ASUS Essence STX II 7.1 Sound Card Review - Final Thoughts and Verdict

Final Thoughts and Verdict

All in all, the STX II Sound card just impresses.  The card has a very clean, clear sound, which is very open and authentic.  In some cases designers focus on clearness so much that they tend to drain the life right out of the music.  This is not the case with the reproduction presented by the Essence STX II. We were pleasantly surprised at the cards play back quality for this price point.  It is nice to see that ASUS is concentrating on the underlying aspects of serious audio circuit design such as ensuring clean power is feeding the circuit, high quality caps are providing the filtering and premium grade amps are ensuring clean, clear, musical reproduction.  The card provided excellent quality sound using either our Sennheiser HD595’s or our full Axiom Surround sound system.

Machined opamp sockets

It is great that ASUS continued using the higher quality machined opamp sockets and included another set of opamps to give the end user some choices and threw in some pliers to help with proper install without damaging the card or the IC’s. I really don't have too many negative aspects of this card, although it would have been great to see some shielding on the daughter card.  Although the daughter card isn’t marked as such, it is a straight H6 Daughter board seen on the HDAV and ST audio cards.  Some of you may be wondering why the daughter card isn’t sporting Muses opamps also and the reason is simple, price point.  The Muses are very expensive in comparison to some other high end opamps. The head amp chip offers great headphone amplification for the price point and produced clear, precise reproduction on our tests HD 595’s.

The Build

It is nice to see a second generation PC audio product actually being a genuine more advanced version of the original design.  We will point out that at this level, measurements are less of a factor and sonic characteristics prevail. 

Final words

To our ears, using our gear, the Essence STX II, is an amazing sounding card for the price point.  ASUS is definitely pushing the bar higher in the soundcard world with the release of the STX II. People we have our answer: Yes, the Essence STX II is a step up over the earlier models.  The Essence STX II has become our new 7.1 reference card in the G3D Audio Lab until a product comes along to surpass it.  This card also receives our Top Pick award.

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