Xonar essence stx audio center to match your headphone impedance. Has problems with low impedance phones, a bit tricky mounting discreet opamps note. Since hunting the forums for info on a new set of headphones grado sr80i i spotted info on the xonar essence stx. Xonar essence stu essence hifi audio asus east africa. Asus xonar essence stx user manual pdf download manualslib. A real world example is the behringer uca202 with a 50 ohm output impedance. Xonar essence stx achieves unprecedented 124 db snr 64 times clear than onboard solutions, bringing topothe shelf audio experience for audiophiles. So, i have asus xonar essence stx sound card, and dont really have any clue about impedance, and what headphones to use with the sound card. Rog supremefx 8channel high definition audio codec s1220 impedance sense for front and rear headphone outputs. Feb 12, 2011 the greater the output impedance the greater the voltage drop with lower impedance loads. The audiophiliac compares low and highimpedance headphones and explains how they work. I can adjust the sound cards impedance in 3 levels. For example, low impedance headphones will work well with equipment with weak amplification like portable music players, phones, and other portable devices. Asus xonar essence stx 124 db snr headphone amp card.
Thats high enough to color the sound on lower impedance headphones. Asus xonar essence stx ii sound cards computeruniverse. What headsets would you recommend to use with an asus xonar u7. With a builtin headphone amp that can power headphones up to 600 ohms and 6. Personally, i like to put a big headphone like a hd600 on something with about 300mw or better. Apr 10, 2010 i currently have a xonar dx sound card, which i am pretty happy with was a big improvement over the onboard card. Experience profound musicality thanks to highquality muses opamps and an additional opamp swap kit. Oct 15, 20 i already ordered a pair of sennheiser hd 800 headphones and hifiman he500 planer magnetic headphones to kick off my audiophile journey but i was powering them with an asus xonar stx sound card. Internal sound cards free delivery possible on eligible purchases. Typically, the power limit for lowimpedance headphones is current.
Unquestionably excellent and an easy winner of our oc3d gold award. Equipping the xonar essence stx with the best components and the finest design, the stx delivers a topoftheline audio experience with a 124 db snr rating. Optimized power delivery is assured with lowdropout ldo regulators and wima. Xonar essence stu essence hifi audio asus hong kong. Worth keeping in mind here that the lower the impedance, the.
Xonar essence stx and asio steve hoffman music forums. There are two issues with output impedance 1 interaction between the output impedance and the headphones own impedance 2 damping factor. It will power the hd 555 very very good with no amp because of the high sensitivity neglect the impedance in ohms, the denon d2000 is only 25 ohms but low sensitivity and hence has difficulty playing on the xonar dx without an amp for the denon you would need the xonar stx with built in headphone amp. The xonar essence stx qa, tweaking, impressions thread. The new product also includes an exclusive op amp swap kit to let. Asus xonar essence ststx soundcards specifications. When moving on to higher impedance headphones, both devices are underpowered as expected from smartphones but the iphone 5 did a lot better here. Asus announces xonar essence stu external sound card and. Page 10 connects to a graphics card with hdmi output.
As a reminder, theyre relatively high impedance 300. Everything from low to high impedance headphones, studio monitors and regular surround systems is supported. The stx, which is almost identical except for its pci express interface and a few other minor differences, notably the. People have reported problems with low impedance headphones. Asus xonar essence stx ii hifi quality sound card with. The zxr, the asus xonar stx stx ii and a few others. Essence stx ii delivers industryleading 124db snr audio clarity, a muchenvied quality inherited from the revolutionary and widelyacclaimed essence stx sound card and up to 64 times 64x better than typical onboard audio hardware. Disappointing only in that it hints at greatness while falling short. The highest gain setting of 300600ohms provides the best sound quality, and its a perfect match for example with hd580hd600hd650, all these headphones have an impedance range of 300ohms to 600ohms. Do not set the impedance much higher as it may damage the headphones. Ultra low jitter a highprecision clock is crucial to.
You will get sound, and it may even be loud enough, but itll be flat for lack of a better word. May 06, 2014 when you use the xonar card, the xonar card upconverts stereo using dolby pro logic ii and then encodes it using lossy dolby digital ex to be sent over spdif to your receiver. It is musical and lively and pleasant, but its not the last word in either authority or refinement. Great quality components and swappable opamps allowing for easy tweaking. Both did not have the power to provide enough bass on my dt770 headphones due to its higher impedance. So far, all of our tests employed sennheisers hd 800 headphones. If you have a low impedance headset headphone, please do not switch to high gain setting. The powerful ti lme headphone amp lets you gareo the full garsoo of your gaming headset. Comparison of volume gain amps reference audio analyzer. The asus xonar essence stx is a leading audiophile sound card. And use the fiio e12 for your lower ohm headphones, for music or any. Buy asus pciexpress x1 sound card xonar essence stx 90yaa0c00uan00z.
