Sound Cards

Invest in this 5.1 CH PCI Sound Card to improve your PCs sound quality with CMI8738 Chipset. This sound card has 32-bit PCI bus master and 64-bit sound effect dealing full-duplex playback and recording with a four-speaker location system. Also features built-in 3D sound effect buffer GameMPU-401 and MIDI port as well as direct sound A3DEAX support. Boost your audio capabilities by installing this sound card today... » read more

The ASUS Xonar Essence One Worlds first USB digital-to-analog converter with 8x symmetrical upsampling and 120dB SNR.Redefine High Fidelity and ClarityDigital music sources are an important source for audiophiles. Catering to the needs of the user the ASUS Xonar team launches its first hi-fi USB DAC the Xonar Essence One and commits to subvert the low quality digital music stereotype. It is the industry-leading high-end USB DAC with the worlds first 8x symmetrical upsampling an extremely high 120dB SNR audiophile class headphone AMP with a full op-amps swappable function.Hi-Fi audio through the worlds first 8x symmetrical upsamplingThe Essence One preserves faithful details of your music collection. While common upsampling USB DACs just transfer whatever audio source to 192kHz indistinguishably the Essence One upsamples 44.188.2 176.4kHz input to 352.8kHz and 4896192kHz input to 384kHz in a symmetrical manner. The Essence One also supports to increase data volume by upsampling the bit-rate to 32bit corresponding to the original content. Note 44.18352.8kHz 488384kHzExtreme audio clarity with 120dB SNRThe average SNR of other USB DACs is about 110dB. With the extremely high SNR 120dB the Xonar Essence One provides audiophiles clearer sounds with every detail while significantly reducing noise level.Built-in headphone amp powers up even 600 ohms impedance headphonesThe Xonar Essence One intergrates an audiophile-class headphone AMP circuit which powers up ALL Hi-Fi headphones and grants 100 performance even with impedance up to 600ohms. It offers extra dynamics sound details and low distortion.11 swappable OP-amps for customizable tonal charactersThis is the unprecedented attempt for any hi-end USB DAC. Op-amp is the key part that amplifies the analog signal in your DAC and affects tone charactersdarker brighter sound image etc. Xonar Essence One allows user to swap almost every OP-amps for a fully customized sound.Cleanest sound thanks to a dedicated internal power supplyThe internal power supply supports all international voltages and has generous margins for over and under voltage conditions. It provides the cleanest power for the cleanest sound with excellent immunity to noise on the AC line. Balanced XLR outputThe Xonar Essence One also features balanced XLR outputs. This is a higher quality output that is useful for eliminating unwanted noises and interference. Since a balanced line contains two signal carrying conductors of equal magnitude but opposite polarity noises induced along the cable path cancel each other out when they reach the destination load. This makes balanced lines perfect for professional applications where long cable connection with induced noises might be a problem. XLR connectors should be wired as follows Pin 1- Ground Pin 2- Hot in-phase Pin 3- Cold phase-inverted. Bit-perfect with ASIO 2.2 DriverBit-perfect is how the audio stream will come from your PC. If you are running bit-perfect with ASIO you will hear the music as it was encoded on the CD. The ASUS Xonar Essence Onersquos ASIO 2.2 driver simplifies the process of multiple audio streams bypassing latency issues in Windows to deliver a low-latency high fidelity sound file that is identical to the original audio file. PS. When you run bit-perfect the ldquoBIT PERFECTrdquo LED in the front panel will light up. Low Clock Jitter with Asynchronous Data TransferMost USB audio uses Synchronous Data Transfer mode to adjust the internal clock to compensate different data transfer rates between PCs and USB audio devices. But the jitter is worse if the transfer rate is different between a PC and the audio device. To avoid this issue the ASUS Xonar Essence One supports Asynchronous Data Transfer mode. This mechanism feedbacks the buffer status to the system and the system is based on buffer status to adjust to the speed of the data transfer which leads to a low amount of jitter in the Xonar Essence One. Dedicated Volume ControlsThe ASUS Xonar Essence One i... » read more