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A first look at the Asus Xonar D2 Soundcard
Asus Xonar D2 Audio Card - A Strong Competitor in the Sound Arena?
Written by floppy and filed under Reviews > Digital Audio Devices
Published on June 26, 2007, 4:56 pm
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Facebook It's fine time that someone took a first look at the Asus Xonar D2 Soundcard, and of course it's none other than the guys at VR-Zone!
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Comment by: XTimX on 21-Sep-2007 1:04 pm
yup yup and no one want Xonar  X-Fi so what ? doesn't make a difference for me when I play games...( no idea about single core users though ) |
Comment by: DavidLee on 21-Sep-2007 12:10 pm
| Priced now at various distributors from $170 - $190US the Xonar is the only 7.1 playback 24bit/192khz card with automated upconversion/negligible distortion. This makes the new ASUS offering a convenient purchase for low budget MIDI musicians who also use their computers as video and WMA entertainment centers. People who don't want to change modes or resolutions every five minutes to watch a movie or play music. Gamers may prefer the Auzen Prelude while pure audio oriented people will find the simplicity and quality of the Xonar impossible to beat in the 7.1 arena for this price. The Auzen instead of being a step up in audio quality has been tested to be slightly inferior to the X-Meridian in 24 bit operating mode due mostly to the X-Fi processor limitations. Sometimes simpler is better when you're not playing games says ASUS. |
Comment by: RoamingSignal on 26-Jul-2007 11:45 am
Still nice to drool first. |
Comment by: simplyadvanced on 16-Jul-2007 3:23 am
| if it's gonna cost >$400sgd... i'd say its decent but not really amazing... its also nt very nice for them to market the card as high end, but still use el cheapo opamps and even cheaper cables |
Comment by: yoyolai on 14-Jul-2007 9:14 pm
| Summary Frequency response (from 40 Hz to 15 kHz), dB: +0.04, -0.03 Excellent Noise level, dB (A): -116.6 Excellent Dynamic range, dB (A): 116.5 Excellent THD, %: 0.0004 Excellent IMD + Noise, %: 0.0008 Excellent Stereo crosstalk, dB: -116.5 Excellent IMD at 10 kHz, %: 0.0007 Excellent General performance: Excellent |
Comment by: tensor on 14-Jul-2007 3:41 am
| seems like rightmark has a document from asus on the test procedures for xonar D2. the results seems pretty  hxxp://audio.rightmark.org/download.shtml |
Comment by: XTimX on 13-Jul-2007 10:06 pm
| thats a good thing right ? and I thought soundcards wouldn't progress as fast as CPUs / GFXs >.< |
Comment by: yantronic on 13-Jul-2007 9:29 pm
| Noted something rather cool today...the card's got no output coupling capacitor. Directly DC coupled with the aid of dual rail power on the OPAMPs... Sophisticated... |
Comment by: shinytoaster on 13-Jul-2007 2:33 pm
| At first I was really excited about this card, I particularly liked the idea that they may use the LM4562 on all channels. Looking at the pictures they have only used it on a pair of channels (one chip) which I assume is the front left/right. If thats correct then why is it located so far from the output, this leaves plenty of room for the analog signal to pick up noise. The rest of the channels seem to be using the 4580 which are cheap and not high performance. That leaves only two things that makes the card stand out; the led lit sockets and 192KHz/24bit audio on 7.1 channels (the other audio cards can only do 2 channels at 192KHz). It'll be hard to choose between this the X-Meridian and the X-FI Prelude, even though the X-Meridian isn't made any more and the X-FI Prelude will probably use bloated Creative drivers. |
Comment by: RavenZero on 13-Jul-2007 8:41 am
| Looks cool. The only thing I would say it's missing is a front panel connector... |
Comment by: floppy on 13-Jul-2007 12:13 am
Quote:
 expected to hit the shelves end of this month. |
Comment by: Guyvr111 on 12-Jul-2007 8:51 pm
| get ready to sell xplosion card den get this |
Comment by: Crazy on 12-Jul-2007 8:45 pm
| wah kao poison... |
Comment by: Eugene on 12-Jul-2007 8:20 pm
| |
Comment by: yantronic on 12-Jul-2007 8:18 pm
| Goodness! |
Comment by: Jiangxue on 12-Jul-2007 8:18 pm
Quote:
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Comment by: HyoRi on 12-Jul-2007 7:28 pm
| Damn nice sia. |
Comment by: floppy on 12-Jul-2007 7:22 pm
| http://resources.vr-zone.com/floppyi...e/IMG_8570.jpg |
Comment by: floppy on 12-Jul-2007 7:21 pm
| It's time for an update!!! /?i=5109 |
Comment by: RavenZero on 08-Jul-2007 5:06 am
Quote:
