Friday, September 26th 2008
ASUS Preparing New Gamer and Audiophile Sound-Cards
ASUS has sensed that there is a sizable market for discrete high-end sound cards, and is now out to grab its share. There are primarily two kinds of high-end sound card segments: gamer-grade and audiophile-grade. ASUS has created a new sound card to cater to each segment, though there could be more SKUs carved out of these sound card designs. The gamer-grade card, called Xonar Essence. From what the picture vaguely shows, the card continues to use the AV200 audio chipset, also seen is the bus translation logic, made by PLX. The card uses PCI-Express x1, though interestingly, requires that you collect a Molex connector to fuel it. It is said to carry industrial-grade Japanese capacitors. The portion of the card that houses vital DAC/ADC circuitry is covered by a fancy EMI shield. It is said that this card comes with a signal to noise ratio of 124 dB.
On with the audiophile card, ASUS has introduced the Xonar HDAV series sound cards. There are two cards: HDAV 1.3 and HDAV 1.3 Deluxe, depending on the presence of a daughter-card that expands the card's connectivity. The card uses RCA connectors for both digital and analog outputs. It also features two HDMI 1.3 ports for both output and input (for recording/mastering), is HDCP compliant and allows audio pass for protected Blu Ray content. The Xonar Essence awaits launch while Xonar HDAV 1.3 has been launched, and product page published. Pictures (in order) for Xonar Essence, Xonar HDAV 1.3 Deluxe, its connectors and package are provided.
Source:
PC Watch
On with the audiophile card, ASUS has introduced the Xonar HDAV series sound cards. There are two cards: HDAV 1.3 and HDAV 1.3 Deluxe, depending on the presence of a daughter-card that expands the card's connectivity. The card uses RCA connectors for both digital and analog outputs. It also features two HDMI 1.3 ports for both output and input (for recording/mastering), is HDCP compliant and allows audio pass for protected Blu Ray content. The Xonar Essence awaits launch while Xonar HDAV 1.3 has been launched, and product page published. Pictures (in order) for Xonar Essence, Xonar HDAV 1.3 Deluxe, its connectors and package are provided.
14 Comments on ASUS Preparing New Gamer and Audiophile Sound-Cards
does that mean what I think it does. . . .
Asus should really step up producing drivers for the other audio cards they have. They are nearly as bad as creatives :(
As to the EAX - ASUS loosely, and I mean very loosely, emulates it. This does not mean their cards are EAX compliant, nor supportive. The best I understand how it's done, it's a backdoor workaround through use of OpenAL - much like how Creative's ALchemy software translates EAX on Vista.
The new HDAV looks nice on paper - 4 DACs, one per channel, and good quality DACs as well. No minijacks, either - all RCA . . . nice, but in the PC market, only audiophile stereos use those connections (and most avid audiophiles would probably be running optical connections instead of analogue). Even more strange to see RCA connectors on their "gaming" card - I don't even think most gamers would use that kind of audio equipment, they tend to stick to the high-quality 5.1 packages, or headphones (and I might be wrong, but I don't see an AC97 header on that gaming card :wtf:). The average joe would have to purchase adapters. Kinda crazy to have the individual channels on a daughter card, though.
Personally - they look like great cards, superb audio quality . . . but I get the feeling ASUS went a little overboard, especially with the "gaming" card. Either way, I look forward to the in-depth reviews on these beasts :)
Oh, and I expect these to enter the US market somewhere between $170-$250 . . . we'll see on that.