ASUS Xonar DX or similar soundcard

[kris]

Hi, I am on the lookout for the Xonar DX. I will also consider similar creative or Auzen cards.. Thanks!!

--- Updated Post - Automerged ---

bump!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[kris]

bump!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[kris]

Bump to the top!!!!

 

[Torch]

I have a 3 month old X-Fi Titanium PCIe for sale.

http://www.techenclave.com/video-and-audio-hardware/creative-x-fi-titanium-pci-express-173536.html

Small comparison between the Xonar and X-Fi:

Xonar DX supports *only EAX 5* though GSDX emulation. It doesn't support EAX 3 & 4 etc. meaning you won't get effects in most EAX games except for the very latest ones that use EAX 5.

For playing surround sources through headphones, Creative's CMSS3D headphone is MILES ahead of Dolby Headphone which sounds all muffled and the rear channels appear to play from the side instead of the back.

Xonar DX does Pro Logic IIx decoding, which means you can get surround sound from emulated PS2 games etc. Creative does their own CMSS3D upmixing which doesn't extract pre-encoded surround channels from stereo sources.

 

[jit_devil2]

I have a 3 month old X-Fi Titanium PCIe for sale.
http://www.techenclave.com/video-and-audio-hardware/creative-x-fi-titanium-pci-express-173536.html

Small comparison between the Xonar and X-Fi:
Xonar DX supports *only EAX 5* though GSDX emulation. It doesn't support EAX 3 & 4 etc. meaning you won't get effects in most EAX games except for the very latest ones that use EAX 5.

For playing surround sources through headphones, Creative's CMSS3D headphone is MILES ahead of Dolby Headphone which sounds all muffled and the rear channels appear to play from the side instead of the back.

Xonar DX does Pro Logic IIx decoding, which means you can get surround sound from emulated PS2 games etc. Creative does their own CMSS3D upmixing which doesn't extract pre-encoded surround channels from stereo sources.

:no::no::no::no::no:

 

[Torch]

:no::no::no::no::no:

On what account? You'd best do some research before buying stuff. Unless you favor higher SNR over proper hardware acceleration for gaming there is no reason to get the Xonar over the Auzentech or Creative cards. The whole Eax/DirectSound/OpenAl debacle is the most misunderstood and misinformed issue in history with people talking crap without knowing shit.

Of course it comes down to whether you care or not. You can always have the typical Indian mentality and get the cheapest possible shit without care for anything else.

 

[jit_devil2]

On what account? You'd best do some research before buying stuff. Unless you favor higher SNR over proper hardware acceleration for gaming there is no reason to get the Xonar over the Auzentech or Creative cards. The whole Eax/DirectSound/OpenAl debacle is the most misunderstood and misinformed issue in history with people talking crap without knowing shit.

Of course it comes down to whether you care or not. You can always have the typical Indian mentality and get the cheapest possible shit without care for anything else.

for gaming x-fi's are better but for music n movies xonars are miles ahead.and do your research too xonars can only do eax 2.0 n somewhat 3.0 thru hardware.it emulates eax 5.0 n 4.0 n does a ok job..........

n please the only people prefering cmss3d are people who love fake n biased sounds.it really depends on the buyers requirements.if gaming is the priority x-fi wins.............but movies/music being the major requirement xonars hands down.

 

[Torch]

but for music n movies xonars are miles ahead.

Huh? That's makes no sense, at all. For music and movies a sound card does nothing, absolutely NOTHING at all other than output the software rendered audio stream. The only factor that matters is the SNR and other measurements pertaining to the physical output quality. Any aftermarket sound card is almost imperceptible from one another in this respect for any audio system you're going to hook up to a PC. The only way you're going to notice a difference is when using IEMs, but the last thing you want to do is connect a pair of IEMs to a PC with so much electrical noise.

That leaves only one other meaningful job for the sound card... hardware acceleration, where the Xonar falls flat on its face next to Auzentech and Creative. After all the long standing audio issues in games, its clear that they have no intention of rectifying it. They are just selling a high SNR output device, that's all.

and do your research too xonars can only do eax 2.0 n somewhat 3.0 thru hardware.it emulates eax 5.0 n 4.0 n does a ok job..........

All cards including onboard do EAX 2.0. It emulates only EAX 5.0 and does a piss poor job of it.

n please the only people prefering cmss3d are people who love fake n biased sounds.