Hi, I'm new to the forum, but I've been following your articles for a long time now. Thanks. I'm very interested in this card and would love to see it compared thoroughly not only to the X-Fi Elite Pro or Fatality, but to the X-Meridian and HT Omega Claro as well that use similar C-Media chipsets, but come with different stock opamps and DACs, and use different PCB layouts. There are a lot of people on the [H]ardForums and on the AVS Forums that have been swapping the opamps on the X-Meridian for the LM4562s that come stock on the Xonar, so it would seem that Asus may just have a leg up on the competition from the get-go. It's also of great interest to me that Asus is using the PCM1796 DACs rather than the AK4396VF DACs that many of the other Oxygen HD cards seem to be using (including my Bluegears b-Enspirer). I'm thinking of moving the Bluegears card to my office PC and getting either an X-Meridian (before the discontinued product have sold out), an HT Omega Claro, or the Asus Xonar for my main living room HTPC. The only thing that I don't see on the Xonar that I would really want is the front panel audio connectors that are present on the X-Meridian and Omega Claro. I'm slowly piecing together an Orb Audio multichannel speaker system and will very likely be using them with a Panasonic SA-XR700 (that will replace my now defunct HK 235) receiver with both analog and digital connections from my HTPC and other components. I can't wait to hear the new soundcard with this setup. This summer should be really interesting for PC sound! I'm looking forward to your review! |
Comment by: floppy on 07-Jul-2007 5:44 pm
| Hi elfking, The articles at Cebit was covered by me and Visionary posted it on my behalf. the EMI shield LED will be red, and the PCI-Express edition will be released slightly later as I believe that Asus is still in the midst of settling some latency issues. As of now, we are still waiting for Asus to send us the final release version of the Xonar before do a review on this. The upcoming review will also be handled by me.  |
Comment by: 3lfk1ng on 07-Jul-2007 8:35 am
| Very Nice Teaser Floppy, I'm curious to know if the red leds on the EMI shield changes colors, comes in multiple colors, or did Asus decide to choose an entirely different color than the original concept picture that Visionary posted back on March 27th which had yellow leds. I have yet to contribute 10 posts so apparently I'm not allowed to link the url or the picture...lame Also, I think you forgot to mention what Visionary posted back in March 15th and again on March 27th about their being a PCI-Express version of the Xonar called the Xonar D2K which uses the PCI Express 1x interface. Again, I have yet to contribute 10 posts so apparently I'm not allowed to link the url or the picture...extra lame I just wanted to get that out there, I know some people are just dying to have their 1x slots filled  and be more color coordinated  Anyway... The PCB itself is impressively laid out and the components are well chosen. I would like to give Asus some serious props for going all out on this one, I'm impressed. The additional features alone will surely make this card a big competitor for Creative, especially if Asus can keep a promise with new driver updates regularly for both XP and Vista, something Creative lacks. I myself have been using a Creative Audigy LS for over four years now just waiting for a new sound card, I skipped the X-fi generation for personal reasons, just holding out for the right card. Anyway, I was heavily interested in the Auzen X-Meridian 7.1 until I heard about the upcoming Auzen X-FI Prelude 7.1 (First third party card that uses the x-fi chipset) as well as the Xonar. It will be interesting to see which card (between the Xonar and the Auzen X-FI) takes the crown. I cannot wait to see the review between the two. Do you know who will be doing the head to head review...you or Visionary? Again, great Teaser Floppy. Keep up the great work, ~3lfk1ng |
Comment by: Shadowcoust on 30-Jun-2007 3:00 pm
| white whiet hiwte |
Comment by: kvm on 30-Jun-2007 12:41 am
| First look was sweet. |
Comment by: enbid on 29-Jun-2007 11:30 pm
| this is good news for ppl looking for new alternative |
Comment by: Dreamslacker on 29-Jun-2007 11:06 pm
| OMG... Did frops just post my name there. |
Comment by: cyberdog on 29-Jun-2007 11:01 pm
whoa. first look packs a killer punch dah  think creative no horse run ...  OT a bit... after so long i still din know dreamslacker is called benji dah  |
Comment by: Ar3s on 29-Jun-2007 10:40 pm
| haha mine was always plug into the rear speaker output then try "eh why no sound, set volume higher (forgot to lower) go change plug go test again, ear drums blown. |
Comment by: yantronic on 29-Jun-2007 10:28 pm
Quote:
The right "hole" that is!  |
Comment by: Ar3s on 29-Jun-2007 8:46 am
| hahaha i always found the jacks hard to plug in at night goody they thought of that with bling blings. now this is creative in that sense of the word. Will this be too extreme for just headphones ? |