ASUS Announces Xonar U3 Plus External DAC with Headphones Amp

[btarunr]

ASUS today announced the Xonar U3 Plus, a pocket-sized USB-powered sound card with a 150-ohm headphone amplifier, studio-grade vocal effects and a full suite of audio enhancements. The Xonar U3 Plus is designed for PC and notebook users who are looking for an easy-to-use solution that caters to their high-fidelity audio playback and home recording needs.

Xonar U3 Plus has a high-performance headphone amplifier with adjustable gain levels that can drive up to 150ohm-impedance headphones and headsets. It enhances treble and bass to add dynamic details to low and high frequency sounds like explosions and footsteps in movies or games.



Studio-grade effects and specially-tuned audio
The pocket-sized Xonar U3 Plus supports real-time microphone audio recording, with a digital signal processor (DSP) that provides extremely-low microphone latency. Xonar U3 Plus features a suite of studio-grade vocal effects including a dedicated 10-band equalizer, precision low- and high-frequency filters, as well as reverb adjustment to add a sense of environmental space.

Stereo Mix allows users to mix vocals and music tracks easily, while the DJ Mix tool features a ducking effect that automatically reduces ('ducks') the volume of a background audio track when vocals are present, allowing users to create professional-sounding podcasts.

Xonar U3 Plus also features five pre-set audio modes (Rock, Rock Pro, Ballad, Ballad Pro, and Special) that have been specially-tuned and calibrated by Xonar engineers, so users hear their favorite tunes in the way they were intended to be heard.

Specifications

• Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR): 100dB
• Total Harmonic Distortion + Noise : 0.005% (-110dB)
• Frequency response: 20Hz to 20kHz
• Headphone impedance: Optimized for 32~150Ω
• Interface: USB 1.1 or above bus compatible
• Sample Rate and Resolution: Up to 48KHz @ 16bit
• Connectivity: 1 x 3.5 mm jack analog out; 1 x 3.5 mm jack (Line-In/Mic-In combo); 1 x S/PDIF out (combo with analog out)
• Operation system: 1/8/7/XP(32/64bit)
• Karaoke functions: Music pitch-shifting, vocal cancellation, and microphone echo effects with stereo mix recording (Wave and Mic-in) for online Karaoke or online DJ applications

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[ironwolf]

Saw no price mentioned. Also:

Operation system: 1/8/7/XP(32/64bit)

What's Windows 1?

 

[repman244]

Saw no price mentioned. Also:


What's Windows 1?

Who said anything about any of them being Windows?

 

[xChoice]

nice to see dat ancient windows is supported !

 

[AsRock]

20Hz to 20kHz ?, wtf but i guess you need flat.

 

[mat9v]

In times of popular (somewhat) formats of 96khz/24bit restricting the sound card to reproducing only 48khz/16bit seems to be somewhat stupid. Anyway mixing sounds from different sources at higher resolution and bit depth will always create higher quality sound output, less compounded error in math. I'm doubtfull of a quality of any headphone amplifier that uses usb as a power source - too much interference. It would be so easy (and not expensieve) to include option for dedicated AC/DC converter that supplies 5V from external source.... Dedicated Headphone Amp is a marketing speech in this case, I think

 

[arterius2]

In times of popular (somewhat) formats of 96khz/24bit restricting the sound card to reproducing only 48khz/16bit seems to be somewhat stupid. Anyway mixing sounds from different sources at higher resolution and bit depth will always create higher quality sound output, less compounded error in math. I'm doubtfull of a quality of any headphone amplifier that uses usb as a power source - too much interference. It would be so easy (and not expensieve) to include option for dedicated AC/DC converter that supplies 5V from external source.... Dedicated Headphone Amp is a marketing speech in this case, I think

dude relax, take a breather or something, its apparent that you are way ahead of the average bell curve this is totally the wrong product for you, though it does not mean that all product will have to cater to what YOU want. There are plenty of products that fits your description on the market that you will be satisfied with (with a huge discrepancy in price and size of course, not that you could afford them anyways.)

 

[Ferrum Master]

dude relax, take a breather or something, its apparent that you are way ahead of the average bell curve this is totally the wrong product for you, though it does not mean that all product will have to cater to what YOU want. There are plenty of products that fits your description on the market that you will be satisfied with (with a huge discrepancy in price and size of course, not that you could afford them anyways.)

Relax both of you. The main problem is software resampling, that kills the sound. And money ain't a signal that the actual audio equipment product is actually near good or acceptable... it's more like religious bs stuff.

No matter what we get, the source must be better and not artificially unconverted. Resampling with uneven root number kills the sound as odd number disharmonic distortion is very unpleasant to our human ears(metallic feel), but that's the least problem with the source.

Both Creative and Asus are bunch of cheaters... they cheat in driver level (for example RMAA detection, like catalyst detected furmark). Their auto switches are uncontrollable and live their own life in shared audio mode, they always re sample the stuff to 48KHz unless you use ASIO or WASAPI(witch on ASUS are bugged out as hell), but the heck why the cheating(on multichannel output it locks down to 48KHz as defacto only two channel mode is tweakable) Creative, for example, still up to day has only few cards that had two separate quartz oscillators, that ultimately solved their oldest problem. An EMU1212m(later revision, first ones didn't have), some other less popular EMU's and Audigy 4(most expensive one, can't remember the name). And bang, everything is fine, but those cards are old now and their DAC's are not that shiny, X-Fi quartz works kind of fishy with driving the quartz not letting him ticking on their own, I could not measure it with 2MHz scope and see what kind of stuff it does and I don't like it smells fishy.
So again now Creative feeds us again with old single quartz EMU on Audigy RX(not bad actually for the price) and ZxR ain't worth it as such, but is actually good from the reviews(would get one but plain card without the crap addons). Worst creative cheat is dynamic equalizer that works driver level and screws also, I haven't had a creative card past X-FI, can't tell now what's happening with the Z's. X-Fi's all sound dark and coloured, and my bet - it ain't the old Cirrus Logic DAC behind it.

USB dacs are fine(especially for the price) unless the base driver is OK. I still see many bugs using wasapi(cracks, sound pops),and using USB3 is also nightmarish with them, especially when a laptop has only those now... thus lag and DPC spikes may appear. It depends on the hardware combo and how many USB devices are hooked up, I have them a LOT and again a lottery. And you can pour how many $$ you can afford, it won't help a bit, Windows WavePort and ALSA are both mess. Yeah buy a Vinyl setup and spit on everything .

But why it can't be simpler... one damn card, and everything is OK, with music and gaming and audio production as it switches the stream in native hardware mode without any mojo. The 44.1KHz and 48KHz thing is a cause to many problems really as most content we have is 44.1... and just because of few bucks on the BOM cost and principles.

But this exact product... It's a big big peace of worthless junk... sorry Asus.