14 DAY TRIAL // ASUS has recently unveiled its latest Xonar Essence STX lineup of audio cards, said to be able to deliver the purest and cleanest audio, while offering the ultimate user experience. The sound card features carefully-selected components along with ASUS’ exclusive Hyper-grounding and EMI Shield design. The new Xonar Essence STX can deliver an industry-leading 124dB SNR (Signal-to-Noise Ratio) in signal clarity.
The ASUS Xonar Essence STX also features built-in headphone amplifier, offering this way full-driving for any available headphone. The audio quality delivered is unmatched, while the distortion is under 0.001%, which can please even the most demanding audiophile. To make it even more interesting, the design of the card is based on a forty century old paradigm. As a symbol of respect for the ancient pioneers of sound, the Xonar Essence STX features a gold-plated Tiger Chime totem on the EMI shield.
The industry-leading 124 dB SNR (Signal-to-Noise Ratio) delivered by the Xonar Essence STX is 64 times clearer than the most on-board audio solutions (85–88 SNR). Moreover, the board also features the ASUS exclusive Hyper-grounding circuitry design which makes use of a PCB design meant to separate signal and noise. This way, only the cleanest signals pass on to the card's ultra-sensitive components for decoding.
The card includes a top-of-the-line Burr-Brown PCM 1792A Digital-to-Analog Convertor (DAC) which converts audio signals at 127dB signal-to-noise ratios, allowing users to enjoy minimum loss while converting digital signals to analog sound. Moreover, the Nichicon “Fine Gold” capacitors can offer rich bass and crystal-clear high frequencies. Xonar Essence STX can achieve this way an amazing <10 Hz–90 kHz frequency response and 124dB dynamic range. Also, Xonar Essence STX’s EMI shield has been designed to perfectly protect all analog outputs from any exterior electronic magnetic interference.
The built-in headphone amplifier is meant to support any available headphone with up to 600 ohms of impedance. Only the highest density sounds are delivered by the headphones without the need of an extra amplifier. Besides, the Xonar Essence STX also features Swappable OPamp sockets which aim at tuning up unique sounds effortlessly, complete Dolby Home Theater technology, as well as the latest DS3D GX2.5 3D gaming engine technology.