Asus Xonar DX

Some pics of the card installed would have been nice.

Originally Posted by The boy 4rm oz
Some pics of the card installed would have been nice.

Sure thing, I'll take a few later :)

Excellent, i was getting sick of listening to my network card via my on board sound through my headphones! I saw this months ago but it wasn't released, good review, thanks for reminding me.

No problem. I can't say if it works under Linux though (your sig) - check Asus' driver site. For the money though, it pisses over onboard sound!

Thats a good point, i'm sure the good folks at alsa will get on it quickly enough but i might just hold off for a couple of more months, its more for my xp gaming box than anything else but it would irk me if i couldn't use it when i dual booted.

Creative weren't exactly quick off the mark with x-fi support either and tbh i'm not sure how good it is now. This seems like an ideal card for a low cost low size myth box so hopefully asus will get support for it quickish.

Edit: How quickly does google index this site? This post just showed up in a search for xonar alsa!

asus are a really nice company.....

Looks like a great bargain card

Does the Vista x64 support mean that it's bigger brother (the D2), is also now a contender for some Vista loving? I want a card for bitstream Coax out to my AMP instead of onboard and that looks like a good contender...

Newbies will probably want to wait for a new release of their distro of choice, every one else will probably have to compile alsa from source but support is there (don't ask to what level)
Alsa Support Page

Definitely looking in to buying one of these for my new machine.
What is up with Asus these days? They seem to be cranking out great product after great product all across the board.

Originally Posted by kempez
Looks like a great bargain card

Does the Vista x64 support mean that it's bigger brother (the D2), is also now a contender for some Vista loving? I want a card for bitstream Coax out to my AMP instead of onboard and that looks like a good contender...

Yea, the drivers get updated top to bottom.

Originally Posted by Bindibadgi
Yea, the drivers get updated top to bottom.

Excellent thanks Bindi, great review as usual :)

Revewing a soundcard without Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon?

Blasphemy.

I would expect it would work under linux as the chipset it uses is suported by the alsa project. As quite alot of people on bit-tech use linux have bit-tech considered running at least a compatibility check for hardware reveiws?

once they are in stock here in nz, i know what i am buying! :D

Deleted

Originally Posted by Kipman725
I would expect it would work under linux as the chipset it uses is suported by the alsa project. As quite alot of people on bit-tech use linux have bit-tech considered running at least a compatibility check for hardware reveiws?

I know Linux about as much as I know about how to launch a rocket into space.

Its easy, burny stuff in the bottom, stick match onto burny stuff and remember to point it upwards :)

I don't really think a compatibility test is really necessary, a ten minute search will give you its linux compatibility.

Sounds like a great card to me - loving the review Bindi. It'll be high on the list when/if I fancy a sound upgrade tbh. Proper EAX support is a boon, because although it might be on its way out, it's still nice to have. :)

Originally Posted by Krikkit
Sounds like a great card to me - loving the review Bindi. It'll be high on the list when/if I fancy a sound upgrade tbh. Proper EAX support is a boon, because although it might be on its way out, it's still nice to have. :)

It's not "proper" - for all we know (speculatively speaking here) Creative could introduce a security flag in future EAX games that look for Creative drivers etc. Or, Asus support could just be broken - we did have to wait a couple of weeks for a Bioshock patch, however it was just weeks rather than months++

Sake why not have the 'good' spdif connector as standard and provide an adapter for 3.5mm :< I take it that port can be used with good ole' copper plugs for something too?

Maybe having decent competition will spur creative into action now. Ive never come across a company which has neglected its clients as much as they have... all because they have pretty much had a monopoly of the sound card (non integrated) market. For a long long time I had to put up with snap, crackle and pop on my X-FI whilst playing BF2... all down to dodgy driver support.

And dont even get me started on their buggy driver bloated installs.

Welcome to party Asus... If I were to ever buy a soundcard again I would consider the DX. The problem is.. HD onboard audio is good enough for most people these days. Atleast the DX is up for consideration... unlike anything Creative sells.

Originally Posted by Article
specifically uses not only solid aluminium capped capacitors, but also low ESR surface mount ones. Gigabyte also uses this type of caps on some of its premium DQ6 motherboards because they are particularly niche. They induce less interference in the PCB compared to traditional DIP capacitors that the XtremeGamer uses.

Uh... What?

SMT Caps are used purely for mechanical reasons (they can be soldered with the SMT reflow process, rather than having to have an additional wave soldering step in the process). There is no benefit to having SMT caps other than the ability to reduce the number or steps involved in manufacturing, and perhaps the fact that they couldn't have ICs on the bottom side of the board if it had to be wave soldered.


Incidentally, essentially anyone involved in recording or who is to any extent an audiophile is probably going to wince when you give them an internal soundcard.

Bit-tech should review an actual high end soundcard or two. Something by M-Audio or DigiDesign or even E-MU (though they've been bought out by creative) would be nice.

Originally Posted by Wolfe
Bit-tech should review an actual high end soundcard or two. Something by M-Audio or DigiDesign or even E-MU (though they've been bought out by creative) would be nice.

Why, only a few people could/would make use of them. A discrete sound card, imo, is better than on board for a simple reason, i don't want to listen to every piece of data that is exchanged inside the box.

Originally Posted by Wolfe
Uh... What?

SMT Caps are used purely for mechanical reasons (they can be soldered with the SMT reflow process, rather than having to have an additional wave soldering step in the process). There is no benefit to having SMT caps other than the ability to reduce the number or steps involved in manufacturing, and perhaps the fact that they couldn't have ICs on the bottom side of the board if it had to be wave soldered.

Incidentally, essentially anyone involved in recording or who is to any extent an audiophile is probably going to wince when you give them an internal soundcard.

There's levels of audio-snobbery we have to accept.

I've been told otherwise from the Taiwanese about SMT capacitors compared to DIPs with regards to ESR, but yea, it could also be a manufacturing ++

Originally Posted by steveo_mcg
Why, only a few people could/would make use of them. A discrete sound card, imo, is better than on board for a simple reason, i don't want to listen to every piece of data that is exchanged inside the box.

That's true.

I guess what really bothers me is the representation of this soundcard as being "high end"... It's not.

It's a fancy gamer soundcard, and that's about it. If it was left at that, it would be one thing. However, when you start discussing SNR, channel seperation, noise levels and such, you're really venturing into the audiophile range anyways. When you posit that this is a "high end" card in that light, it's an obvious falsehood.

Even if it's never reviewed, it would be interesting to have the data from a decent (what's a better adjective, professional?) soundcard (m-audio, etc...) for comparative purposes.