A short while back we brought you some details of an upcoming Xonar series sound card from ASUS which is aimed exclusively at true audiophiles and headphone fans. The card is called the Essence STX and it boasts pure quality throughout.

Hardware Canucks were lucky enough to receive an engineering sample of the card just recently and they go into quite a bit of detail about its feature-set and what makes this such a special piece of audio hardware.

This new high end card can be considered the "Concept Car" of the Xonar lineup since the Audio designers aimed this card squarley at the audiophiles and headphone nuts among us.

There are many high end audio components on this card and the sections have been designed and positioned on the board with maximum sound/signal quality in mind. There are quite a few noteworthy sections and additions to the card that haven't been seen on a sound card meant for the mainstream up until this point.

It's not yet known as to when exactly ASUS plans to put this card into mass production, nor at what cost. But in the mean time, check out the
preview here and see if you think it's worth holding out for.