Verdict

The Asus Essence STX is a bit of a strange creature when you think about it. While it’s obviously not being aimed towards the gamer crowd, the inclusion of Dolby Digital Live!, EAX 2.0, OpenAL and DirectSound3D 2.5 actually makes it pretty competitive in the gamer market. If you are one of the growing numbers of gamers who are running through a receiver and big screen LCD or plasma, then the Essence is an option you should seriously consider. When combined with Vista, DDL can easily replace the loss of hardware accelerated audio.

With its high dynamic range, low stereo crosstalk, and excellent THD performance, the Essence STX certainly approaches within reference quality sound levels. The software is easy to use and intuitive, although the lack of application profiles proves to be a minor annoyance. The DSP modes help to enhance their respective target sounds, while the karaoke function is a neat addition that works pretty well.

However, it is important to note that we didn’t see the performance we would’ve expected above 20kHz for a high quality card. And while the Essence certainly did much better than our other cards, which don’t support 20+kHz sound frequencies, we still expect a high quality card to perform with some level of consistency. Instead, the Essence had a constant drop-off as it went up along the frequency spectrum.

The Asus Essence STX is being billed as a card for the audiophile, with its individual pre-amplifiers, swappable op-amplifiers, high SNR, and low distortion rate. During our testing, we were fully pleased with everything we heard coming out of the Essence, whether we were listening to music, playing games, or watching movies. While the software needs a bit of work to take into account the multi-taskers out there, the audio quality more than makes up for any little annoyances in swapping out DSP’s. The Asus Essence STX is currently priced around $199, and considering its feature set, that makes the HT Omega Claro Plus+ the only other real competitor in its class. While we haven’t had a chance to take a look at HT’s card, we can honestly say that for any person out there who considers themselves to be a true audio freak, they should consider the Asus Essence STX thanks to its excellent features and audio performance.