Asus Xonar DX Review

Most PC building audiophiles out there tend to really like and suggest the Asus Xonar D2X. It has a robust feature set, great build quality, and impressive performance. There is a downside to the D2X though. If you want to throw one into your computer, you could find yourself parted from upwards of 200 bucks! That is a bit steep most people out there, so Asus has come out with the Asus Xonar DX. The DX version is a trimmed down version of the Xonar D2X. The Xonar DX can be found for much less than the D2X. I grabbed mine for $70 before taxes. Saving 100+ dollars over the D2X is a good start. I have been quite happy for a long time with my existing Diamond card, but I thought I would check out the features and performance of the Asus card. This article will take a look at the difference between the D2X and the DX, and what sort of results are yielded. For performance comparison I will be a comparing the subjective quality of the DX to the Diamond Extreme Sound 7.1 DDL I've been living with.

Let's start by taking a quick look at the card itself. It comes in a nice and sturdy box. Within the outer box is an inner matte black box.

Inside the black box is the card in it's electrostatic protective sheath.

You can see in the first picture the layout of the card. Along the top is pins to connect your front mounted jacks. I didn't connect these, because I don't use the front mounted jacks on my computer ( I use the jacks on the remote for my speaker system ). This nice little addition doesn't show up on the D2X. Score one for the trimmed down DX! At the far point from the external jacks, you can see the power connector. The Xonar DX does require external power, so when purchasing and hooking up, plan on this. In the second picture you can see the external jack connectors. They aren't colour coordinated, so paying close attention to the labels and the manual are important. The DX doesn't have LED lit connectors as the D2X, so I guess you can give an aesthetics point to the high end card. I'm not so good with colour though, so none of this bothered me!

The DX uses PCI express connectivity, which did take me a moment to rearrange the back panel analog cables. I'm used to them being at the bottom of my case, but the PCI express 1.0 slot on my motherboard is more towards the top. Not a big deal for me, or most people I would bet. The PCI interface is on it's way out, so the PCI express connectivity is nice if you plan on carrying this card forward into other systems.

You do get a molex power connector adapter, which helped my case wiring set up. You may have noticed that the card is low profile, so Asus has included a low profile bracket. If you are building a small but elite media centre, the DX would make a nice card. Included as well is an adapter cable, manual and driver/ utilities CD. You also get a S/PDIF adapter so you can connect a TOS-Link cable. Because the digital line is shared with the analog input port an adapter is required for digital connection. The digital input goes through the pins on the inner portion of the card.

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