I should have been clearer. CMSS3D is ONLY for listening to multichannel sources on stereo/headphones. In this it is the best sounding holophonic solution I have heard, far superior to Dolby Headphone and Q-Sound. I despise using it for anything else such as playing stereo sources on surround speakers as it is obviously artificial bullshit.

it really depends on the buyers requirements.if gaming is the priority x-fi wins.............but movies/music being the major requirement xonars hands down.

Again, for non-gamers ANY decent sound card, its meaningless getting one over the other, as the sound card inherently does nothing.

BTW I've dropped the price in light of the recent retail price changes.

 

[jit_devil2]

Huh? That's makes no sense, at all. For music and movies a sound card does nothing, absolutely NOTHING at all other than output the software rendered audio stream. The only factor that matters is the SNR and other measurements pertaining to the physical output quality. Any aftermarket sound card is almost imperceptible from one another in this respect for any audio system you're going to hook up to a PC. The only way you're going to notice a difference is when using IEMs, but the last thing you want to do is connect a pair of IEMs to a PC with so much electrical noise.

That leaves only one other meaningful job for the sound card... hardware acceleration, where the Xonar falls flat on its face next to Auzentech and Creative. After all the long standing audio issues in games, its clear that they have no intention of rectifying it. They are just selling a high SNR output device, that's all.

i know a huge population of soundcard owners/audiophiles to an extent who would very agressively disagree.

 

[edge111hussain]

for gaming x-fi's are better but for music n movies xonars are miles ahead.and do your research too xonars can only do eax 2.0 n somewhat 3.0 thru hardware.it emulates eax 5.0 n 4.0 n does a ok job..........

n please the only people prefering cmss3d are people who love fake n biased sounds.it really depends on the buyers requirements.if gaming is the priority x-fi wins.............but movies/music being the major requirement xonars hands down.

You dont know what ur talking about.. miles ahead, fake and biased sound... really???

 

[jit_devil2]

You dont know what ur talking about.. miles ahead, fake and biased sound... really???

actually i do.being a creative owner i guess you know that cmss3d feature is sth you will either hate or love(check creative forums).m the one who hates it.so that might be a bit harsh on my part.but xonars definitely edges creatives formidably in music/movies.i did own a xtremegamer for a couple of months too before the xonars.
neways this is a wtb thread.i guess for any more discussions you can visit audio zone.we can continue our discussion there if you want to.

 

[Torch]

actually i do.being a creative owner i guess you know that cmss3d feature is sth you will either hate or love(check creative forums).

CMSS3D is good only as a holophonic downmixing solution for surround to stereo. ANY form of stereo to surround upmixing is bullshit, no matter who its from.

xonars definitely edges creatives formidably in music/movies.i did own a xtremegamer for a couple of months too before the xonars.

Again, WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN?? In what way? What objective measurement?? The sound card does ABSOLUTELY NO WORK when listening to music. Only thing that is relevant here is the DACs. No matter how good they are, being inside a PC will introduce electrical noise. The only sensible thing to do if you're concerned about SNR is to use a optical cable from the PC to an external DAC. For which a sound card is meaningless altogether. Onboard optical will function exactly the same.

 

[jit_devil2]

xonars use cirrus logic dacs n they are indeed very good.n using an optical connection is a different question altogether.if someones using low budget creative/logitech 5.1s with no optical support which i presume most people do nowdays the xonars will obviously sound better because of higher quality dacs.how many people do you know using 5.1 external dacs.they are rare hard to get n very pricey.

eax is xfis forte yes.but seriously how many modern games use eax 5.0.its dead for most game devs.

 

[Torch]

Very convenient of you to completely avoid my question. You've more or less admitted that its no different from any of the other 100 cards that have quality DACs.

As a bonus Asus gives you broken hardware acceleration and charges you a premium for it.

 

[jit_devil2]

and as far as your question...........subjective listening is the only way to judge sounds.i am speaking from my experience of hearing what both soundcards have to offer.well have you heard the xonar personally to draw a conclusion?and google it i think most forums communities n review sites do share the same subjective perception.

but to your defence your card is a titanium one of creatives best offerings according to me.and until the xonars hit the market it used to be priced way higher.

i really have been comparing the xonar to xfis of similar budget.........i never heard the titanium personally so dont exactly know how it fares against the xtremegamers and xtreme music on a basis of dacs and opamps used for the make.

