Asus Xonar D2 Sound Card (Black)

by Asus

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 0.4 x 0.4 x 0.4 inches ; 1.8 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000UU5TBU
• Item model number: XONAR D2
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: August 6, 2007

Product Description

Masterpiece Audio Card for Home Theater and Gaming; Hi-Fi class audio quality with SNR up to 118dB; Complete Dolby/DTS technologies; DS3D GX 2.0 emulates EAX5; Valuable Cakewalk and Ableton Live software bundled

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Good for Music Listeners or Creators, August 25, 2007

By 

D. Blizzard (New York City, NY, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Asus Xonar D2 Sound Card (Black) (Personal Computers)

I got this card to replace an X-Fi Fatal1ty card. The Xonar is superior to it in many ways. First of all, it includes many of the Dolby technologies designed for home theaters. PC users will also benefit from this, the card has Dolby Headphone and a Virtual Speaker which delivers incredible sound quality in any environment. Second, the drivers for this card are solid. Unlike the X-Fi, this card is designed for 32 AND 64-bit computers. To Creative X-Fi owners, this means you can turn on Cool n' Quiet without popping. You can also turn on the memory hole (if you have 4GB or more of RAM) and not have to deal with the snapping, crackling, hissing, and popping noises. Third, if you are a digital music creator, the Xonar comes with a whole suite of music creation software which makes the steep price tag worth it even more. Finally, the audio controls included in the driver package allow users to tweak the sound to perfection. The only thing this card doesn't do as well as an X-Fi is gaming. The Xonar only supports up to EAX 2 not EAX 5. This is a small issue as most games don't support it anyway. The X-Fi also delivers greater performance in gaming. However, the difference is negligible.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great sound! Worth the price!, April 9, 2008

By 

Big T (7 minutes in the future) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Asus Xonar D2 Sound Card (Black) (Personal Computers)

I upgraded from a Audigy 2 and am using a headphone jack to RCA splitter running to an integrated amplifier and high quality tower speakers. This card is great! Awesome sound quality and hearing the subtle sounds missing before in music and in games. Really a big difference from before. I can't personally compare it to the high end Creative Pro card, but from all the research I've done it blows all the Creative products away, is cheaper, and there's even a beta driver for EAX 5.0 so in case that's an issue...

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beats most anything out there, September 24, 2009

By 

Daniel Kinkaid - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Asus Xonar D2 Sound Card (Black) (Personal Computers)

After upgrading to a 5.1 setup, I decided to upgrade my audio from a Creative ExtremeGamer to this. I can say, the difference in sound quality is noticable.

Installation is a snap; just plug into any open PCI port. Drivers insatlled first time without issue as well. Functionallity is about what you expect, although the lack of number lables on the equalizer is a bit mystifing...(on a side note: The card uses a C-media chipset, for the standard C-Media driver can be installed instead of the ASUS one. Strangly enough, the numbering on the equalizer exists in the standard C-Media driver...)

As for quality of sound, I was blown away. Side speakers finally had some life to them, and details that were missed on Creatives card were suddenly much clearer. EAX5 emulation seems spot on (Tested BF2 and Bioshock), although 3 and 4 are not supported. Minor issue, as very few games used EAX3/4, and EAX is on the way out as an audio standard.

Having a seperate Linein/Mic jack, as well as dedicated SPDIF In/Outs was a necessity for me due to my complicated setup (Wii RCA through line in (via RCA->3.5mm converter), 5.1 headset via analog jacks, PS3/360 via SPDIF In, and to Z5500's via SPDIF out). Switching between in/outputs is easy as cake, although the only way to get linein to turn on/off is to enable/disable monitering from the Windows Control Panel. Minor issue, but worth noting.

DDL/DTS-C support is a necessity to any 5.1 digital system, and Dolby Headphones/Speaker does a good job virtualizing 5.1 into a 2.0 output. As always, Dolby Pro Logic IIx handles upmixing to 5.1.

Drivers are 7 certified, so OS support is not an issue.

Overall, 5 stars; 5 of 5 for sound quality, 4 for 5 for drivers. A clear upgrade from my older Extremegamer.