the cables are at fault for the Mid-fi output, and neither do I believe there would be any difference with costlier MX or other cables. Only that chances of oxidization at contacts/wire would reduce with costlier OFC cables.

 

[venkatcr]

Guys, what other options than the Essense STX do I have for ~10K ?

I think I have already answered this question. You have only two choices at the sub 200$ range.

Cheers

 

[gryph0n]

I think I have already answered this question. You have only two choices at the sub 200$ range.

Cheers

Venkat, your orig post sounded more like a "State of Nation" kind of address that the American Presidents make, except that your's was "State of PC Audio Industry"

But your point is taken. From online reviews, the STX had bettered contemparory Creative/Auzentech cards, and even otherwise I am not that comfortable with Creative's chipsets in an "Audiophile" setting. So I guess the path leads to only the STX now

 

[venkatcr]

Venkat, your orig post sounded more like a "State of Nation" kind of address that the American Presidents make, except that your's was "State of PC Audio Industry" :

:lol: 'State of PC Audio Industry'.:lol: But what I said is true unless you want to consider all the unnamed and useless brands that are there in the market. Essentially, Asus has re-written the rules.

Cheers

 

[spirovious]

From online reviews, the STX had bettered contemparory Creative/Auzentech cards, and even otherwise I am not that comfortable with Creative's chipsets in an "Audiophile" setting. So I guess the path leads to only the STX now

Online rev says ST is marginally better than STX...