Go to a headphone store and tell me you won't notice the difference between sound quality when you have a wall like this in front of you. You can even measure the differences between a poor headphone and a quality one. You can even see a sound signature just by looking at the wave pattern. However you seem to be too ignorant to even try and you are just missing out. http://cdn.head-fi.org/7/71/711b388e_222376_470305263006629_201504998_n.jpeg

OH...my...God... that is one of the most beautiful things i've ever seen. Do such places exist in the United States? Or do I have to make the Journey to Japan to experience such glory?

Sound cards are a must for gaming that said there no point in spending 150-200 on one, fooling yourself into believing that it's a great audio solution. With that money or for a little bit more (or less if second hand) you could invest in an external USB DAC/Amp and move it from one source to another without having to limit yourself to PCI/e only. Sound cards get their power from PSUs which can be electrically noisy and as it sits inside your case jammed beside a GPU they are surrounded by EMI. These two valid factors don't go well with audio and are often brought up in arguments against sound cards. Moving to external audio eliminates EMI and most USB DAC/Amp combo's also benefit from plug&play with native OS driver support. As an example of what could be had instead of a sound card here's a list of credible combo's that will do a great job yet don't have a ridiculous Audiophile price tag attached to them; -Leckerton Audio UHA-6S.MKII -JDS Labs or Mayflower Electronics O2+ODAC, (UK Ver. Epiphany Acoustics EHP-O2D) -Audinst HUD-mx2 or cheaper mx1 -Yulong U100 Getting ether one of the above is all you really need to replace a sound card, I'm sure there are others to consider but the list consists of very credible audio combo's. There's not much out there that matches this level of bang for buck really.

OH...my...God... that is one of the most beautiful things i've ever seen. Do such places exist in the United States? Or do I have to make the Journey to Japan to experience such glory?

The closest you can get to this is in the US is the Headroom store in Montana. http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/beauty-headphone-store http://i61.tinypic.com/14m9gy8.jpg http://i57.tinypic.com/23uo4tw.jpg They will most likely have headphones worth listening to and not everything in a lineup as they do in Japan. Quality vs quantity. According to the above link, he says there's about 10 headphone stores in the US.

I wonder how big the difference will be from the STX to the II....if any.

As an example of what could be had instead of a sound card here's a list of credible combo's that will do a great job yet don't have a ridiculous Audiophile price tag attached to them; -Leckerton Audio UHA-6S.MKII -JDS Labs or Mayflower Electronics O2+ODAC, (UK Ver. Epiphany Acoustics EHP-O2D) -Audinst HUD-mx2 or cheaper mx1 -Yulong U100 Getting ether one of the above is all you really need to replace a sound card, I'm sure there are others to consider but the list consists of very credible audio combo's. There's not much out there that matches this level of bang for buck really.

While I agree that external products are often superior for headphone use, I would advise that people stay away from Mayflower in general. After the ridiculous video they made with Tek Syndicate, in which they spewed misinformed nonsense and outright lies, I would suggest people go elsewhere for their audio products.

I wonder how big the difference will be from the STX to the II....if any.

Wondering the same thing lol. Probably not much if anything.

While I agree that external products are often superior for headphone use, I would advise that people stay away from Mayflower in general. After the ridiculous video they made with Tek Syndicate, in which they spewed misinformed nonsense and outright lies, I would suggest people go elsewhere for their audio products.

Not just headphones as one can use it as a DAC/Pre-amp with a line out to an external loudspeaker amp. For audio production with more inputs/outputs E-MU 0204 would do an excellent job and still acts as a DAC/Amp combo probably the ultimate bang for buck out of all. Regarding Mayflower I only mentioned them as an alternative to JDS Labs as it's the very same product.

Not just headphones as one can use it as a DAC/Pre-amp with a line out to an external loudspeaker amp.

That's exactly what I do with my setup, although I primarily listen to headphones. T1 line out > Nad C316BEE > Wharfedale Diamond 10.1's I do think soundcards have a place for some uses. One of those being physical surround setups, if I was going to go for a 5.1 speaker layout I'd probably grab a ZxR or one of these new Asus cards and run analogue out to a receiver. There's merits in different setups, although I can't see myself moving from my current setup speaker wise for some time.

3rd party Xonar driver

Asus own STX drivers are bad. but someone did make a 3rd party Xonar driver which is lightweight and addresses alot of issues. I use it for my current STX and its far better.

Are you referring to the UNi Xonar Drivers?

when's it going to be available for sale though?

Unless you wear headphones or care about analog recording quality, I really don't understand the point of modern discrete sound cards these days. SPDIF on integrated audio or HDMI audio is already good enough - get yourself a good sound receiver and you'll be all set for the years to come. Your speakers are only as good as the lowest quality part, so even if you're paying for a high-end sound card, if the speakers themselves or the transistors driving them are crap then you're still going to get bad sound. I also think that supreme sound quality is just a placebo. People need to justify paying several hundred dollars/euros on something they're physically incapable of noticing so they just believe they notice a difference. Then again, you could say the same about people who buy the latest i7 every time a new one comes out.

agreed