ASUS Xonar D2: Enchants the PC into a Home Entertainer

Picture: Asus

Some sound cards are not only pleasing to the hears, but also to the eyes. The ASUS Xonar D2 easily falls into this category. However, the real motives behind the positive reviews from the German test site, Hardwareluxx, surely stem from the sound experience, quality components and drivers of the card. Asus promises something, even for spoiled ears, which includes high definition and audio processing at sample rates of 192KHz/24Bit, a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of up to 118 db, as well as extensive Dolby and DTS technologies, for a digital home experience of a special kind. Clear PC sounds and an exact 3D sound positioning and hardware acceleration will most likely lock in a few PC gamers who have already tried to optimise their PC’s hardware on their own.

All gamers who use Windows Vista, finally have a solution for optimised 3D audio sound since December with the newest Asus drivers through DirectSound3D Game Extensions 1.0 (DS3D GX 1.0) and acoustic echo cancellation (AEC) , after the DirectSound 3D hardware extension API was no longer available in Windows Vista. This way many games now have their sound effects back, which were missing with other sound solutions in Vista. DirectSound 3D Gaming effects can also be experienced with “Dolby Headphone”, “Dolby Digital Live” or “DTS Connect”. Yet even the feature “Acoustics Echo Cancellation (AEC)” has some clear everyday advantages, because up to 40db of echoes that reach the microphone can be eliminated with this technology. All users of VoIP applications like Skype can communicate even more clearly with the ASUS Xonar D2 Sound Card. And thanks to the application “Portable Media Processor” and ALT (Analogue Loopback Transformation) the quality of the recordings is increased. The card offers great performance for a reasonable price.