Overview

A dedicated sound card in the current PC hardware landscape needs to be capable of all kinds of stunts to justify its existence.

Does Creative's Sound Blaster Recon3D, its new £90 external sound card, have a deep enough bag of tricks to succeed?


It's the world's first quad-core sound processor, which gives it the power to pull off impressive feats such as separate mic audio and in-game sound steams, and apply separate effects – including compression, surround and noise cancelling – to each stream.

It's best friends with THX TruStudio, works with PC, Mac, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and sports a 'Scout Mode' button, which amplifies sound cues in-game to highlight nearby enemies.


There was a time when Creative and other PC audio peripheral specialists made most of their dough from internal sound card sales, but advances in onboard sound chips quickly pushed aside internal PCI cards such as Creative's classic Audigy 2 ZS (a veritable metropolis of capacitors) to the realms of fringe peripherals.


Built-in motherboard HD audio chips such as those from VIA and Realtek, plus Creative's X-Fi range, have swallowed the gap in audio fidelity and processing performance that used to exist between PCI sound cards and onboard sound to the point that few would consider shelling out extra cash on sound hardware over other performance-enhancing components.


As the Southbridge chips on both Intel and AMD chipsets and CPUs themselves become more powerful, we get much less of a performance hit, since the silicon is crunching the numbers faster and more efficiently to decode digital audio to analogue so that your speakers can made sense of it.

This decoding used to eat up frames per second, but modern CPUs and Southbridge chips aren't troubled by integrated X-Fi 7.1 audio.

So the gap between integrated audio and kit such as Creative's Recon3D needs to be noticeable, useful and sizeable for the latter to appeal. Let's see how it performs.

The real breakthrough tech here is SoundCore 3D, the world's first quad-core dedicated sound processor.

You can expect to see this chip feature on high-end motherboards as an integrated sound solution as well as powering the Recon3D.

Four cores are advantageous because they can handle simultaneous digital signals and crunch away at them with HD audio codecs much more quickly and efficiently than a single processor – just like AMD and Intel's multi-core, multi-threaded CPUs with video encoding.


Long story short, you don't need to fret about losing frames per second to voice and sound processing. The Recon3D's got that covered. It probably has that covered without breaking a sweat in fact, which is why Creative has thrown a generous heap of functionality at it.


As we mentioned, the Recon3D is full to the slick black brim with Dolby THX TruStudio Pro features. The most useful for gamers will be Pro Surround and Pro Dialog Plus.

The former creates a 360-degree soundscape, with sounds panning horizontally and vertically around you. Rather than cram its headsets full of drivers, Creative has opted for the digital approach, interpolating sounds as they travel from one point to another. In practice, this is one of the Recon3D's most effective and enjoyable features.

It genuinely tricks your ears into hearing sounds way behind or above you and from some distance away. The intensity of this effect can be tweaked in the software layer.


Pro Dialog Plus is all about clearing up noisy voice communication and compressing incoming voice comm streams, so that you don't jump out of your skin when a French teenager starts babbling at you in Team Fortress 2.

Equally, the Recon3D lets you clean up your own outgoing mic signal by compressing it, applying noise cancellation or even using the effects software to make you sound like a little girl. Nothing creepy about that, right?


Then there's Scout Mode. Hit this button and the Recon3D creates a bubble of amplified sound around you in-game, the theory being you're less likely to get backstabbed if your enemies' sound cues are deafening. We had mixed results with this, with some games faring better than others.


Console owners can save profiles they've created on PC and apply them to their little gaming boxes too, and the optical cable setup means it's a stress-free experience hooking it up to any device.

Verdict

The Recon3D offers great gaming sound and voice comm tweaking on PC and consoles, with some nice THX effects to play with. It is expensive for what it offers, though.

We liked

It's a feature-filled, high quality product, and versatile too. However, the best thing about it is that Creative is bundling the Recon3D with its wireless Tactic3D Omega headset. That's a quality set of cans, with great sound reproduction and beefy but not overcooked bass levels. The headset's worth £180 on its own, but paired with the Recon3D, the price tag's £209.

That's still well in the realms of enthusiast ware, but a much more enticing prospect than buying the Recon3D alone. If you're going to buy a headset that costs more than the console you'll be using it with, an extra £20 for a powerful sound card with some nice gaming features ain't too shabby.

The excellent surround effect also makes the Recon3D (with the headset, of course) a good choice for movies.

