Win one of three Asus Xonar sound cards

[Jakubgt]

I have something plain, yet simple. I've always bought parts that got the most 'bang' for your buck, but never really invested into audio components. I really do regret not buying higher end audio equipment as I really am an audiophile. But unfortunately due to financial issues, I cannot upgrade my audio setup.

My current Setup:
1x SupremeFX II Audio card
1x Logitech Z-5500
1x Apple ear-bud

The Z-5500 was possibly my best investment ever. I managed to snag a used Z-5500 for $75 off a local around my area. As I love to listen to music, I just had to get a good 5.1 setup for my musical needs for such a price.

The Apple ear-buds were bundled with my iPhone and I got the axe from work, so I use them temporary until I get a new pair of headphones. I'm living in a city where mobile-zombies are addicted to incessant cell phone chatting in the public. A headphones' ability of providing isolation from outside annoyance is of utmost importance when I consider purchasing a pair of headphones for travelling purpose. I'm to the point where I'm desperate enough to use a gaming headset as headphones around the city. These Apple ear-buds just don't cut my needs and an upgrade is due.

The SupremeFX II Audio card that was bundled with my mobo feels like a Northwood in the world of the current core i7s. Drivers are utter crap, constant pops, and one of the 3.5MM inputs is broken. The only two connections that work is Front/Subwoofer, so no epic surround for me. I pray everyday this card doesn't die out on me, because I will be essentially without music on my desktop till I find another job. Bills are just too much and my audio patience is growing incredibly weary.

Now my fellow Gerbils. Pimp my rig! Help me acquire this lovely new sound card

[el JIZUZ]

I WANT THAT SOUND!!!!
THAT CARD IS WELL BUILTED, EXCELLENTS CAPACITORS, NICE OP-AMPS, SUPERB AUDIO PROCESSORS, ULTRA LOW NOISE, GOLD PLUGS, HEADPHONE AMPLIFIER FOR HI END CANS INCORPORATED!!! GIVE IT TO ME!!! ITS MY DREAM IN A BOX!!!
SUPER-SOUND-GRANTED!!! YOU CAN HEAR THINGS YOU EVER IMAGINED WERE THERE...

[mmp121]

My PC Audio History:
There was a day when I was a poor college student and could only afford that which was included with my Gateway2000 P5-133XL. The year was 1995, and the sound card was an ISA soundblaster. It came with 2.1 Creative Labs speaker system. I still have the 2.1 speakers in my basement with my treadmill so I can play music on something nicer than headphones while working out.

Once I started work and living life as a swinging bachelor, I could afford a better PC. I built my first homebuilt system, a P3-450 with the same ISA SB16 & 2.1 speaker setup. This setup worked for me up until around mid 2002. It was time for a new PC.

I had heard good things about Turtle Beach and purchased a PCI Santa Cruz to keep my brand spanking new Intel P4-3.0GHz PC. I kept the same speakers, since I was still slumming it in an apartment and wanted to be considerate of my neighbors.

Around 2005, after moving into my new house, I figured it was time for an upgrade of the audio system. I got myself a PCI Audigy ZS with a Logitech Z560.

I've been in love with my Z560's and the Audigy ZS. It is now time for my long in the tooth PC to be upgraded. And I would like nothing better than to upgrade the PC and the audio innards at the same time. This setup would go a long way. I even have an ASUS Xonar DX in my Newegg wishlist. I'm just waiting for SandyBridge to be released before pulling the trigger on my new system early in 2010.

The headphones would go a long way with keep the marital bliss with the wife while gaming.

[jfritzs2]

I need this new sound card because I need equipment to record music for the band that I'm in. This would be a great new way for us to be able to easily get our music onto CDs and out to the public. If anyone cares we are known as The Lawnchairs and so far have only been recording with a ghetto system only using microphones and cassette tapes. This would be a much needed improvement and hopefully the beginning to something great! Please Asus, Please Tech Report, Please pick me! It would be much appreciated!

