ASUS Xonar Essence STX Sound Card
Vote: Thumbs Down or Thumbs Up Our Rating: 96% Manufacturer: ASUS
Technical Overview – Continued
Nichicon "Fine Gold" professional audio capacitors use the very latest in etching technology to bring forward the very finest bass and treble reproduction. The Essence also features some large purple capacitors known as Os-cons and are made by Sanyo. These can be used for many jobs in the audio world because they are considered high quality filters. These are used in three different places on the Essence PCB.
To allow further tuning of the Essence, the user can swap and upgrade the boards’ operational amplifiers (or op-amps) to units that are of a higher quality, or which possess certain tonal characteristics desired by that specific user.
Now, with regards to the actual connections featured, I must say firstly that I am very happy not to see any stereo mini-jacks here. Instead, we get lovely full sized gold plated professional level jacks, just as you would imagine the best might have. First are left and right RCA outputs, then we have gorgeous gold plated tip and ring sleeve (TRS) jacks for headphone-out and line-in. Finally, we have a coax/optical S/PDIF output for multiplexed digital surround information from film etc.
On the rear of the card is a power connector for the headphone amp and on the side of the PCB are internal provisions for aux input from a ROM drive and front panel connection for those with jacks on their cases.
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