Customer Reviews

Asus Xonar D2 Sound Card (Black)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

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...

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.

Overall, this is a great sound card that just works. I've been burned in the past by Creative cards which tend to have cracks or hissing in the audio that were never corrected. That is not the case here, in part due to the shielding on the card that eliminates interference and also to good drivers.

The sound quality is great and is a huge step up from the integrated audio in motherboards. The LED's on the audio input jacks on the back of the card are a nice touch and make hooking items up in the dark an easy task. The card also includes a lot of utilities, one of which makes ripping audio files from sound coming through your speakers very easy.

Although it's a bit expensive, the sound quality and extra features over integrated audio solutions really makes it worth the premium price.

Have been suffering for years with the Creative "memory hole" problem. The Dell XPS 600 came with a Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic card. It worked great with 2 GB memory that came on the PC (OS XP MCE 2005). When I upgraded to 8 GB of menory got the dreaded Creative Snap, Crackle, Pop and would lose audio. It worked this way on Vista and eventually Windows 7 (current OS). Had to limit memory use to 2 GB! Creative blamed Nvidea (chipset manufacturer) and Nvidea blamed Creative.

After much research decided to try the Asus Xonar D2. Well the difference was night and day, sound was great, not more Snap, Crackle, Pop even with 8 GB of memory installed. Was a little reluctant to try because of the price but for me it has been well worth it, kudos to Asus, goodby Creative. Looks like Nvidea was right.

[...].

Flawless installation unlike Creative Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum with all of it's software and driver problems. Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum eX Soundcard Xonar D2 PCI installed without any problem. The only con I have is that I would like to see the Xonar D2 Audio Center software replicate more closely an actual Reciever interface. I preferred older Turtle Beach software. For this price range, I am very satisfied.

The sounds quality is nice. The backlit jacks make it a little easy IMO to reconfigure your speakers. I had a few hiccups with some older games and EAX stuff. But I don't play game anymore so that is no longer an issue.

The dolby features operate fast and sound superb. Realtek could sometimes pull off a few neat tricks with surround but overall it didn't sound well.

The software bundle is generous, IMO. It's the best sound card I've owned that wasn't dedicated to professional applications.

over the yrs have owned several sound cards & have always felt there is little differance between units WOW how wrong can I be? tHIS IS THE FINIST SOUND CARD- 1st) it arrived very fast 2nd) was package very nicely 3rd) had all wires, manuals, etc 4th) THIS unit is quality in & out love the way the outputs are lit up in respective colors green out put green light red-red & so on for 7 outputs very impressive! then 5th) the whole reason to purchase this unit is sound it's the best ! I've turned om amps (CROWN) after hooking up to the colored lit up outputs THE OUTPUT FROM MY KEF speakers is better than from any onther source, I'm impressed, best deal I've ever gotten!

There was no output from any other than the front speakers. I updated the driver (which was a hassle) and swapped the connection to the front and back speakers. Still had sound only from the front speakers.

Returned to Amazon who promptly refunded my purchase price.

This card was an easy install, suggestions for the drivers: Download them from the manufactures site and it is a snap, then adjust your system to disired settings. I replaced my Sound Audigy 2 with this card using win 7 64 and it works like a charm and sounds better than the old Creative card. I would buy it again and would recommend it to anyone wanting an outstanding card for a cheap price.Asus Xonar D2 Sound Card (Black)