ASUS Xonar DX Sound Card

Comment:
I've had many sound cards in the past as I am a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to sound, but I must say that this card is top notch. The Dolby headphones setting is an excellent enhancement to the listening experience and the 3D software works great in high demand games (tested on BFBC2-war tapes mode). A must buy for those who enjoy sound.

Comment:
Sounds great. No Problems.

Comment:
Was quite impressed from the initial unboxing. Visually, the quality of the card is very apparent, featuring a set of nice plated brackets and connectors. The features included with the XP driver are excellent (product description lists most). Furthermore, users of a Linux or BSD system will find excellent support from ALSA requiring little if any configuration (unlike some other creative companies). And if one couldn't guess, the sound is superb. Likely, this card will leave you wanting to keep tabs on other Asus products.

Comment:
This is better than a great value! My computer is hooked up to my recreation room music system. The integrated sound card was supposed to be Hi Def. After installing the Asus Xonar DX card, the sound quality of my MP3s from my computer through my Yamaha System improved to levels beyond my expectation. This has been the BEST investment in my multimedia center ever; even without all the great added features this card makes available to the user!!

Comment:
Value - While a bit pricey, this card sounds comparable to cards I've purchased in the past costing upwards of $200. Good deal for the level of quality. Features - definitely a different approach to sound mixing, but in a good way. Allows for multiple uses from gaming to entertainment, to computer song mixing. Quality - I have had no problems with this card whatsoever. Performance - I record songs to the computer using this card and a Blue Snowball USB mic, and get incredible frequency ranges with no background buzz, distortion at higher volumes, or multi-track issues that sometimes occur with other cards. Over all - If you are looking for a Med-High quality sound card and are somewhat technologically inclined, this is what you want. Note - Drivers may have to be downloaded from the ASUS website, but are easily accessible.

Comment:
Very easy to configure with Asus Windows 7 drivers (download from website). Performance is really amazing. Points out how mediocre nearly all onboard sound chips are. If you are a critical listener and have decent headphones or speakers, you will probably like this card.

Comment:
First off, read all the requirements for using this card. Last on the list, and probably most important, is that you need really good speakers to use this card properly. The reason is very simple: High-end speakers require less electricity to make a lot of sound, and this efficiency lets ASUS use lower-efficiency amps to achieve higher sound quality. This is the nature of high-end audio, and you can check with anyone to see this is true. You can't run car speakers off vacuum tubes, and if you ran Bose headphones off a car amp, your ears would explode. As for the card, as long as you have said Bose headphones, this is true bliss. Sound is clean, powerful, and enveloping, without being overpowering or beamy. Truly for audiophile gamers, and priced for everyone else. Only buy if you are picky and have speakers to match, but you'll be glad you did!

Comment:
First off, the quality and massive features that come with this card are second to none when it comes to on-board vs this. However if you don't have some good knowledge in DIY tweaking, this product could drive you to return it and get a more hands off simple plug and play. Remember to turn off on-board audio or else you could get problems. Unlike Graphic cards, this sound card does not auto prioritize upon installation. Be careful of third party codec in videos, or applications like classic media player or VLC. The initial drivers that come with this will cause Blue Screen and force a restart if you run some videos with related odd codecs. Updating the drivers and looking for a better ffshow version solved the problem. Don't go experimenting with this cards audio enhancements(namely the 1:10 amp that my on board didn't have) without good speakers, it could blow them. A bit pricey, but a all around good product if you know what your doing when installing it.

Comment:
I built my pc for multimedia,so great video and sound were main priority! this card is Awsome!sound quality is spectacular!I have a 3000$ surround sound system,this thing blows it away! ASUS utility is great! very user friendly,infinite adjustability,not a gammer,but i'm sure this thing rock's for gamming also,more than worth the 90 bucks! thanx tiger! CG

Comment:
Not as easy to configure speaker system with this audio card. Some speakers have sound and some do not. Did not experience this with the sound blasters.

Comment:
The integrated sound on my computer was very poor. After reading the reviews, I installed the Asus Xonar DX PCIe 7.1 sound card, and what a difference. Now I have great bass and all of the tones are great. The equalizer and tone presets are very useful. The user presets are great because you can have your own presets for every kind of music or TV sound. Great product.

Comment:
I bought this card to replace an older card that was having issues. All I can say is WOW! Listening to music now is like hearing it for the first time and the sound quality I get through my games in incredible.

Comment:
Love this card. After two months of great musical experiances I am thriled to have the Asus Xonar. Beleive the other reviews that say the Asus out performs Sound Blaster cards. Plug it in, tie one on...You will hear the difference. Thank you Asus, thank you Tiger Direct.

Comment:
I had it for 1 week, and working well for me. Have not had any problem, just plug it in, install drivers and done. The sound really is nicer than the one came with the computer. I would recommend it. A very nice buy.

Comment:
One word-Wow!In the continuing saga of trying to get the biostar780g to cooperate with all our other stuff in vista, it was decided to go to vista 64. so an audio change was required.We have always been and will be thanks to this, a Cmedia audio facility-they have the ONLY audio system i know of that runs thier EQ at the NAB/IEC standards with a 31hz bottom band. This card looked good on paper and blew everything els including another Cmedia 7.1 pci card out of the water.Cant confirm this as of yet, but i believe this is the CMI8788 or maybe a special rework.Dolby pro encode-decode runs to spec. Gave all my audio test gear in the lab a workout. Cant speak for the gamers, but for live sound, recording or DJ applications it's is awesome-PCDJVJ users- ASIO compliant. Solved all BSOD Issues here.Dump your realtek or IDT for something real- And it is LOUD! Headphones not an issue- The only problem I found was the spectrum display to be a bit sluggish, but hey- you cant hear lights man.BUYit

Comment:
Very nice high-end sound card. Both movie watching and music listening experiences are greatly enhanced. Was very simple to install. Easily the best sound card I have owned to date. A bit expensive but worth the money.

Comment:
Pros: Nice of them to make a PCI Express card as my other regular PCI slots are maxxed out. It comes with a high qualilty mounting plate & terminal plugs. Be sure to read instructions on installing carefully as you need to ignore Windows disire to install on bootup, cancel it & install driver from cd install. I did like the fact that the software has a test mode for making sure all the speakers work one at the time. Cons: The terminals are not color coded at all. In a real world the computer is under a desk with all the rest of the cables plugged in to it, so trying to see which is the correct one with embossed labeling is almost impossible in certain possitions. I ended up plugging into it in reverse order thus I had incorrect sound out of my speakers which were new & thought that they or my sound card was defective after checking the wires. Finally the next day I did discover the mistake. As for the software, it would be nice to have some instructions on the controls.