Oct 08, 20 id say the asus xonar essence stu usb dac and headphone amplifier makes a very good desktop music playing companion. Theres the option to plug a 600 ohms headphone, so i was wondering how much better it could be. Or grab an asus xonar essence stx soundcard, which actually has a semidecent onboard headphone amp. Asus essence stx ii hifi quality sound card with 124db.
What does it take to turn the pc into a hifi audio platform. Headphones may have impedance that varies across their frequency responses. Unlike most sound cards, the xonar essence stx eschews 18inch connectors on its mounting bracket in favor of more robust 14inch headphone out, 14inch line or micin, and stereo linelevel. The new stx ii has on windows at least an interesting feature for use with low impedance headphones, see impeccable headphone. Headphone gain selection toggle the switch to change between low or high headphone gain settings. Clean and consistent power supply thanks to highfidelity low dropout ldo regulators and. When switching between high and low gain settings, please remove the connected headphones headset before. Industryleading 124db snr signaltonoise ratio audio quality inherited from the revolutionary and widelyacclaimed xonar essence st stx. Anyhoos, yes the xonar dgx should have a bit more oomph than a typical integrated sound codec. Ive got a xonar dsx similar to the dgx just with a different dac and no added amp and a small external headphone tube amp, a bravo v2. Need help finding good replacement with lower output impedance. Asus essence stx ii hifi quality sound card with 124db snr clarity topnotch headphone amplifier and premium tcxo clock source, keeping the audiophile spirit and philosophy alive, legendary audio quality that just got better.
Asus xonar essence stx what does it take to turn the pc. Optimized power delivery is assured with lowdropout ldo regulators and wima capacitors. Aug 31, 2015 hi my name is jim and today i bought gamezero sentheizer i have my asus xonar stx but i have some questions gamezero is 150 ohms headset but i put the 150 ohms from the amplier from asus stx and the volume was too slow i was putting 100 and in all the games the sound was low. This drop can be large to enough to prevent driving low impedance. Confused newbie with questions about dacs and headphone. Buy asus xonaressencestx xonar essence stx sound card 24bit 192 khz 124 db snr stereo pcie asus av100. For high resistance headphones the power limit is voltage. Asus xonar essence stu usb dac and headphone amplifier. Why we need to test low impedance headphones soon page 18. Asio on the xonar stx st series of cards absolutely overrides the windows sample rate, as does wasapi. Unless the stx has upped its power output, a good amp will be an upgrade. Dec 23, 2017 thanks for asking, and no, im not using skype, thats not the problem, cause the sound is never loud enough, nvm if im talking on team speak or not, next week i will buy, asus xonar dgx, and logitech g430, and i hope my ears blow up at 100% volume, cause now is so bad play games at 100% and feel that is not loud enough, that headphones are 32 ohm impedance so i hope that the sound. The source is an asus xonar essence stx sound card and the os is. Yes, i would say the headphones will be fine, as your mobo onboard audio has an impedance sensor.
This drop can be large to enough to prevent driving low impedance headphones to sufficiently loud levels. Its capable of driving fairly high impedance headphones. Android smartphones apple iphones sony smartphones. Also, sound card manufacturers may prefer the use of a single smt chip for the headphone amplifier. I avoided looking at the datasheet since the output impedance could also depend on the implementation. In general, low impedance headphones which we will hereby define as below 50 ohms are designed to work properly with portable devices. Stx o2 benchmark 1 vioelectric neutral amps although there is more to this than merely output impedance, but a good rule of thumb is that for a dynamic headphone, if your amps impedance is less than 18th that of your phone, youll be fine. The essence stx boasts extremely impressive numbers across the board and this card has a dedicated high impedance headphone amplifier meant to power those high end headphones which usually require. Last time i looked into it a few years back, the stx puts out something like 70mw. This means that low impedance headphones will sound louder when plugged in devices with low output voltages such as portable cd players, etc.
In reality, because of the limited power available from portable players, headsets for portable use should have a maximum impedance of 64 ohms. Hifi quality sound card with 124db snr clarity, topnotch headphone amplifier and premium tcxo clock source. The only issue ive run into with my xonar stx is that the output impedance of the amp is 10ohms. Essence stx ii delivers industryleading 124db snr audio clarity. With the lowgain setting for lowimpedance phones, all distortion harmonics other than the third were buried beneath the noise floor, even into 300 ohms fig. An stx or o2odac or superlux ha3diphone is as good as it gets. I mainly use the pc for music movies with the odd bit of gaming. What the word impedance means and what the effects on. Will this card have to much impedance for a headset like philips fidelio x1 or x2. Now im wondering what sort of equipment i will need for this. But what about asuss xonar essence stx, which implements the ti tpa6120a2 datasheetrecommended 10. The digital inputs can handle up to 24192 playback, the overall presentation is fit and fun, its analog volume control functions well without any obvious sonic degradation, and the headphone amp offers some flexibility with its. The line output impedance was a moderately low 99 ohms at all frequencies.