We disliked

Our biggest concern is that as a standalone £90 purchase, we're not sure gamers will be that enamoured with it. It's one for enthusiasts certainly (though not audiophiles), and however carefully you tweak your settings in the software suite, there's still one important variable: your speakers. It's your headset or desktop speakers that have the final say over sound quality.

On these grounds, we find it hard to recommend the Recon3D alone, because it doesn't magically turn bad speakers good, and if you have a basic set of speakers or cheap headset, this isn't the gear for you.

Also, despite the Recon3D's versatility and functionality, don't think this is your one-stop audio solution. Sure, it's great across different platforms, but geared very much toward gaming.

Verdict

If you're looking for a solid all-rounder that works with PCs, Macs and consoles, this is for you.

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi HD review: Overview

First impressions bear out the claim that Creative's latest USB audio card, the Sound Blaster X-Fi HD, is one for the 'audiophiles'. It looks as clever and understated as a black turtleneck sweater, and the smooth lines of the front are disturbed only by two large 1/4-inch jacks for high impedance headphones that scream quality.

Around the back, there's more to bolster the X-Fi HD's credentials: RCA stereo ports for line-in and out connections and two optical ports for playback and recording digital sources. Inside, the headphone port has its own amplifier.

It may not be quite as intimidating as the studio-grade M-Audio Fast Track Pro external soundcard but, like all X-Fi cards, it comes with the arguably more useful EAX support for games and Creative's THX-certified suite of equaliser options.

Plus, it's considerably cheaper than other high grade USB cards. Got to be worth a look, hasn't it?

We tested the Creative X-Fi HD in the excellent Rightmark audio benchmark and pitted it against the high end X-Fi Titanium HD internal card and the current £25 darling of the audioset, the ASUS Xonar DG. The results were surprisingly lower than we expected. Subjectively, however, it still runs rings around on-board sound.

RMAA Noise level (dBA, lower is better)

X-Fi HD (24bit/96kHz): -96.7dBA
X-Fi Titanium HD (24bit/96kHz): -113.4dBA
Xonar DG (24bit/96kHz):
On-board audio: -90.4dBA

RMAA Total harmonic distortion (%, lower is better)

X-Fi HD (24bit/96kHz): 0.0010%
X-Fi Titanium HD (24bit/96kHz): 0.0020%
Xonar DG (24bit/96kHz): 0.0027%
On-board audio: 0.131%

RMAA Stereo crosstalk (dB, lower is better)

X-Fi HD (24bit/96kHz): -95.3dB
X-Fi Titanium HD (24bit/96kHz):
Xonar DG (24bit/96kHz): -109.2dBA
On-board audio: -89.4dBA

Intermodulation distortion (%, lower is better)

X-Fi HD (24bit/96kHz): 0.0046%
X-Fi Titanium HD (24bit/96kHz): 0.0024%
Xonar DG (24bit/96kHz):
On-board audio: 0.326%

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi HD review: Verdict

For all its high-faluting hi-fi claims, however, the X-Fi HD probably won't win a massive following with the audio purist crowd. For a start, there's no low latency ASIO driver included, which is almost essential to be considered for the 'audiophile'.

Just as critically, it's impossible to open the box up to see the top of the PCB without snapping off the volume knob – so we can't say for sure that each headphone channel has its own amplifier, like the internal X-Fi Titanium HD, to prevent stereo sound leakage. More importantly it means no removable op-amps for those who like to fiddle.

Less crucial is that, unlike the Asus Xonar drivers, there's no option in the control panel to match the output of the headphone amp with the requirements of a heavy duty set of cans.

Does that matter? Probably not, because these are things that the vast majority of us wouldn't even notice after they've been pointed out. What you do need to know is that the sound quality is good, and it can drive studio-grade headsets to produce powerful, rich soundscapes with a very evenly balanced tone. Perhaps a little light on the bass by default, but nothing to complain about.

Technically, it benchmarks some way off the Titanium HD in the RMAA tests, but it's also around half the price of that card and works with laptops. We'd defy most to tell them apart in blind tests.

Compared to the majority of USB sound cards, it's night and day in performance – so long as you have a headset or speakers that can handle the differences, of course. What's more, it's a great choice for games thanks to the EAX driver – which we'd take over the rival Dolby systems any day.

It may seem pricey, but it's about as good as you're going to get from a USB system without moving up to truly professional and more costly options. If you're still balking at the cost, consider that it's cheaper than buying, say, a Creative X-Fi Go! Pro and separate headphone amp – which won't work as well anyway.