[krusnik]

I currently have my audio set up with using 5.1/71 soundblaster creative X-Fi Titanium with a Panasonic 5.1 surround sound system. The reason I went with the creative sound card was due to that it was on sale and had the convenience of the price factor whereas the asus sonar card is much more expensive and well the Panasonic surround was $300 at the time when surround systems were at $500-1000

[jbrumit3]

Mine's a simple audio setup. Was using the output on my Asus P6T Deluxe V2 MB and Logitech headphones (until I ran over the cord with my chair). Now I'm using the speakers that have been gathering dust for years. I hope to upgrade, soon, so that I can have more late night gaming sessions without waking the kids.

[MaximusIII]

My current audio build is:
-Creative X-Fi Titanium Fatality Pro (crappy drivers)
-Logitech Z506 Surround Sound Speakers (not the best sound)
-Sennheiser HD515 audiophile headphones

If I were to purchase a sound card these days, I would certainly go with Xonar D2X. Can't afford anything better.
My current RIG is:
-ASUS Maximus III Formula,
-Intel Core i7-860
-Zalman CNPS-9900
-4x2GB OCZ Platinum 2000MHz DDR3 @1.65v
-MSI GTX-465 TwinFrozrII
-Creative X-Fi Titanium Fatality Pro
-2xSeagate 500GB 7200.12 HDD in RAID0
-750W Thermaltake Toughpower PSU
-Windows 7 Home Prem x64

[Buzzin92]

Well my setup is a Amplifier and 4 speaker system including:

Kenwood A-57 Amplifier
2x Mission M73 Speakers
2x JVC Speakers
Sennheiser HD215 Headphones
and a rubbish onboard audio card on my pc

the setup i have at the moment sounds very nice with CD player input, but the quality is degraded from the output on the PC which is a real shame!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xH4UahHEZs4

Thats my setup on youtube.

[PyROZen]

I am currently awaiting to finish my current build which so far consists of a ASUS Rampage Gene II, and a core i7-930. I originally had an ASUS A7N8X-e with a Striker 7.1 PCI card. Unfortunately, I was robbed earlier this year(3 weeks after i bought my first house!) and the thieves decided my ancient desktop was actually worth money. Trying to save up for my current build but it is difficult because money is extremely tight at the moment. So far i have the motherboard, power supply, the case, and a copy of Windows 7. Right now i am typing on an old Acer single-core laptop that a user from another forum was kind enough to send me for free so i could still write papers for college. Needless to say i am limping along for the time being, I cannot play older PC games and i am relegated to playing flash games on kongregate until I can finish this build.

Lee

[papajohn]

Poor Man's Audio Setup

Sound card: None (using onboard sound)
Speaker: 2.1 Altec Lansing speaker system (swiped from my wife's pc, convinced her I need it more for gaming than her occasional use listening to music)

For me gaming is all visual. I play games that stimulate me visually. I, therefore, spend what budget I have on a decent video card to give me jaw dropping eye candy settings. Needless to say nothing is left to invest in a sound card. When you're a gamer on a budget like me, you can live with onboard sound but you CAN'T live with onboard graphics!

Yes, one can say I am missing out on the other half of gaming... audio stimulation. I wouldn't know unless I win this Asus sound card and Sennheiser headphone. Oh how sweet my gaming experience would be!

ULTIMATE GRAPHICS + ULTIMATE SOUND = ULTIMATE GAMING!

[lordpantsington]