In may of 2009, asus launched its xonar essence st. It is why the essence stx is actively discussed on audio forums such as. Crosshair v formulaz with the asus xonar essence stx soundcard. The stx s frequency responses at sample rates of 44. Another alternative is a small external headphone amp. Im looking to do some instrumental recording, and im thinking of purchasing a at2020 xlr to connect to this soundcard. Headphones with higher impedance 25 ohms and over, approximately. Microphone in port connect your external pc microphone to this port for voice input. Asus xonar essence stx hi test report a newbiedummies. The reason for this apparently unnecessary connection is that the output impedance in the portable headphone amp, a fiio e12 mont blanc, is much lower than that of the headphone output in the stx and therefore more suitable for driving low impedance headphones i have a few of them. Use the headphone gain setting at your own risk and make sure you know what youre doing. I just got an asus xonar stx and im pretty happy with it.
However, the tpa6120 can output more power into low impedance loads although this is mostly useful only for orthodynamic headphones, as it has a higher current limit than even two parallel njm4556s. Xonar essence stx hd600, iphone fiio e11 athm50s original poster 1 point 6 years ago i shouldve prefaced this in the post, but ive been using the setup including the internal headphone amp for about a month now and to me it sounds fantastic and im very satisfied with the performance. I have an akg k518 dj, i think it is good, but it hurts my ears after some time using it because of its sealed closedback design, so i think its time to buy a new one to pair it with my. Xonar essence stu offers readily accessible switching between low and high gain settings, accommodating better listening experiences across a wide range of headphones, from inear headsets typically 16ohm32ohm to premium fullsize headphones up to 600ohm. If your xonar card has a dedicated headphone amplifier, set the soundcards output impedance gain. In my experience ive got a pair of dt880 600ohm plugging 600ohm headphones directly into a computer or other amp designed for low impedance headphones results in pretty poor sound. Most headphones with low impedance less than 25 ohms, approximately require little power to deliver high audio levels. Xonar best audio settings guide it and uni xonar drivers. Why we need to test lowimpedance headphones soon what. Lg g7 hifi quad dac off, low impedance headphone connected 1630 ohm, 9. Asus xonar essence stu usb dac and headphone amplifier launched fremont, ca october 22nd, 20 asus today announced the xonar essence stu usb external digit trending. So phones that are 80100 ohm or more will be just fine.
The builtin headphone amplifier supports up to 600ohm impedance so audiophiles can plug in the finest highimpedance headphones to enjoy the pure quality delivered by essence stx ii. Or should i sell my xonar dx and get something like a sound blaster zxr 20 ohm output or asus stx 10ohm output, but both headphone amps built in. For example, the fiio e9 which uses the same tpa6120 has an output impedance of 10 on the large jack and an output impedance of 43 on the small jack. Connecting at2020 to xonar essence stx soundcard recording. Hello and thx for alsa im using it on ubuntulinux mint to get the best out of my asus xonar essence stx sound card and it just works great.
May 07, 20 i currently own a xonar essence stx sound card, which i use in combination with a highend high impedance headphone hd650. Pardon if i have anything wrong, i just learned all about home theater and i was able to get the knack of it and now im working on headphones for my gaming computer, i just learned how to use asio. Which i am honestly very surprised about, as i have low noise fans noctuas and i cannot troubleshoot why there would be noise. Mar 24, 2009 xonar essence stx one thing that is immediately apparent about the xonar essence stx is the absence of the 18 jacks normally used on most cards for io. Digital live dolby headphone dolby virtual speakerdolby prologic ii. Okay, so i stream audio through my computer to either headphones, drop sennheiser hd 6xxs, or to my stereo system, a. Despite its small size, xonar u3 plus features a host of studiograde vocal effects including a dedicated band equalizer, precision low and high frequency filters, as well as reverb adjustment to add a sense of environmental space. Clean and consistent power supply thanks to highfidelity low dropout ldo.
Asus xonar essence stx upgraded with supreme sound v5 opamps. If the xonar d1 and dx use the ti 6120 headphone amp like the stx, etc. I used a wide variety of music as i usually do to test the. Headphone impedance and asus xonar saoundcard question. Audiophiles can plug in the finest highimpedance headphones to enjoy the pure quality delivered by essence stx ii with the builtin headphone amplifier. For instance, i can record and playback perfectly well at 192 khz sample rate i set on the asus control panel regardless of whether the windows sample rate is set to 44. Theoretically, sending uncompressed stereo to the receiver and letting the receiver perform the upconversion is the better option because the entire chain is lossless. Woo audio wa7 fireflies usb dac and headphone amp w. Asus today announced the xonar essence stu usb external digitaltoanalog converter dac and headphone amplifier, based on the acclaimed design and quality of xonar essence st stx internal sound cards and going beyond their already high standards.
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