We liked

Good sound quality with a ton of high end connections for hooking up to a hi-fi or high-impedance headphones. The difference between this and on-board sound is palpable, whether you're playing games, watching movies or listening to songs.

We disliked

Like most Creative cards, the appeal is still strongest for gamers after high-quality sound and EAX. Sealing in the op-amps and not quite meeting the benchmarks we expected may turn real audiophiles off.

Although it's barely larger than a USB memory stick, Creative's latest external sound card, the Sound Blaster X-Fi Go! Pro, is packed full of the kind of audio acronyms and certifications you might normally associate with more imposing gear.

There's a coveted THX badge, for example, as well as support for Creative's own EAX 5.0 in-game environmental effects and a clever noise-cancelling software feature for chatting on the phone.

What it lacks is complexity. There's a switch on the side of the X-Fi Go! Pro that converts the headphone socket to a line-out, but essentially this is a two-port sound card without digital or surround outputs. In its simplicity, the question you'll be asking is: what does it really add to on-board sound?

It's a well-established fact that even those who demand high performance from their PCs are abandoning the desktop in favour of the current generation of powerful dual- and quad-core laptops, even gamers and HD movie buffs and editors. The problem is that most laptop sound is very basic, hence the need for a USB soundcard.

The X-Fi Go! Pro, though, is particularly useful for laptop gamers: credit where credit is due to Creative, the quality of in-game effects and positional audio is almost always better via a soundcard that supports EAX than it is through the rival system from Dolby.

Compared to the USB soundcard built into the Corsair HS1 headset or included with the Sennheiser PC 333Ds, for example, the sound effects from the X-Fi Go! Pro are clear, accurate and realistic where others just sound like extra reverb added on.

It's also incredibly portable, and the fact the USB cover is attached to the main body, so you can't lose it, is a thoughtful touch.

If you're not a gamer, though, there's not a lot of benefit in owning the Go! Pro. The THX suite adds in a handy equaliser for tuning music and the 'Crystaliser', which is a one-touch way of brightening up compressed audio, but it's not exactly 'pro' spec.

Without a digital out, it's no real improvement for hooking up your laptop to an external hi-fi either. You'd be better off with a cheaper plug-in card that can offload processing to a dedicated surround amp via S/PDIF, or if you use headphones, something with a built-in amp.

For what it is, and the price it is, though, the Go! X-Fi is a worthwhile investment for gamers who want an aural environment that's richer than the flat, bland or artificial effects that come with built-in sound.

We liked

There are cheaper USB sound cards around, but few of them add anything to a built-in sound chip. The X-Fi Go! Pro may be a bit pricey for something with only one output port, but it's worth it for the EAX soundscape in games alone.

We disliked

Despite the name, it's not really 'pro', and outside of games struggles to justify its price. You're much better off with a cheaper internal card and built-in headphone amp if you're on a desktop.

Asus Xonar DG: Overview and Benchmarks

Asus has established itself as a player in the high rollers' hi-fi lounge with Xonar soundcards like the Xense, D2 and mighty Essence ST. Although still relatively new to the audio game, it can look old timers like Creative and Auzentech in the face without shame.

Asus' latest card, the Xonar DG, features some of the same components as appear on its more expensive boards, just not in such great quantity. It's specifically aimed at gamers rather than music buffs, though, with basic outputs for 5.1 PC speakers and – crucially – an on-board headphone amp.

It's a tough job to convince anyone to upgrade from on-board audio, for the very good reason that most integrated sound chips are good enough for the majority's needs. Having made the decision to upgrade, should you be looking at something a little grander?

We've used Rightmark's Audio Analyzer tool to give a top level breakdown of the card's performance. It's worth pointing out that this simply measuring variations in tones via a loopback from the speaker to the mic channel – effectively the card is listening to itself.

RMAA total harmonic distortion 24-bit/48KHz (lower is better)
Intel on board: 0.131%
Creative X-Fi Titanium HD: 0.0020%
ASUS Xonar Xense: 0.0004%
ASUS DG: 0.0027%

RMAA Dynamic range 24-bit/48KHz (higher is better)
Intel on board: 90.4dBA
Creative X-Fi Titanium HD: 113.2dBA
ASUS Xonar Xense: 115.0dBA
ASUS Xonar DG: 103.3dBA

Noise level 24-bit/48KHz (lower is better)
Intel on board: -90.4
Creative X-Fi Titanium HD: -113.4dBa
ASUS Xonar Xense: -116.1dBA
ASUS Xonar HD: -103/4dBa

Asus Xonar DG: Verdict

The Xonar DG gets as close to its claimed stats as any card we've tested in the Rightmark tests, which is a good start. Subjectively, it also delivers on its promise of outperforming on-board audio by a long way. The headphone amp in particular, which can be tuned for high impedance headsets up to 150ohms is an exceptionally good touch at this price.

