Photo Session
Let's get the Xonar U7 out of it's packaging and check it out.
Yup, still teasing. The packaging is pretty nice. It's a good experience opening the U7. Very Apple-like.
Out of the box and laid out, you get a booklet, quick start guide, driver CD, the U7, an optical S/PDIF adapter, and a root hub USB cable. My roommate just asked me if he could borrow the USB cable. Root hub cables are a bit rare, ask anyone who's bought a USB printer. Nope! But, I digress. I didn't use the driver CD, opting instead to download new drivers from ASUS's support site. It is very easy to hook up the U7, but just make sure it's set to USB 2.0 on the back.
The design of the U7 did grow on me, but at first I was surprised at how small it is. It measures 13.9cm x 7.62cm x2.5cm, a little bit bigger than the gen1 iPods, or about the size of a pocket foreign language dictionary.
In combination with the headphone output, the rear has the rest of the 7.1 channel outputs. You also find the RCA line-level outputs for an external pre-amp or amplifier. The plug next to the USB is the dual coax/optical S/PDIF port.
The front has the headphone output, with its own dedicated DAC, and the microphone input.
Another shot of the back of the U7. I just noticed, there's a lot of gold plating on the U7.
Macro. 'Cause I could.
I tried forever to get the etched Xonar logo to show up in the photo. There's also a dimple in the aluminum knob that was also difficult to produce in the photos. The LED's glow blue when it's on.
Finally, the business. I also tried to open the U7, but without a spudger to crack the case, it was't having any of my attempts to open it. So, you get an ASUS PR shot instead. The CS-4398 DAC for the headphone output is on the bottom left, which doesn't make a lot of sense, since the headphone output is upper left. Another Cirrus Logic DAC/ADC chip handles all the rest of the inputs and outputs. The DSP is the big thin upper center. ASUS also make some noise about 'hyper-grounding', which I take to mean they are using a 4-layer PCB, two of which carry ground signals. I'm not an electrical engineer, but I do know that more layers in a PCB, the better.
The Xonar U7 is a small USB powered audio card with all the ports and features you'd expect from an internal, discreet sound card, but in a tight little package. It also comes with a knob. Now, let's play with it!
