ASUS Xonar DG Sound Card Review - PAGE 4

Test Setup

• AMD Phenom II X6 1090T BE processor
• MSI NF890-G65 motherboard
• 2x NVIDIA GTX260 videocard
• Patriot Inferno solid-state drive
• Thermaltake Toughpower 1000W power supply
• 2x2GB Corsair Dominator DDR3-1600 7-7-7-20-1T memory
• ASUS Xonar DG audio card
• Psyko 5.1 Surround headset
• Logitech X-540 5.1 Surround speakers
• Seinheiser HD 280 Pro headphones

Comparison cards

• Onboard Realtek ALC889

Testing

The Xonar DG will be put to the test using several headsets with music from various genres, as well as a movie and some gaming.

Music

Using the Logitech 5.1 Surround speakers and toggling between the onboard and ASUS soundcard, not much difference was heard. After many tracks from various artists, one very subtle difference is that the low frequencies seems to be a tiny bit clearer on the Xonar. One has to be very attentive to notice it, though.

More interesting results were produced with the Seinheiser HD280 headphones. At stock settings, the bass response was quite a bit lower. Increasing them with the equalizer helped a lot, but the onboard Realtek still delivered much better response. It was then discovered that the low frequency redirection feature seen in the seventh screenshot on the previous page is enabled by default, even if the analog output is set to stereo speakers. This means all the signals below 120Hz were redirected to a non-existent subwoofer. Now isn't that great. Setting the headphones to "Large" and putting the LFE slider to the complete left allowed for the best bass.

With that setup on the HD280 headphones, the sound was pretty identical. What made a heck of a difference was enabling the Dolby Headphones technology. With it, music sounded much more realistic, as if the user stood in the middle of a room where the concert was given. The music didn't sound like it was played in a pair of earcups anymore.

Movies

Firing up The Lord of the Rings in 5.1 Dolby Surround using either the Logitech speakers or the HD280 headphones didn't reveal any further difference between the sound produced by each audio card.

Gaming

The same can be said when it comes to gaming. A noticeable difference was expected with the Dolby Headphones technology enabled, but it was not to be the case. Once again, simulating surround sound in stereo headphones does not prove to be very effective. The Logitech speakers and the Psyko 5.1 Surround headset are the kings when it comes down to surround. Speaking of this 32Ω headset , its front speakers could be driven adequately using the integrated amplifier instead of the Psyko one, although the volume wasn't as loud as it could have been.