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The Asus Xonar Essence One arrives in a monolithic style box, predominately black with a gold logo in the center and plain text underneath. It is extremely heavy.
For those interested, the design of the box is based around the ‘Qing Tiger' a 4,000 year old Chinese symbol which represents the search of man for the ‘essence of sound'.
This journey sourced instruments that not only pay homage to the gods, but also represent the harmony between man and nature. The crystallisation of this knowledge became the Chime of the Tiger or “Qing”. So there you have it, the weird looking logo on the box actually means something.
The Asus Xonar Essence One is protected underneath a padded inner layer, and encased in a plastic protective cover. On either side of the main unit are two boxes which contain all the accessories.
The bundle contains software for Windows computers, USB cable, several power cables and a detailed user manual. Asus also include an audio precision test report which details how the specific unit has performed before shipping. It is very detailed and worth a scan, even if a lot of the information may seem overkill for many people. The report highlights reports on signal to noise ratio, Harmonic Distortion, Frequency response, Dynamic Range and Crosstalk. If the device doesn't pass the specifications required it goes back to the factory.
The unit itself is heavy, using premium aluminum for the outer shell. It is a quality design, as we would expect for this specific audience. Again, the housing has the image of the Qing Tiger, which is the same as the box.
On the front panel is a power button which is surrounded by a blue light when powered on. There is also an upsampling function via the ‘world's first 8x symmetrical upsampling'. There are also input, mute and volume controls on the front of the unit. There are two volume potentiometers, one for speakers and one for headphones and a series of LED lights which indicate the received bitrate by the DAC.
Sadly there is only an unbalanced headphone port on the front. I use balanced throughout my system as the soundstaging is greatly improved with the right source material.
The rear of the device can accept toslink, USB (asynchronous) and coaxial input with balanced (2×3 XLR) and unbalanced output connectors on the left. Be aware that ASUS only make a single universal unit, with a 115v/230v voltage switch, so be sure that it is set correctly before potentially destroying it!
I have to admit, I wasn't expecting such attention to detail inside the unit. There is a huge toroidal transformer which is a high grade unit. Asus are using quality capacitors throughout the design and we noticed that the op-amps are mounted on sockets meaning they can be removed and replaced. We are sure that ASUS won't support this directly, but it is nice to see them offering the hardcore enthusiast audiophile the option to fine tune this section for slightly different audio parameters.
The capacitors are not branded, so we would assume they are being custom made for ASUS, for this specific design. The Toroidal transformer is output: +5 V 0.9A, +12 V 0.7A,-12V 0.7A. There is a single PM06AVE3 -5.0P and a LM2940CT National SemiConductor Voltage Regulator. They are using another LM2990T – 12P and two JM13ABE3 National SemiConductor Voltage Regulators.
The Digital DSP is by Analog Devices, the ADSP-21 261 (150mhz SIMD SHARC Core, 900MLOPS). The USB controller is a C-Media CM6631, which is an asynchronous USB device supporting up to 24 bit/192khz.
I was pleased to see that ASUS haven't skimped on the S/PDIF, which is an AKM AK4113VF, one of the best AES/EBU implementations on the market. Asus are using 2x BurrBrown DAC's – the PCM1795, which is 32bit/192khz with a rating up to 123db SNR.
Analog Headphones are supported by two EM13ABE3 LME 49600 TS (National Semiconductor High Current Audio Buffer) and two JR06ABE3 LME 49720NA (National Semiconductor OPAMP)
If you are using speakers then they will be driven by three JR12ACe3 LM 4562NA (National SemiConductor OPAMP) and six 13AE08W 5532P (Texas Instruments OPAMP).
The Volume potentiometers are ALPS design, one of the best companies that ASUS could partner with. My friends Krell amplifier uses similar potentiometers.
beautiful looking design. They always made good sound cards and products, b ut their drivers for PC are normally really weak.
very nice, but I agree with above., their audio drivers have always been dire. its surprising really considering their motherboard software is normally prettty good.
very specialised design, but im interested. need a new amplifier and this seems to be ideal for both my PC and other things.
Thank you ! been waiting on a quality review of this for a long time. Great design, im buying one now. I want something that is more versatile than that tube amp you use, but wow, nice setup man.
hardcore. asus have such a big range of products. very high quality. I have never had problems with their drivers dont know what people mean……
2 questions…
1. What cable where AND are you using to make such difference. I am an audio/video professional and never heard of such.
2. USB affected what exactly? USB is a digital connection.
If you are referring to the headphones, I tend to use cables from Double Helix in America – they make a huge variety of high grade cables for a variety of products. I am surprised as an ‘audio/video professional’ that you have never heard of such a thing. There is a whole industry devoted to various kinds of cable and some people swear by RS OCC Silver and others are even using cryo-treated Ohno continuous cast (OCC) silver. Whether you can hear the difference would be down to a: your ears b: the partnering equipment.
USB is a digital connection? Sure, it is, but it was designed mainly for computer peripherals. When you factor in transmitting audio through it, there are other dependencies, such as drivers for the operating system (which can be problematic) and interference and crosstalk with other digital circuitry inside the computer. Audio quality can be improved not only by cabling but with the purity of the signal. Some manufacturers use balanced four section DACT attenuators to precisely control the input signal of the input/gain amps. Therefore a USB feed from a computer is never going to be as pure or free from signal pollution as a high grade amplifer with dedicated audio output, built from the ground up for a single task of delivering the purist signal possible. I will say that downloading some of the studio master, uncompressed files from linnrecords in the UK was a very impressive experience via the computer, even over USB.
Apologies but I think I may not be clear.