If I had a word to describe my PC sound setup, I would go with cobbled. My original intent with this build was to blend home theater with a kick-@$$ gaming system. The entertainment bits never were purchased. No tuner card, no sound card. What I am left with is on-board sound from an Asus A8N-Premium motherboard. Digital output (Fiber) to a Panasonic Home Theater receiver, connected to MTX 5.1 speakers. The receiver was part of an employee incentive program. Free is good! The motherboard was top of the line at build time. Sound from any other source other than DVD is not being passed correctly to the receiver. Could never figure out why. Rear, Center, and Sub in the speaker test are silent. I'm guessing there is something missing in the drivers with the digital out. Go Realtek! My speakers aren't that cheap, but are certainly not the best quality. They get the job done. $200 special need a bit of volume to work sometimes. When not in use my $29 Koss foldable headphones are put to use. Like most Koss, the earpadding was covered with this shiny black stuff that has long since disintegrated. To remedy this I cut the toes off 2 old tubesocks (from about mid arch), and slipped these over each earpiece. It was the perfect ghetto fix as one of the pair had a hole in the toe that I could pass the headphone cable through. No more flakey black junk stuck to the sides of my face, as an added bonus they are machine washable! The top head band is breaking off one side and I am on glue attempt #2 to keep it in place (the duct tape attempt failed miserably). A win of some new audio gear would give me a nice start on building a new system.

[monyazimeet33]

I an ASUS fan from Zimbabwe and would like to see them setup an official distributor here but against all odds I've setup my first gaming machine with the ASUS TA-9L2 Vento, Core i7@2.8 860 (1156 socket). NVIDIA GTX275. 5 GB RAM DDR3, Gigabyte motherboard. Coming round most of these high end specs in Zimbabwe is quite hard but i've managed to setup my machine and aim to upgrade it for 2011 to a liquid cooled chasis, a bit more RAM, SLI my graphic card and upgrade the sound too.

[Deathmineral]

My current audio setup features Steelseries Siberia v1 headphones, Behringer HPX2500 headphones, Fatal1ty gaming headset, and my on-board sound on my ASUS M4A88TD-V . I chose my headsets because I love gaming, but also because I love listening to music, and the only thing I love more than either of these is listening to music while I game. I prefer headphones over speakers, in case it wasn't already obvious , I think headphones are much better for gaming because it keeps the sound right at your ears, helps me feel very immersed in the games.

[Zoomzabba]

The set up: Picked up a Razer AC-1 for $50 New Holiday 2007. 192KHz to my Koss SB45 Headset and Guitammer ButtKicker Gamer. Toslink to my Logitech Z-5500 5.1 surround system.

The Story: I had an old Creative Sound Blaster Audigy ES card I bought back in '04 and HAD to replace it for the sake of my ears and virtual surround gaming. The Razer AC-1 filled the same PCI slot and offered headroom for some real speakers. The Koss' were good for college LAN parties and the ButtKicker was to feel the game while my roommate slept. Z-5500's were a birthday present to myself Dec. 2008 (especially@$250). They sound loud and proud, if not a bit boomy, but that's great for FPS action.

The answer: It's time to move beyond PCI. Not only is it fading, but Razer refuses to release Windows 7 compatible drivers. Asus has reached the bleeding edge and just kept running with the new Xonar series cards. High fidelity and realistic in-game action with all the ports a gamer can ask for

[jasonalwaysready]

My audio set up originally started as the prepackaged 2 speaker setup. I have never used a discrete sound card. This was just not going to cut it, so I acquired a 2.1 set up and combined them to have a surround sound effect of 4.1 speakers. This worked surprisingly well and was much cheaper than a prepackaged 5.1 audio set up. Not having the center speaker was fine for me. Eventually, with the advent of a family, I had to tone the volume down and appease everyone else in the house that didn't want to feel like they were in an actual war zone instead of the virtual one I was in. I purchased a nice set of headphones for those times when I needed to be a bit more 'stealth.'

[Spune]

My sound system is poor and based on my contempt for Creative labs and my feeling of abuse from them. After continually returning to Creative after hearing there stuff was good and always getting beaten down by their drives I've stuck with the onboard Realtek in my motherboard. My speakers are an ancient Cambridge Soundworks 2.1 system that were great when they were new but have taken a turn for the worse as the volume rheostat is slowly dying and requires many minute adjustments to keep both speakers working at the same time. The cables have to moved and adjusted too keep them from feeding back and making annoying noise all the time.

This situation has basically left me unable/unwilling to listen to music on my computer. This really has to change I love my music and am pretty fussy on these things normally. Come on Asus/TR I need some new hardware!

