Closer Examination

First and foremost, the GSX 1000 looks absolutely stunning. Even though it's mostly made of plastic, its aesthetics have no trouble drawing a lot of attention. The most prominent part of the sound card is without a doubt its massive aluminum volume dial. It moves around with such silky smoothness that it feels like a part of a high-end hi-fi device rather than a "mere" gaming sound card. Just for the record, the volume is controlled digitally - when you rotate the knob, you're simply adjusting the volume slider within Windows/macOS. The entire circular center of the volume dial actually works as a touch-sensitive area and a screen where we can get informed about everything related to the sound card - current volume, state of surround sound, active EQ profile, and so on. The controls are beautifully backlit, with a clear and intuitive white and red color scheme, easily readable on the dark backdrop they're placed upon.


When you're not interacting with the sound card, the controls are dimmed. They will automatically spring to action with a lovely fade-in effect as soon as your hand is close. What a fantastic and ridiculously attractive implementation! The sound card is never distracting, even when placed beneath the monitor, and it puts a smile on your face every time you want to do something on it. After you move your hand away, the lights will slowly fade out. Beautiful!


The four corners of the sound card are touch-sensitive as well. When you press these, you actually switch between your own profiles, with the profiles being a certain combination of settings. For example, one corner/profile can contain your preferred stereo settings, the other the 7.1 surround sound settings, the third can be optimized for movies, and a fourth will automatically switch the output and built-in equalizer settings from your headset to your speakers. Saving the profiles couldn't be easier - you simply adjust the settings any way you like and then press and hold down the profile's corner. After a couple of seconds, you'll hear a distinctive "thump", which means that those settings are now saved to that exact corner. Next time you want to access one, simply tap that corner and the GSX 1000 will switch to those settings straight away.


There are three 3.5-mm ports on the rear. The first one, marked with an icon of a speaker, is a line-out port. You'll use it to plug in your active speakers. Since it's a line-level port, anything coming out of it can be amplified. Be careful not to plug your speakers into the amplified headphone port - if you do, you'll get a double amplification of the audio signal, which can cause distortions and potentially damage your gear. The middle port is the microphone input, and the last one is the aforementioned headphone output. There's no 3.5-mm TRRS port. If you have a headset with a 4-pole TRRS plug, you'll have to get an adapter that will turn that into a pair of 3-pole TRS plugs (separate input and output).


The dial on the right side of the sound card can be used to adjust the volume ratio between the game you're playing and the voice app you're currently using to communicate with your squad. Turn it one way and the game will become louder and your friends quieter. Turn it the other way and the opposite will happen. If you leave it in its middle position, in which it sort of clicks into, it basically won't do anything. How is this achieved, you wonder? By having the GSX 1000 act as two separate playback devices, called the "GSX 1000 Main Audio" and "GSX 1000 Communication Audio". All you have to do is make the "GSX 1000 Main Audio" your default playback device before you fire up your voice chat app of choice (Discord, TeamSpeak, Skype, etc.), go into its audio settings and select the "GSX 1000 Communication Audio" as its preferred playback device. By doing so, you'll essentially convince your OS that you are using a device for voice playback and a different one for playback of other sounds. The OS doesn't care that both are played through the same physical device. With all that in mind, what this dial does is simply adjust the volume ratio between what it sees as two separate playback devices. Do keep in mind that it doesn't increase or lower the absolute volume level of the sound; it just changes the volume ratio between these two "devices". To adjust the volume, you still need to use the appropriate dial on top of the sound card. This is one of those features you don't realize you need until you get it. It's fantastically useful, and I truly enjoyed the practicality it offered me in my everyday virtual warfare.


On the bottom of the sound card is a plastic riser you can pull out if you find it more intuitive to use slightly tilted.