Hello everyone! I'm getting my teeth into reviewing stuff. I did do something on here for my Sabertooth X58 board, but I want to do a bit more now. My first product is the Asus Xonar U3. I will be tweaking the layout/font/colours tonight as I'm not entirely happy; but the actual review shouldn't change. I welcome all feedback and questions about this either in here or via PM. That includes any suggestions with site design as I have NULL design flare. Without further delay, I present: http://theomnituens.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/review-001-bulbasaur-i-mean-asus-xonar.html (Sadly, someone is sat on the url I wanted, nothing since 04 ) Happy Reading!
Feedback time! -> You should specify which headphone you use, and it should be good enough ones (like 100-150$ ones), would have been good to know how it compares with a dedicated sound card, like another Xonar card. For a blog review, I think the rest is fine. Not very informative per say. But considering the limited resources, it's good. I like the open box. Would be nice to have a shot of all the accessories. Here are my opinion on the ASUS U3. -> It is no desktop dedicated sound card by far. -> "Super ground" claim from the ASUS U3 is not very true. While it does rule out A LOT of the interference, and is grounded. But you still hear interference. A way to know without equipment, I think, is to test, is to plug it via normal speakers (not PC as some have a regulator to diminish it), and hear at about 50% volume on both. The problem is that on laptops, the ground is common, and used by all components. So, USB ground is affected. Usually the ground problem is not there on battery, but is so when plugged in. So when plugged in you her the interference and/or static, but not on battery. -> The Xonar control panel images are too highly compressed. -> When you unplug and plug the Xonar the drivers, most of the time, doesn't auto switch the default sound card, from your laptop or desktop sound card to the Xonar. So, let's say the Xonar U3 is removed, because I am on the go, I come to a place, plug my Xonar U3 in, headphone in, play a video or play music... audio comes out from my laptop speakers. This is especially true in Windows 8 (in fact it's all the time in Windows 8). -> The Xonar sound panel is hard to navigate. Their is no alternative Windows one. Heck, even Creative has one. -> The Xonar sound panel does not work properly in Windows 8. But to their defense they are no official Windows 8 drivers. -> The 2 Blue LED's are 99% useless. Yes it tell you that your U3 has power and not muted. But that could have been a small LED indicator on the corner. The dual LED wastes power, and are very bright. -> I agree that the design could have been made smaller. I think they did large (and the fake speaker grids) to have some sort of air flow, because it does get slightly warm after long usage. That could have been fixed, I am sure, if they used a metal case, and act as a heatsink. So that is why it feels a bit cheap. -> The current U3 design, blocks other USB ports. BUT, Assu does provide a small cable extender to solve that problem, so no worries if you need your USB ports. -> The Xonar U3 while MASSIVELY better than all laptop sound card, and better than any onboard sound card solution on desktop, it is nothing near to a dedicated sound card, such as my very old X-Fi Xtream Music. -> Glossy plastic. Despite me warping it in a nice soft cloth, which I use to clean my laptop screen, it still managed to get all scratch. Am I happy with my purchase? Yes! Will i recommend it, Definitely! What would I change? It would be nice if there was a Express Card version that ends flat to the edge of the laptop, so that you can insert the sound card and leave it in. (someone got to use that thing on laptops! Its PCI-E 1x too! (I tell you, they should make a PCI-E 4x version, so that you have graphic cards.) Anyway, this is all wishful thinking, and I understand why they don't do it, as most consumer laptop, don't have it (then again because they are no hardware for it). Ignoring that point, rectify the downsides. The increase in sound quality would be nice, but I know it would mean that it would need to be bigger and.or consume more power. It's already a massive increase in sound quality, inexpensive, doesn't consume a lot of power, and is quiet close or on par to low end dedicated sound card on the desktop. If I had to score it: -> Compared to other similar products in sound quality: 8/10 -> Compared to all sound cards I heard: 6/20 (my laptop sound card would be a 1/10) -> Assuming price: 9/10 - highly recommended. BUT would prefer to pay more for an improved version that solved the mentioned points. -> Assuming the entire package, features, software and drivers (but not the price): 7/10. Big points loss for the drivers. They are at least light and fairly small. Make that a 9/10 with the price. Personally I would have preferred that the developer invest more time on getting the driver features more robust, Windows 8 support, and simply use Windows default layout, then try to get this silly and in my opinion, not very nice interface, and special effects that NO ONE uses. What I don't get, is that all that energy was spend on this custom layout, and highly compressed JPG pictures were used. I am come on! I know I can redo all the images myself if I was bored, as they are just in the install directory, but come on! Oh an point on your blog post: Volume control should not be on the sound card, that's just silly. It should be controlled via the OS. These days the great majority of laptops and desktop keyboard have volume control.
Thanks for the Feedback Goodbytes - I did mention in the blog that I used my Razer Carcharis headset (£70ish). I'll probably make that a bit clearer next time. I did notice that it didn't switch to the Xonar automatically - but my rig at work disables its sound card when the jack is removed and so DOES switch. So I don't think that's a fault with the Xonar, more the fact that Windows doesn't have any reason to switch. I went for a more casual approach as sometimes a review can feel very... impersonal. I want to show that I'm actually using these products in a real environment under real conditions. Already got my next review lined up - some Powerline adaptors to sort out my home network... as its a bit cobbled together.
Ok I take something back. I have opened my U3 because I like to open stuff, and I was wrong. It's made big for no reason. The hardware inside is so thin and small that they could have made a ExpressCard version that will fit nice and flush with the system, with even the headphone/mic ports embedded, like if it was part of the laptop, and still have room on board. The thickest part is the USB plug. Also, I thought that they made it tick and 2 air hole for air flow and tried to hide it with 2 blue leds.. well guess what? The processor is on the underside touching the bottom of the case. 0 air flow. Its just empty space for no reason, and 2 useless blue LED's, consuming power for nothing. And the speaker grid are closed at the inside (just transparent under to allow the light of the blue LED's pass... so really.. no air flow. It's just thick for 0 reason. Oh and the PCB where the 2 LED's are, says LED 3 and LED 4... can't seams to find any marking for 1, 2... nor anything else light up. So I guess during design process they thought of have 2 more useless LED's.
