Hardware Asus Xonar Xense Audio Bundle Review

okay I know the ASUS Xonar DS is the low end card pretty much their crap range but in terms of their other budget cards the DX and D1 which is better or are they both the same card just the X means PCI-E? Im looking at this as a temp solution until I can buy the higher end models later down the road.

 

The D1 and the DX are the exact same card. The only difference is the interface.

 

thanks, I figured as much but it doesnt hurt to be sure.

 

Nevermind on buying their budget line, I was able to get my hands on an ASUS Xonar D2X/XDT for half off. Hopefully I will be really impressed with this card over my onboard sound. Thanks anyhow for your help.

 

at some point I get an x-fi sound card again as I miss creative things that my d2x is missing (automatic 2 to 5.1 upmix, the elevation and direction sound)

d2x is an good sound just missing creative stuff and driver updates (fix the sound looping issues)

 

Well I havent owned a creative card since umm 2002/03 roughly so I dont think I would be missing much in terms of what the DX2 I bought may lack in either way Im looking for at the audio quality improving for when I watch blu-ray movies and so forth more so then traditional means, of course gaming sound improvements would be a nice plus too

 

okay I was going to add to my earlier comment but they dont have the link to dicuss this in the forums versus the quick post option that doesnt give edit ability... anyhow...

Its interesting that the best sound card from ASUS for the most part is still the D2X and its variants and yet its nearly a 2-3 year old card, so there hasnt been much advancements on the audio side of things, I mean I guess its nice because you get your moneys worth.

 

Can't you use Dolby Pro Logic II to upmix 2 to 5.1? The Xonars come with a whole host of Dolby technologies.

Also Dobly Headphone/Dolby Virtual Speaker should be a good equivalent to Creative's CMSS-3D. Xonar can even emulate all the EAX effects that the X-Fi has.

Honestly I don't know of anything the X-Fi has that Xonar doesn't have a good equivalent for.

 

just i have to mess with the setting when ever i am using the 5.1 speakers i have to set the input to 2 speakers output 5.1 never had to do this with the creative drivers

most likely going to sell the D2X and buy the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty with I/O Drive and maybe get headphones as well (the front I/O disabled the main speakers when they are plugged in and Switches to headphone mode)

was looking at Creative HS-980 MarkII Fatal1ty but are there any good 5.1 headphones that are worth it, the X-FI did an very good job at correctly directing 5.1 sound to an 2 speaker headphones most likely got me banned from some servers as well (admin's/mods hate been owned) as i sometimes do have issues correctly finding players with the D2X that are above or below me where as the X-FI you could work out if they was above you or below

 

I'm still waiting for my pci-e version of the ST + H6 Asus....