Asus Xonar Essence One USB DAC--looks very interesting!

Asus has received pretty much universal acclaim for its Xonar series of sound cards. Asus has now come out with a USB (and S/PDIF) DAC that offers both a unique upsampling scheme (apparently to enable sonically transparent digital volume control) and also selectable bit-perfect processing.

The fact that all 11(yikes!) of its opamps are swappable is interesting--I can see people swapping them all for the highest grade Burr Brown devices or, for the more adventurous, Burson discrete opamps.

An interesting new entre into the USB DAC world.

Anybody have one?

 

Here's the link:

http://www.asus.com/Multimedia/Audio_Cards/Xonar_Essence_One/

 

What's the quality of their drivers? Asus is on my bad list along with Creative and EM-U for poor implementation and driver behavior. I have an E-MU 0204 USB and it won't properly change sample rate when using WASAPI. I have to use the supplied ASIO driver to get it to behave properly. The fact that it won't change sample rates on the fly with WASAPI means its driver and implementation is broken. Some Asus and Creative have cards that have the same behavior.

If it is confirmed that the Asus works properly with WASAPI then it has potential. Otherwise stay away.

 

Wow, with a neat little netbook loaded with .wavs and album art that could be tasty.

Around 500 bucks ?

 

If it sounds anything like the PCI Xonar ST, then it will be tasty.

 

If it properly conforms to the USB spec, it should be driverless, right? At least, it *should* be driverless!

 

Just read that it has an ASIO driver for use if you want but-perfect (i.e., no upsampling) playback.

Also has asynchronous USB if that's your thing.

 

Audio interfaces designed for pro and prosumer use have their own drivers so they can take advantage of all the features the device supports. Stock USB drivers won't necessarily give you access to all the features.

My EMU 0204 USB can run in USB audio 1.1 mode with the stock Windows drivers. In that mode it can only do 16-bit at 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz. Windows doesn't have stock USB 2.0 audio drivers. So I can't test how the EMU runs with USB 2.0 audio drivers. I haven't tried it in Linux. It is reportedly supported in the latest Ubuntu, but I don't know with what features and with what sample rates. OSX has USB 2.0 drivers and the 0204 is only able to support up to 24/96 on OSX for some reason.

I bought the EMU 0204 USB without knowing that it didn't behave nicely with WASAPI. I was bummed when I experienced the sample rate changing glitches and even more bummed to find out why. I would not have bought it had I known that WASAPI is partially broken.

There is some software that supports WASAPI but does not support ASIO. If I want to use WASAPI only software I'll have to live and make due with the glitches and quirks.

I don't know if the Asus and Creative/EMU drivers are written by the same driver team. I'm suspicious they may be since the Asus and Creative devices both misbehave and devices from other manufacturers behave properly.

If you buy an Asus or Creative audio interface knowing that the WASAPI has this particular quirk then all is fine. If you buy without knowing and expected the thing to work like any other competent audio interface then you may be a bit bummed.

I don't know if the Xonar Essence One has this WASAPI quirk. It's worth finding out though if proper WASAPI support is important to you. Especially since the Xonar Essence One is over $500. With my EMU I'm only bummed about a $100 purchase. I'd be 5 times more bummed if it was $500.

 

Looks very interesting. Anyone have this already and can make a statement about the sound on this?

 

Too bad it doesn't have a phono stage.

 

and a tube power amp...



-bill

 

I think the case design is sweet! I'm a little surprised that when DAC makers are releasing new DACs with volume controls for use as a preamp that they are not all using a remote control. I can understand the cost issue and if it's a DAC/headphone amp only as it's designed for close range operation. But when you also allow use as a preamp, a remote control for at least the volume would be nice. Cambridge Audio just updated their DacMagic to include a preamp level control and also omitted a remote control. It sounds great and it's nice for a desktop driver for a PC system with active speakers, but it could have been more readily accepted for use to drive larger active speakers in a home video system had they thought it wise to include a remote.
-Bill

 

I just got this, been listening to this for a last couple of hours. I am very impressed. Using Sennheiser HD650's with Foobar ASIO output. I love that it doesnt have a wall wort.

 

Two questions:

How much is it?
Has Computer Audiophile done a review of it?

 

1. It was $549 CDN
2. I havent seen a review by computer audiophile

One thing I do notice is, it does sound better when the 8X upsampling is turned off.