I understand there is an industry of so called high quality cables using exotic techniques and elements to make extremely expensive cables. But having an industry does not necessarily mean scientific justified. I mean there are a whole industry based on “anti-aging” creams, diet pills, and palm readers.
I would love to see a independent lab testing results (with clear methodology) that illustrate the differences and not just subjective reviews with catch phrases like “clear mids” “powerful lows” and “soaring highs”.
I am sorry but your USB explanation is not standing on technical grounds. I work all day with broadcast film, TV and music projects with well known producers and artists.
USB signal is a digital signal. It is possible to transfer errors through transmission but it is not possible to reduce dynamic range and such. Cross talk, in the way being used here, is an analog phenomena. You might mean digital interference but that is a different thing and cannot affect the signal the way you describe it.
Having a bad HDTV reception does not make the color less saturated. You get digital errors (blocks, and such) but anything regarding range is an analog terminology. At best you are using analog explanations for a digital phenomena.
If I get a cheap USB cable with my scanner do I get less digital information???? And that less digital information means my dynamic range is smaller???
Yes drivers can affect the signal but that assumes there is a process involved. If it is a pass-through then no (assuming errors and error correction is proper levels).
Many studios record and use devices that uses digital connection like USB, firewire, AES, SDI, etc.
Interesting views. Is listening to music meant to be an entirely ‘scientific’ process? Exotic cabling is a matter for debate, sometimes i can tell the difference between a cheap cable and one costing many hundreds of pounds. Sometimes i can’t. There are debates ranging everywhere on the topic. To create an analogy of comparing human ears listening to music to that of a scanner receiving digital data is the most unusual I have ever heard. People aren’t cyborgs. ‘errors through transmission’ is one of the greatest areas that audiophile hardware tries to negate in a manner of ways.
One of the finest real world tests, is to get a hold of sennheiser hd800 headphones. Use the stock cabling for a while then try an exotic cable based on silver, or a silver and copper hybrid. The sound, especially the bass will be improved noticeably. Obviously depending on your source. Dynamic range alone does not translate to ‘perfect’ sound incidentally. This is why people still use valve/tube technology with tubes sourced from the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s. Does that ‘scientifically’ make sense when compared to the latest high grade solid state technology ? probably not, but the sound quality to many ears is significantly better.
This probably cant be scientifically measured either, but its plainly audible. Same as listening to a well recorded piece of classical music via good interconnects and a high end cd player. Then swapping the audio disc to a cheap sata computer optical drive, and listening via a usb sound card with windows drivers in the mix.
Its like chalk and cheese. But if you want a graph showing how it sounds better via my ears, i cant do that. If you dont believe the comments then thats fine, its not like a video card and acquiring xxx frames per second at xxx resolution with xxx imge quality settings.
I envy the fact you can enjoy all this without spending any money at all on source, cabling and output. Some people can. In your specific case I dont know why the Asus Xonar is even remotely interesting, you will be more than happy with standard onboard audio, stock cabling and headphones/speakers.
Why do people need to form an argument by saying they work ‘professionally’ in an industry? Its almost like saying ‘I can taste the burger better because I work in McDonalds all day’.
Digital crosstalk is a very big subject incidentally – with A/D and D/A CONVERSION/SAMPLING CIRCUITS. for an ‘expert’ to say ‘it doesnt exist digitally because I work with well known producers’ is ridiculous.
Quite a lot of information about it online…… scientific enough? 🙂
http://pdfserv.maxim-ic.com/en/an/AN1842.pdf
The capacitors are Nichicon Blue and not unbranded as mentioned. The volume pots are APLHA Taiwan and not ALPS Japan.
Hi ron,
Thanks for the info, appreciate your time.
I am planning on getting this DAC/Amp and would like to thank you for the wonderful review. It helped me make up my mind about getting this product.
Coming to the whole issue of USB related quality deterioration you have mentioned in the review, I have to kindly disagree with you on that. As an electrical engineer, I can agree with you on the merits of using specific materials and manufacturing processes to improve the conduction of analog signals between audio components. But, when it comes to digital data transport between digital devices (controllers), electromagnetic or other interference with the digital transmission has ZERO effect on the audio information being transported.
Yes! There might be some errors in the packets being transmitted from the system to the USB controller on the DAC, but these packets are packaged under specific protocols that ensure a high degree of error correction. So, when the packets are decoded and decompressed within the DAC, the audio information is 100% replica of that on the source file.
The only issue with USB transfer of digital data is the clock jitter due to the internal clocks of the source and destination not being in sync. This is taken care of by this DAC through the implementation of Asynchronous transfer protocols.
Also, any degradation/latency as a result of decoding and resampling of audio data within the computer is of no issue, since digital data is directly routed to the USB bus from the source file (bypassing the OS and onboard audio hardware), thanks to the bit-perfect data transfer protocols. Hence, data from your CD or lossless digital audio files, is exactly replicated at the other end (I2C output on this DAC) of the digital transport bus (USB in this case).
Hence, if anything, USB gives you the best option to transfer digital data to the DAC with ZERO loss of actual audio information. The only use scenario where this setup would have issues is when the computer develops hardware issues related to either the USB bus or the port-connectors.
You probably saw a degradation is quality due to the USB controller on the DAC being 24bit/192Khz and the DAC itself using 32bit/384Khz upscaling, while your source encoding was something else. Such combinations do tend to cause issues with audio quality, at times.
Anyway, thanks again for the great review!
Thanks for clearing that up Rahul, I also wondered about the USB cable issue and you seem to know what you’re talking about. digital is digital and only when things get to an analog signal distortion comes into play. This is of course as long as there is no filtering of the digital signal in between from something like codecs or otherwise, but a cable in and of itself shouldn’t affect sound quality from point A to point B.