Asus Xonar Essence STX II Sound Card

Unlike some reviewers I had no issues installing the card. It went in, drivers loaded and away it went.Originally installed under Windows 7 (64 bit) It also works fine now I've migrated to Windows 10.I was using the Asus Xonar DX previously, and that is a great budget card offering superb sound quality at a ridiculously low price. However, this is a no-compromise audiophile card aimed particularly at headphone users I think. I use BeyerDynamic DT770 Pro 250ohm version headphones so the top end headphone amp was a real plus for me, and as far as that is concerned it does exactly what it says on the tin, easily driving my Beyers to realistic levels with punch, attack and clarity on jazz and soul/funk style music.The whole package (apart from drivers) is top end. Nicely packaged and obviously a well made item.Sound quality is instantly improved over the already pretty impressive Xonar DX with adjustable gain for high impedance headphones. There are 3 settings, Up to 64 ohm, 64-300 ohm and 300-600 ohm impedance. (Just be sure to reduce volume before increasing the gain settings as it will blow your ears!)If there is any similarity between this and the Xonar DX its the driver interface. Very poor and clunky. If the guys at Asus could rewrite the GUI they'd have a real winner.I've found no reason to play around with the alternative op-amps that ship with the card. I find the sound exactly to my taste as shipped and if it ain't broke....However, I'm sure the lure of tinkering will prove too strong eventually, but I'd need somebody to try it first and see what difference they make.So from me its a solid 5 stars for sound (and build) quality but a poor 2 stars for the user interface. Come on Asus, you are letting down a premium product with inferior outdated software.

A worthwhile investment if you're serious about sound quality and want your PC to be a high quality playback device. I made the mistake of going with the Z series to replace my aging X-Fi, which had always had a nice clear, bright sound. Big mistake, Creative dropped it and their newer series, the sound is overly bloated and processed. This put a smile on my face from the start! Sound is huge - crisp and smooth, clean and detailed. There's a huge amount of texture/depth coming through and closer to proper audio equipment (amp) than any PC card i've heard.Set-up was easy, small driver package took 2 seconds to install and get working. Design complaint would be card is not well supported in single PCI-E slot and sags under it's own weight, especially w/ power cable. Think I'm going to have to get some good headphones now. All in all I think you need to get this card!

Absolutely stunning bit of kit. I bought it when my gaming headphones with their fancy in-line USB sound card packed in. I have been moving away from gaming and more towards listening to my music these days, so I thought I’d go for something a little more Hi-Fi. I also picked up some Beyerdynamic Custom One Pro headphones. (I still wanted occasional over-blown bass for occasional gaming. But bass you can then turn off.)I did have to fight to get it working though with Windows 10 Home x64 on a Z77 system. At first, even though it was powered up with the Molex power connection, the Asus driver installation software insisted no such device was installed and quit the installation procedure. Also it was showing up in device manager ONLY as an error on a PCIE bridge. Much swapping around of PCIE slots and testing voltages ensued. And some swearing.It only worked after I disabled my on-board sound in BIOS, and ditched the Asus drivers in favour of UNi Xonar STX II 11.5 v1.75b r2. Not sure if this was a Windows 10 issue and/or only beta drivers available from Asus at the time of writing this. Hope this helps others in my situation, but I could see how to some it would seem like it was a dead product and return it.With everything up and running, and having always used on-board sound and gaming headphones before now, I was stunned. I’m no audiophile and lack the lingo to describe this in any technical way, but the detail and clarity I was now hearing in my music was night-and-day different in every way from what I was used to. Never really appreciated all the quality in the mid-range I was missing before now either. There is also absolutely ZERO hiss when no sound is playing.The software UI looks a little dated, but it works well and is easy to figure out. After going through a few albums with a big grin on my face, I fired up a game with one of the best sound designs I can think of. Battlefield Bad Company 2. I turned on the Dolby 5.1 and jumped into a few rounds, and I was equally impressed. Only a couple of times I got a sense of the sound’s direction ‘jumping’ from one virtual channel to another, but forgivable considering how everything sounded.There is only one major downside. Now any other hardware I listen to music on sounds like ass. Things are about to get very expensive!I have to knock a star off for it being released with only official drivers in a beta state, plus needing a BIOS-tinkering level of knowledge PLUS unofficial drivers to get it running. And a Molex connector. Molex? Really?

Reading the reviews, I had high hopes for this sound card. However, on installing it into a PC containing an Intel DH77EB motherboard, it was not recognised in the PCI Express slot. I had downloaded the latest drivers, but these made no difference. I tried to use Asus support but this was hopeless - as many reviewers have noted elsewhere. I therefore returned the card to Amazon for replacement - fantastic service from Amazon.A new card arrived, and had the same problem. This has been returned to Amazon for a refund. Again, fantastic service from Amazon.I have had no other issues with PCI Express cards in this PC, including video, sound, and 1394a expansion cards. I suggest sticking with on-board audio, or perhaps trying a SoundBlaster PCI Express card.Update: I have since purchased an Arcam irDAC USB 2.0. This is an external DAC that attaches to the PC via a USB2 cable. Considerably more expensive than the Asus sound card at £399, but absolutely fantastic. Read the reviews!