Question 1

I have a Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5 motherboard with an onboard Realtec auido output. The PCI x1 slot is not available beacuse the 990 FX processor cooler with a heat pipe will not provide clearance for the PCI X1 slot. Can I use the Xonar card with this motherboard by placing it in a PCI X4, X8 or X16 slot?

Accepted Answer

Yes. I have the Asus Maximums V which does not have PCI X1. I used a PCI 3.0 x16 slot. It didn't like the PCI 1.0 x4 slot. But I'm thinking that with PCI 3.0 and 2.0 you can put a x4 slot into a x16 if needed. But not in PCI 1.0.  Good luck. This card sounds amazing. You will love it. The software is slightly cumbersome. But there are work around for it.

Question 2

Are the RCA jacks on this card a line in or line out?

Accepted Answer

You can find the manual on the ASUS site

5 Outputs at rear are:
Front R out
Front L out
Headphone out
Microphone in
Line in
S/PDIF out

Fantastic audio card!

Question 3

I have these expansion slots. Is there any ways i can use this card?

3 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (dual @ x16, triple @x16 x8 x8) 
1 x PCIe 2.0 x4 
2 x PCI 2.2

Accepted Answer

Yep, the Xonar Essence works in any PCIe Slot (x16 slots can fit x16, x4, and x1 cards, x4 slots can fit x4 and x1, etc.), so you can put it into either your x4 slot or one of your x16 slots. It's a great sound card, hope you like it.

Question 4

Will Xonar Essence STX support Windows 8.1 64-bit?

Does it include RCA to 3.5mm stereo jack for speakers?

Accepted Answer

Danny,

Yes, this card supports windows 8. Asus provides windows 8 drivers on their support website.

Yes, the package does include a RCA to 3.5 mm connector. That, and a lot more info for this card can be found in the review video provided by newegg in the Overview section of the item description. I suggest you watch the video, as it may answer some of your other questions as well.

Question 5

Does this have a place to plug in front panel audio? Also does anybody know of any like desk audio jacks kinda like what asus includes with there red gaming sound card?

Accepted Answer

Yes the card has a place to plug into the front panel audio jacks, its a connector on the side of the card. So you will need to hook a cable from your front audio/mic jacks of your computer to the side connector on the card.  And not sure what you mean, desk audio jacks.  But if you want a way to connect to the 1/4 inch external jacks on the soundcard use a keyboard that plugs into those jacks with an adaptor then plug headphones and mic into the keyboard or just buy longer cables. This sound card is awesome, but you need good speakers and good heaphones/headset.

Question 6

Do you get the same sound quality using the front audio jacks or do you need to connect headphones to the card itself to get the full benefits of this card?

Accepted Answer

The only real difference is that the headphone jack on the card itself is the only one that is amped. If you are using really low impedance headphones, you will still get excellent sound quality through the front audio jacks on your case. I personally would recommend using the amped jack with most headphones though; it makes a noticeable difference on most headphones I've tried, and it makes a very big difference on most full sized headphones.

Question 7

Is this sound card compatible with Windows 8.1 ?

Accepted Answer

Yes it is. I have it installed with Windows 8.1 and it works flawlessly.

Question 8

can the 5-1 be disabled to get a true 2-1 signal? want to feed old amp stereo only.

Accepted Answer

Paul, there is an outstanding dedicated 2-channel output on this audio interface.  I see however, that you want 2-1, which implies you want a sub-woofer channel.  In that case just take outputs from Front-Left, Front-Right and Sub-outs and be sure to feed it 2-1 material.

If you're of the Audiophile genre, you should look into using the UniXonar Drivers (do a search, it pops right up) rather than the ones supplied.  As-is, the interface will not support 88.2 kHz or 176.4 kHz sample rates.  The new drivers handle that.

It's also worthwhile to put in some different op-amps for the main channels.  What's there as stock is great, but you can do even better.  Good instructions accompany the board.

And finally, as a headphone amplifier, this interface is hard to beat.  I'm using a dedicated external vacuum tube headphone amplifier, and I frequently wonder why I bother.

Hope this helps.

Dennis

Question 9

I have turtle beach headset and it is through pdif plugin, would this sound card change or make it any better for sound using this type of card?

Accepted Answer

Yes, the Digital out on the sound card WOULD WORK. BUT I would absolutely ditch the turtle beach equipment and use the headphone out with the headphones. the reason to buy this card is for its superior headphone amp and crystal clear D/A converter. using your turtle beach SPIDIF out would somewhat defeat the purpose of this card and if you want to use that equipment, I would suggest buying a cheaper card.

Question 10

In order to achieve the full virtual 7.1 surround sound effect must I have headphones that have two L and R jacks? I am currently looking at the DT880 600OHM's which only have one jack; 1/8-Inch gold-plated stereo mini jack and 1/4-inch adapter. In order for the surround sound to work, must I have a headset with L and R jacks?

Accepted Answer

No. All stereo capable headphones have 1 jack and are fully capable of surround sound. the right and left sounds are transmitted through the same jack. You don't need special 5.1 headphones to get surround ethier, just stereo headphones is fine, as long as you have the right settings setup in the audio control panel and are playing a audio source that has the capability of producing surround sound.

Questions & Answers