 

[edge111hussain]

^^^

Dude even when it comes to the xi-fi's, ur claim of xonar being miles ahead is a load of BS. It really is. I seriously doubt anyone sane would sell a xi-fi gamer and go for a xonar. Yes they would choose 1 over the other but not sell 1 and buy the other.

Im sure that there would be a sound difference, but definitely not to the extent that you seem to be exaggerating.

Coming to software, the xi-fi in gaming mode pretty much kills a xonar DX, no dispute possible here.

@ entertainment mode with 3dmss off too, the xi-fi does perform really well and the titanium even better.

Its a straight choice between the 2. With each having its own advantages and disadvantages. The only major plus that i can say in favour of the xonar is the 3 yr warranty vis a vis 1 yr on creatives.

 

[jit_devil2]

yes i admit noone will sell an extremegamer n go fr a xonar its simply economically idiotic.my case was different.long story.

and fine i admit finding the xonars sound "miles ahead" of the x-fi's in music n movies might be my personal perception and i had put it forward a bit too aggressively.and my sincere apologies.

but will you admit that if given a choice between a xonar dx n an x-fi........(n you using onboard)most people due to the many reviews and suggestions from most audio based community forums would prefer the dx.?

n yes eax is x-fi's forte i admit that but is it really used in any modern games.???mostly devs nowdays are using openal preferably dd 5.1.so isnt x-fi's strength to an extent nullified here? unless ofcourse you are still playing battlefield 2142 n quake 4

 

[edge111hussain]

I dont see why are you stuck with eax.. Dude im simply referring to the sound positioning. Xi-fi's are better in that sense. The dominate the dx's there and every review says the same too.

Secondly i recently heard the dx cause my xi-fi died on me. Hence i mentioned warranty cause because im out of warranty i dont get a replacement and my xi-fi cannot be repaired here. Now i didnt find anything gr8 with the DX. Nothing worth mentioning seriously. The Essence is an altogether different animal though and yes the essence completely dominates a titanium.

So really dude, its a matter of personal preference and one's own perception of the sound quality that each card delivers as per user taste.

 

[Torch]

n yes eax is x-fi's forte i admit that but is it really used in any modern games.???mostly devs nowdays are using openal preferably dd 5.1.so isnt x-fi's strength to an extent nullified here? unless ofcourse you are still playing battlefield 2142 n quake 4

This here shows you have absolutely ZERO knowledge of what EAX, OpenAL, DirectX really is. EAX has absolutely nothing to do with OpenAL or DirectX. DirectX and OpenAL are pure software interfaces to talk to the card. When you use either of these, you tell the card the relative position of the sound and the card plays it through the correct surround speakers. You can optionally tell the card specifically to use EAX effects (which was the only way for effects in DirectX before OpenAL and doesn't work since Vista). When the game uses OpenAL, EAX is fully available on all OSes. The game can also use EFX through OpenAL (which is what almost every new game uses). The X-Fi's EAX 5.0 engine will hardware accelerate EFX as well (EFX is an open standard. Yet the other cards don't support it. They only support plain OpenAL with effectless surround.).

Any other card will simply play surround which sounds flat and crappy in OpenAL. But the X-Fi cards will also provide effects. If you've ever played Dirt 2 on an X-Fi you'll know what you're missing. Games don't advertise EAX anymore because they use EFX that is INTENDED to be supported by all OpenAL cards, but companies like Asus scam you out of it. Instead of some crappy EAX emulation for old games, they could have just implemented EFX over OpenAL properly for new games, but they didn't. EFX games sound so crappy on effectless OpenAL sound cards that Dirt 2 bundled Rapture3D, which is a virtual sound card driver that does EFX in software and then plays the rendered audio through OpenAL through your real sound card. Unsurprisingly, it consumed like 100% of one CPU core while running.

To top it all the very idea of having a high quality analog output from a PC is an oxymoron rendering the existence of any sound card that doesn't actually do any work like EFX meaningless. Auzentech realized this. Onboard audio has caught up so much that there is almost no discernible difference between it an an effectless sound card unless you are using very high end IEMs/speakers. There is almost no reason to buy a sound card for anything other than EFX/EAX.

 

[frankmehta]

I have a Creative XFi XtremeGamer PRO Fatal1ty PCI card with XRAM. Let me know if anyone needs it. I don't need it anymore guys.