[rado992]

EDIT: Quite unfortunately, I'm not located in the USA or Canada, so I'm out of the game. Anyway, good luck to you guys! The prizes are really great this time.

Well, personally, I'm a bit of an audioholic so I listen to music on a Xonar DX with a pair of AKG K324P headphones (I know, I know, maybe not the best headphones around, but they're quite good to be honest). The Xonar really makes the music come alive, unlike many creative and especially any onboard sound card the I've tried. I first considered it after reading the review on TR comparing it to the D2X. It's by far the best audio card in terms of price/quality (drivers, features, overall sound quality). It simply gave me a better experience than the creative card it replaced ever did. I loved it immediately and still do, so if I have to recommend a card to anyone, it's going to be a Xonar, no doubt. Hey, I'm not trying to sound like an Asus commercial or anything, it's simply that my experience with their cards has been great. Yeah, sure, they have the "downside" of not supporting EAX natively, but they emulate it in software, and frankly, EAX is not in my priorities at all. I don't game that often, and since I use stereo headhones anyway, it's even less important to have EAX.

As for the HTPC, it's sound is handled by an X-Fi Xtreme audio (rebranded Audigy, I know, and it's not that good of a card, so I'm looking for a Xonar replacement) and Logitech X-540 speakers, which, actually, are quite good for their money, especially because of the Matrix feature to split stereo sound to all satellites, since they double as my TV speakers (I just couldn't stand the integrated ones in my Samsung LCD, they're probably the most tinny-sounding speakers I've ever heard). So that's all, I think.

[tdsevern]

TV, Movies, Games, Music, you name it, this system will make it sound great. Here's my current PC audio setup:

Creative S750 (currently under repair: viewtopic.php?f=28&t=73411)
-Satilites(7): 3" Midrange + 1" Titanium Tweeter (70W each)
-Subwoofer(1): 8" Long-throw downfiring (220W)


Klipsch Sub10
-Subwoofer: 10" Downfiring (420W)
-Used for low end bass


Creative X-Fi Elite Pro
-Analog outputs 1(split),2,3 >> Creative S750
-Analog output 1(split) >> Klipsch Sub10


Headphones
-Sennheiser HD 485


By no means is this the best setup out there, but I have enjoyed it for many years.

[RMSe17]

I got a Creative Labs X-Fi XtremeMusic (discontinued model) connected to a used Klipsch ProMedia 5.1 Ultras (which had to be fixed 2 times already haha). While the Klipsch is discontinued and has reliability issues, it is way better than the competitor Logitech Z5500.

My previous card was a Diamond Monster Sound MX300 powered by the A3D Vortex 2 chip. Leagues ahead of Sound Blaster crap at the time, and still having the best positional audio for games even now.. too bad no driver support past 98/NT. I had a set of Klipsch ProMedia 4.1 connected to that beast.

The rest of the system:
Phenom 2 940, Gigabyte ma790gp-ud4h, 4x2GB OSZ Reaper 1066, MSI GeForce GTX285 OC, 100GB OCZ Vertex LE, 2x 1TB Samsung F1.

Would love to get a sweet sound card

[Derfer]

Great scott!

Hey-zeus? Peripheral Component Interconnect Express? Non-American made quality electronics? Remarkable. I never would have envisioned such a future. Back in my time, oh er I mean youth, there was never anything on the market that could quite satisfy my ear. Now building something from scratch, designing every detail from the ground up. Now that was satisfaction. Going out and chopping down the last Cuban Holly; steaming and bending the wood into three quarter circles to stack in a snowman fashion for my original tri orator design. Winding the coils, magnetizing the uranium; I recall it well. I dubbed it La gran extinction. The sound from the set is, er was quite unique! With it I was able to make exceptional use of the auditory functions on my Bendix G15.

With greatest regards,
Mr. Brown

[xvst]

I'm using the onboard Realtek audio on my Asus P5K and a set of Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 speakers. I was using my old creative extigy in Windows XP, but alas there are no 64bit Win7 drivers for it.

