Move to Xonar Essence STX

At the moment use digital out to my receiver, which is quite nice indeed, very happy with the quality and power, however it can be better.
I'm buying a few things upgrading and the Xonar Essence on my list, i've been meaning to get it fot a while, i've read reviews and all seems brill. However i would like your opinions on the card and also (see sig for specs) opinions on improvement it may bring to my system. I use my Sennheiser HD25-1 II headphones but soon be using Grado SR80i or Sennheiser HD595. As for speakers i will use the Onkyo TX-SR307 + Cerwin Vega! VE8's + VE5M's, also i use a Gale Storm sub for 50hz and lower soon to be replaced with a Wharfedale SW150.

Also a question: If i use the onboard header for front panel headphone socket, will it use the headphone amp? and will it auto sense and turn off all other outputs?

I believe it does use the amp through the front panel, though I dont use my STX via the front panel, there is in the output options "Headphone", "2 Speakers", "FP Headphone" and "FP 2 Speakers".

And no, it doesn't autodetect, you have to tell it which output to use, but it does disable the others.

Thanks Tudz
I will have more of a search to find out if it uses the headphone amp on front panel, i would assume so but just making sure.

I might be able to open up my case and plug it in to check. My old case has a horrible front port so when I got my new case it didn't even cross my mind to plug in the front audio plug, I just plugged an extension cord directly into the back of the card.

I might not be able to check for you if I routed the front audio cable somewhere stupid (when I put this PC together I tucked everything into a little nook in the case and its a pain to get them out, lol).

Tudz said:

I might be able to open up my case and plug it in to check. My old case has a horrible front port so when I got my new case it didn't even cross my mind to plug in the front audio plug, I just plugged an extension cord directly into the back of the card.

I might not be able to check for you if I routed the front audio cable somewhere stupid (when I put this PC together I tucked everything into a little nook in the case and its a pain to get them out, lol).

Click to expand...

Dude, i would greatly appreciate it if you could but don't wprry if you can't, google is my friend . Though you've given me an idea if i have problems, i'll just use and extension cable that i have. The software for the card looks very good as well so im not bothered about the auto detect now

No worries, I had to yank the side panel off anyway to install a new hard drive, its just annoying to do because it takes a bit of force to get it back on and wasn't sure if I'd left the front audio connection somewhere that I'd have to pull apart half the system to get to it, lol.

Anyway, plugged it in, and yes, the amp does work through the front audio panel. Right now I'm listening to some Cold Play through the front panel connector running at the 64-300 ohm setting on my HD650s (all the other gain settings are working as well).

Actually I should mention I'm running the Xonar ST, not the STX. I assume they are set up the same but I can't say for sure, so you may have to google it anyway

EDIT: One thing that bugs me about the ST drivers is that you have to set everything manually. If you are listening to stereo music, you have to manually set it to 2 channels otherwise it'll try and give you all the other channels that have nothing going through them, and if you want to play a game or a movie you have to manually set to 6 or 8 channels otherwise it'll ignore the extra channels and only give you the front speakers. Likewise it doesn't remember the volume setting when going from headphones to speakers, so if one is much more sensitive than the other you need to remember to turn down the volume before you switch so you dont explode your ears or the speakers.

But that aside the card sounds great, but I was stepping up from onboard so the difference was huge, if you're currently using a reciever for your headphones I can't say how much better or worse the STX will be for you.

Brilliant! You're a star

Yes the ST and STX are the same just PCI / PCI-E versions.

Quiet excited to get it now

Rossi~ said:

Brilliant! You're a star

Yes the ST and STX are the same just PCI / PCI-E versions.

Quiet excited to get it now

Click to expand...

There are a few differences between the ST and STX. Some people prefer the sound of one over the other, I've only heard the ST so I can't comment on that, but people on Head-Fi say the ST has a better clock circuit. Also the ST is newer and has a couple of new features, such as support for the HDAV H6 daughter card for going surround (can't remember anything else off the top of my head, its been a few months since I was researching them).

Ah yes so i see

Reviewed by: Adam (East Sussex)

"Was a bit dubious about the difference it would make. But I can tell you now that it has made my sound system come alive! In the end i went for the st over the stx as the st can have the additional addon board, the 'h6', for analouge surround sound."