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Yoda_Blues (263)     Jan 13, 2009 - 01:50 pm

You're correct, perhaps replace was the wrong terminology to use there in regard to DDL section. However, I fully understand there is a big difference between hardware acceleration and DDL. I never meant to imply they were the same thing, only that the rewrite of the audio stack has necessitated changes in the way hardware is designed. Due to this, we have OpenAL wrappers that are meant to re-introduce the functionality lost from that re-write. As for the comments on the 20kHz range, Asus includes a booklet on their testing results that shows they got a better result than we did. Now why that it is, I do not know. But my job as a reviewer is test a hardware manufacturer's claims. Our results did not match what they were claiming, so I pointed that out. Finally, from the article in regard to the X-Fi RMAA: "The X-Fi’s results were all over the place throughout all our frequency response tests. We tried tweaking the driver options, but we always saw the same result. Even following Creative’s guidelines for testing with RMAA did not give us different results. We are left to conclude that something must be happening either at the driver or hardware level that is altering the test results, but we were unable to find any answers as to what that was." That should be pretty clear that the RMAA results for the X-Fi should not be counted against it, as we weren't getting accurate results. » Login to reply to this

DanTheMathlete (235)    Jan 13, 2009 - 09:03 am

Well put. » Login to reply to this  bobbinalong (1)   Jul 31, 2009 - 06:22 pm » Don't buy this card for live audio recording There is a half second delay between when you send analog audio to the line level input and when you hear it played back on the speakers. I have never had an audio card that had this problem. I talked to Asus tech support and they said there was no way around this issue. The forum for this card on their website said the same thing. It appears to be an issue with the driver. The worst thing about this is that on the Asus website the tech specs for this card say the following: "ASIO 2.0 Driver Support: Supports 44.1K/48K/96K/192KHz @16/24bit with very low latency" Very Low latency? I DON'T THINK SO. Anything that we can hear is not low latency, let alone very low latency. » Login to reply to this

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Yoda_Blues (263)     Jan 12, 2009 - 04:03 pm

All your complaints I pretty much covered in the review. That's why the card did good as far as pure audio reproduction is concerned, but lost points in the usability areas. It's really important to understand (and I'm pretty sure I said this in the review too, but maybe not) that the Essence is NOT a gaming card nor should it be considered in the same league. Gaming tests were done just out of curiosity. It performed pretty well in Vista (where the gaming audio playing field is leveled somewhat since audio acceleration was removed), so I thought it was worth mentioning. A person who wants to change out op-amps or uses a $400 set of cans wants a good sound card for audio reproduction. The Essence fits in that role. » Login to reply to this  p4l1ndr0m3 (418)   Jan 12, 2009 - 06:37 pm Well, I just looked at Creative's new Titanium, and I may need to retract my previous statement because it looks horrid AND expensive... When is someone going to step up and make Creative give two poops about their products instead of nerfing their drivers to force upgrades on their customers? » Login to reply to this

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Yoda_Blues (263)     Jan 12, 2009 - 04:12 pm

I apologize about the lack of real headphone tests, my set of audio-technica's broke about a month ago and I haven't had money to replace them. I tested with what I had and decided to not sit on the card until I could replace my cans. However, please keep in mind that subjective tests are exactly that: subjective. This is why we used RMAA as a technical way of showing how the Essence performed. » Login to reply to this

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