[VAN]

My setup is .............. the SUPER ULTRA NICE ( Sarcasm ) intel 975xbx2 onboard audio ( Sigmatel STAC9274D) and my speakears are the ......M-AUDIO Studiophile AV 30
The last Soundcard I bought was ...........the Soundblaster Audigy Gamer that I gave to my sister cause their onboard audio died

Since Asus Started with the xonar soundcards I wanted one buttttttttttttt I can't Find it in México sooooooooooooo I WANT THIS PRIZEEEEEEE

[SnowboardingTobi]

Alright... I guess I'll give this a go...

Current setup on my main compy:
The on board audio on the P5B Deluxe
Audio Technica ATH-AD900 headphones
Klipsch 2.1 speakers

The why:
When I built the computer I wanted to see just how bad the on board audio is before deciding if I should buy a sound card. Well to my surprise, the on board was good enough for me! The headphones because I wanted quality headphones that didn't need a headphone amp to drive it. The speaker setup I got about a year ago because I got tired of wearing headphones anytime I wanted to listen to music on the compy.

[ChrisDTC]

I use the on-board audio that came on my Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R and a 2.1 set of Dell speakers because Ive had them forever, they work, and I'm cheap. Though I am thinking about upgrading to start gaming.

[Flickshots]

Hey, these Asus Soundcards really impressed me especially the CPU utilization tests!

My System

Current sound card: Since I had a tight budget I couldn't afford a stand alone sound card so I currently have the integrated via soundcard on my ASUS P5Q PRO Turbo motherboard.

Speakers: Logitech Z4

Headphones: Just the Sony MDR EX300LP earbuds

It's been a long time since I had a sound card in my system, the last was an Audigy X-Fi... The Asus Xonar and the Seinheisser headset would make an excellent addition to my system and bring a whole new dimension to games like Battlefield: Bad Company 2, the new and improved Counterstrike Source and the upcomming Codemasters F1.

[-vitali-]

Xonar DX and Tritton ax51 pro headset.
The sound card was choosen for it's cost and the review here.
The speakers were choosen because from freind recommendation.

[Buzz78]

Sound card: Creative SB X-Fi Titanium Pro. Chosen for HW acceleration of EAX/OpenAL, PCI-E interface, and shielding.

Speakers: Creative/Cambridge Soundworks FPS2000 Digital (4.1). I've had these for 8 years now, but I can't justify replacing them.

[SS4]

Im using the plain onboard audio on my old intel D915GAV MB...
ALthough i used 2 10W wooden/plastic speaker from my old Sharp stereo/cd and used the wire from an old pair of headset that i cutted to hook em up into the back port.

I can't crank the volume very high but the sound quality is really nice with those speaker lol

I also use a creative headset although one of the earmuff support just broke this week.... lets hope i can win this contest coz im in real need of an upgrade i think

[mGuy]

My audio setup is pretty utilitarian. For web browsing and email my speakers are off. I listen to some music when working around my desk -- cleaning the room -- and when when working from home. For gaming I use my headset. When assembling my system I was building it for Vista/Windows7.

audio - onboard Realtek HD audio ALC888
Rumors were that EAX was out with Vista/Win7 and many folks were reporting that onboard sound was better than 'good enough'. I wasn't planning on a 5+ speaker system ...

speakers - Logitech X-230 2.1
I had been using Logitech Z540 4.1 but found it impracticable to mount speakers behind me at a PC and desk. Stereo was good for music and a subwoofer made the sound right. For gaming I had found headphones to offer a better chance to hear those footsteps behind me ..

headset - Plantronics .Audio 370
Headphones and a mic for under a hundred dollars. This is were I suspect I could do better but I couldn't find moderately priced audio fidelity with a microphone.

And what could I use a great sound card for? I have this collection of vinyl and a turntable ...

[SpeedyVV]

I got a set of nice MAudio Bx5as and a SBX10 sub. All wasted through the on board audio...

It is almost like I can hear the quality I am missing.

I really could use a dedicated sound card.