If you game through headphones, this is well worth the upgrade, with a powerful bass blast that doesn't drown out more subtle midtones and high range effects. For this alone, we'd choose the DG over the slightly more expensive Creative X-Fi Xtreme.

Even better, the DG also supports Creative's EAX 5.0 effects via Asus' GX2.5 driver. The driver interface, by the way, is identical to that found in Asus' other Xonar cards.

Outside of gaming, it's not a card that will please audio purists, since it doesn't have the power or connections to drive high end gear. For the rest of us, though, the improvement over on-board sound is appreciable and worth it.

Except for one thing - we had to re-install the drivers several times to eliminate the introduction of some distortion into MP3 playback. It's not a terminal problem, but it is a little frustrating.

A PCI-E option for newer motherboards without older PCI ports would be useful too.

Still, these are faults that are easy to live with. The Xonar DG costs less than a new PC game, but adds a lot of long term enjoyment, and we challenge anyone to tell the difference between this and a sound card costing two or three times as much.

We liked

The Xonar DG an appreciable upgrade from on-board sound for less than ￡30, and the dedicated headphone amp drives a lot of extra power into your cans without destroying fidelity. It's a simple and cheap way to make games a little more enjoyable.

We disliked

If you've got a newish PC then you may find the PCI port completely incompatible, and you'll want something better if you regularly hook your PC up to a hi-fi for movies or concert hall music.

Formosa21 aim Audio SC8000: Overview

It's not often a new company comes along to compete in the component business, and one that enters the increasingly niche world of sound cards is even rarer. But that's exactly what Formosa21 is doing with its aim Audio SC8000.

It may seem an odd place to be trying to cut a name for yourself, but Formosa21 has a 17-year history in the OEM audio business, and the component list sounds impressive enough. A 32-bit CMI8787 processor is as good as they come, and the JRC4580 op amps have been seen on the prolific Auzentech's cards in the past.

Consider our interest in the aim SC8000 piqued.

Sound is, by its very nature, a subjective experience. The process of turning electronic pulses into high fidelity renditions of Bach's most subtly nuanced cantos is technically complex. Together, these two facts create the perfect conditions for snake oil salesmen to grow, ready to blind with the science of audio and fleece some cash.

It's why we can love the expensive ASUS Xonar Xense, but be wary of the similarly priced Creative Titanium HD. At a third of the price of either, how does the aim SC8000 compare.

Formosa21 aim Audio SC8000: Verdict

The quarter-inch headphone jack has a separate 70W amplifier chip to the RCA stereo out ports, although confusingly both chips seem to be the same, raising the question: why? Still, plug in a pair of cans and it's a potent experience. There's an enormous amount of power in the mid-to-low range – nice if you're a fan of death metal or rock music.

The somewhat muted treble response is only the beginning of the aim SC8000's problems, though. We can overlook the fact that there's no support for the Dolby standards or in-game effects like EAX in the driver, and no analogue surround out isn't a deal breaker. Stereo speakers are generally better for games, and if we want to go 5.1 we can use a digital connection and decoder.

What makes it absolutely impractical as a PC expansion is the fact there's no mic or line in ports. There's also no header for connecting up jacks on the front of the case.

You can work around this by leaving the on-board sound card enabled and using that for recording, but even if all you want to do is listen to music, we'd recommend the Xonar D2X or any of Auzentech's cards instead. Not only do they have more features, the aim's drivers are just not as mature and we're fairly sure they caused the occasional stutter and distortion in MP3 playback.

This isn't a question of sticking with tried and tested brands, there's just no stand out part of the SC8000 that overcomes its shortcomings.

It's not snake oil. It's just not very good.

We liked

Competition is a good thing, and more sound card manufacturers will bring top end components like some of those found on the aim SC8000 down to affordable levels. We like the raw power of the SC8000, even if lacks finesse in the high frequencies.

We disliked

Oh, where to start... Dodgy drivers that need you to manually select the source quality? No front port header or Blu-ray passthrough? Nope, it's the lack of any kind of inputs which is a real bummer. What, exactly, is the point?

