Asus Xonar STX II & Xonar SE 5.1 Soundcard- Review

After years of struggling to get my X-Fi Titanium card drivers to stop breaking I did some research and invested in an Asus sound card the ASUS XONAR SE 5.1. For under $50 I was impressed with the performance of this device. I would say the sound was cleaner than my onboard sound with better representation of mids without compromising bass and treble. I was delighted that for once I can install the drivers and just forget about the sound card as it worked great. The built in headphone amp was more than adequate to drive my Sennhieser HD 599 which is a 50ohms set. Gaming was reasonably good with footsteps clearly delivered is CSGO.

However, when I visited my local PC enthusiast store the owner who knew my past struggles with PC audio had just gotten a stock of the high end Asus Xonar STX II sound cards. After some convincing he stoked my interest and I was now curious if this flagship sound card will make a significant difference in my audio experience. My curiosity got the better of me and I found myself walking out with my new STX II. When paired with a decent pair of headphones such as the Sennhieser HD 599 I was pleasantly surprised on how much detail the new high end sound card had. The Xonar STX II also performed exceptionally in the gaming front. The best part of all was that both Asus and UniXonar (Third Party) drivers were stable. I would say the Asus Xonar SE 5.1 would suffice for 95% of users, however for the discerning crowd the Xonar STX II is the epitome of high end PC audio. The high end Xonar STX II card sports a significantly powerful headphone amp, very much clearer audio and up-gradable op-amps for customizing the sound signature. On the downside the Xonar STX II will only offer two channel sound on the default model. If you are willing to shell out more you can buy the STX with a daughter card that allows for multichannel setups.

One must be warned that some users have experienced distortion in the form of electrostatic noise from the analog outputs of the Xonar STX II. I did experience this in one of my builds as well. The solution was to move power and SATA cabling further away from the card which eliminated the noise entirely. I also plugged the Xonar STX II into a dedicated 5V power connector to reduce line noise (this card needs to be powered via a molex pulg).

In summary, the Asus Xonar SE 5.1 is the best bang for the buck specially for those who want great sound, stability and multichannel sound for one awesome price. For those looking to power high impedance headphones and are not satisfied unless the audio quality is close to that of a Marantz receiver the Xonar STX II is for you. Check out the products mention below. Also do visit the home page for more articles and reviews.

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