14 DAY TRIAL // The first impression when meeting Asus' new USB sound card is that you have just seen a UFO. Its unusual design, made of two overlapping cone halves, hides the UA100 audio processor with a Xear 3D audio engine that supports DirectSound 3D, EAX 2.0, Dolby Headphone, Dolby Virtual Speaker, Dolby Pro-Logic IIx, and Dolby Digital Live technologies. The upper cone has been inteligently transformed into a rotational volume knob.
The sound card is primarily to be used with laptops, but desktop systems are supported as well, as long as they are able to provide a USB 2.0 port. The total output power varies around a signal-to-noise ratio of 100 dB. The sound unit comes in six colors, ranging from blue to gunmetal. The metal-like case not only that gives it an interesting UFO-like look, but also shields the inner components from the electromagnetic interference generated by the computer's activity.
The two audio ports located at the base of the Xonar U1 are designed for the microphone and speakers / headphones connectivity. The stereo-array microphone shipped with the sound card is designed especially for voice-over-ip services, as it has the ability to suppress the ambient noise up to 15 dB.
The audio output emulates the surround sound even with a pair of common speakers or with the common stereo headphones. The only problem for the audio passionate is that the soundcard does not provide the necessary connectivity for using 5.1 analog audio equipment, as this requires a minimum of three inputs, while the soundcard only provides two of them.
The audio system is shipped with its special mixer utility - the Audio Center. It controls the way the digital signal is processed. The user can easily modify the way the sound is delivered, but for the common tasks, there are four DSP modes they can choose from: Music, Hi-Fi, Game and Movie.