Creative X-Fi Titanium HD: overview

Who does Creative have in mind for its new X-Fi Titanium HD soundcard? After all, it's been a long time since add-in sound cards were a must-have piece of kit for gaming. Thanks to the improved quality of on board sound, they're an optional extra for pretty much everyone these days.

As the best-known manufacturer of gaming sound cards, Creative dominated PC audio for a few years in the middle of the decade. So it had the most to lose as gamers adopted a more laissez-faire attitude to aural effects.

Creative wasn't helped by the fact that companies like Auzentech and Asus opened a second front against it by wooing away those who wanted hi-fi quality sound from their PC.

Creative's in-game effects engine, EAX, was being eclipsed by the more generic Dolby Surround standard, and at same time the Auzentech Prelude and Asus Xonars were attracting folk who knew and cared about SNRs, dynamic ranges and understood that sometimes you get better quality from a coat hanger than a £90 gold-plated cable.

Fortunately, Creative is not the kind of company to roll over and give up.

Its passionate defence of hardware acceleration when Microsoft dropped DirectSound from Vista may have led to more user confusion than any other technical argument in the history of PCs, but it certainly helped to keep sound cards selling.

Now it's fighting back in the other direction too. The Titanium HD is a makeover of its X-Fi sound card aimed at the dreaded bunch who would call themselves audiophile.

Creative X-Fi Titanium HD: Features

Physically, the card comes clad in an unusual plastic housing that covers up all the components on board.

Whether or not this is designed for looks, or as some sort of RF shield for fidelity purposes is unclear, but it's a far cry from the sometimes gaudy LEDs of the Fatal1ty cards and more becoming of the kind of PC which might find itself hooked up to a pair of Bang & Olufsen's finest.

It connects via a single lane PCI-E port, and the EMU20K2 audio processor and 16MB of on board RAM is the same core specification that's been on Creative cards for a couple of years.

The card also supports DTS Connect and Dolby Digital Live. Old favourites like the upmixing of surround effects through Creative's own CMSS-3D remain, though.

Similarly all the previous features like the Crystalizer, which increases the dynamic range of compressed audio, remain untouched.

These now fall under the auspices of the THX-cobranded TruStudio PC, which has also appeared on Creative's USB headphones in the past and brings a load of tuning options for mid-range clarity or smart volume control.

The driver suite is identical to previous versions of the X-Fi control panel, with three modes for switching between entertainment, gaming and audio creation.

So far, then, so little to really differentiate itself from earlier X-Fi cards. The important differences are in the components used on the PCB. The key features here are higher quality capacitors and a 122dB SNR digital-analogue converter.

Along with replaceable op amps there should be enough here to pique the interests of those in the know.

Creative X-Fi Titanium HD: Benchmarks

How do you benchmark a sound card?

Well, we can show that there's little to be gained in terms of frame rates by offloading sound cycles from the CPU, and Rightmarks' Audio Analyzer (RMAA) can give us a technical overview of what's going on inside. Ultimately, though, audio is subjective, and different ears will like different things.

Far Cry 2 - Frames per second (higher is better)

RMAA total harmonic distortion

RMAA Dynamic range

Creative X-Fi Titanium HD: Verdict

You've got to be really interested in PC audio to even consider buying a sound card for over £160, and the X-Fi Titanium HD has a couple of other quirks to keep the riff-raff at bay too.

For example, round the back of the card, there's a 3.5mm headphone out and mic in, but the four RCA ports could be very controversial.

Two are for stereo line out, two are for stereo line in, which means if you want surround sound, you're going to have to use the optical connection to a separate amp and decoder, rather nullifying your investment in a high quality on-board one. There are no analogue connections for surround speakers.

That's a design quirk we can live with. After all, the audience for the Titanium HD is probably more interested in the low latency ASIO drivers for professional studio recording than listening for someone creeping up behind them in Call of Duty 4.

But what of the actual sound quality? Technically, according to the Rightmark Audio Analyzer benchmark, it comes close enough to the specs on the box to run rings around a standard Realtek on-board chip, although it loses out to Asus' Xonar Xense – a card very similar to the £150 Xonar Essence STX.

Subjectively, the tone is infinitely tuneable, but by default the card puts out a warm, rich sound in movies which – being critical – needs a little more emphasis on the higher frequencies for listening to music through headphones.

Gaming wise, even though on-board sound has come a long way, you will still notice the difference if you upgrade to an add-in card like this.

The trouble for the X-Fi Titanium HD is that for most people it's just not that much better than, say, the X-Fi Xtreme Gamer, which is a quarter of the price.

