Introduction

Hey there my fellow audio junkies. The PC audio market has been churning out some great new high fidelity soundcards lately. A good example here is the recent release of the new Essence STX headphone card, which stirred up the audio community and caught the attention of people who usually look for external headphone amplifiers. The specifications, component choices and overall sound quality of this card cannot be ignored. The Essence STX is one serious soundcard offering some amazing sound quality for the end users.

Quite a good amount of you audiophile guru's may know there were rumors of ASUS expanding the Essence Line-up with possibly a PCI model.

Well audio crazies we have the engineering sample of the Essence ST in ours audio lab today!

Ladies and Gentlemen and audio crazies alike allow us to present the new Xonar Essence ST. Let's take a look at this new sample straight from the ASUS labs, this baby is so fresh you can still smell the solder dampening off the card with fumes that could be seen as music notes  ...

Whoa, now that is a nice looking piece of audio technology. The original Essence STX offered a lot of great sound quality and audio options for the price. However, the lack of analog surround was disappointing to some and some felt it made the STX more a niche card meant for a specific market then a full fledge flagship audio product meant for the masses.