And if you really have to buy something that can edit out only the differences dogs can hear, then Asus' Xonar Xense is only £30 more expensive, but comes with a pair of Sennheiser headphones worth half the price, and a more impressive headphone amp to power them.

Auzentech's X-Fi Bravura, meanwhile, comes perilously close to the Titanium HD's specs, but costs just £70.

We're not arguing that you shouldn't pay for quality, but it's hard to imagine anyone who wouldn't be better off upgrading their headphones or speakers, or silencing their PC, than spending nearly £200 on a sound card.

We liked:

Even with the improvements in on-board sound, there's still a place for add-in cards, whether you're gaming, watching movies or listening to tunes. The X-Fi Titanium HD has some impressive specs that appeal to audio purists.

We disliked:

It's just too niche, and too expensive. You could easily argue, for example, that any improvement in sound quality over a cheaper card using the same chip is going to be drowned out by the noise of your PSU.

If you want this kind of audio quality, you're probably not using your PC as your main entertainment device.

Verdict:

Even with the improvements in on-board sound, there's still a place for add-in cards whether you're gaming, watching movies or listening to tunes.

The X-Fi Titanium HD has some impressive specs that appeal to audio purists. A fair shot at the high end, but other hi-fi cards are cheaper and better.

Asus Xonar Xense: Overview

With its highbrow hi-fi spec, Xonar Xense from Asus is part of a relatively new trend of sound cards that are looking to win back audio buffs who have been avoiding the pitfalls of PC sound processing by offloading everything to an external amp, or sticking to vinyl.

Armed with processors and other components more commonly found in stacking amps and CD players, it began with cards like Auzentech's Prelude and Asus's own Xonar DX2, and includes Creative's new X-Fi Titanium HD.

By their very nature, these sound cards are niche, and in danger of falling over into the dreaded audiophile category, where power conditioners and dowsing rods supposedly make a difference to the perceived sound.

Gamers, and anyone who never owned a pair of speakers larger than their car will, wisely, look to spend their money elsewhere.

Audiophilia isn't just about profligacy, though. The Xonar Xense does throw in a Sennheiser PC-350 headset and all the features you'd expect in a quality headphone amp, which makes the overall price just about bearable.

The Xense card itself has a basic spec similar to Asus' own high-end Xonar Essence STX (£150) or Creative's X-Fi Titanium HD (£160), and includes a pair of £100 headphones. That's an overall saving of roughly £70, and delivers something close to a studio experience.

What's not to like about that?

Asus Xonar Xense: Features

The Xonar Xense is so similar in terms of component make up to last year's Xonar Essence XT that it's hard to spot why some of the key ratings – like signal to noise ratio (SNR) – are different.

Both cards are based around a C-Media CMI-8788 OxygenHD processor, which is rebadged as an Asus AV100. Likewise, there's a Texas Instruments 6120A2 headphone amp with 192KHz/24bit DACs and a pair of JRC 2114D op-amps.

These latter chips can be removed and swapped for a different set. It's the current vogue for audio enthusiast gear, in the event that a particular piece of silicon has a signature sound that you prefer.

The Xense supports all the Dolby standards necessary, comes with ASIO drivers for low latency recording and, cheekily, a proprietary version of Creative's EAX 5.0 gaming API, DS3D GX 2.0.

Essentially, this does the work of Creative's ALchemy software, and adds in environmental effects lost when Vista dumped DirectSound, without the need for the dedicated DSP of an X-Fi card. DTS Connect is missing, but its absence unlikely to be mourned.

Physically, the bulk of the card is hidden beneath a shiny EMI shield to protect the sound processing hardware from the ambient noise of a PC chassis. It's around the back of the card that its true nature is revealed, though.

There's a coaxial S/PDIF port for hooking up to digital decoder, and an unusual DVI-like connector.

In the box, there's an adaptor that turns this into four 3.5mm jacks for 7.1 surround. The rear is dominated, however, by two quarter-inch jacks that serve as the headphone output and mic in.

To match them, the Sennheiser PC-350 headset is a slightly customised version of the retail kit, with matching quarter-inch plugs to fit.

The headphone amp, which requires a separate four-pin molex connector, is rated with an impressive SNR of 118dB, slightly less than the 122dB of the Creative X-Fi Titanium HD or 124dB of the Xonar Essence STX.

The key thing about the socket here, however, is that it can drive high impedance studio headphones up to 600ohms. Curiously, it doesn't have an unamplified line out socket.

Asus Xonar Xense: Benchmarks

The most important benchmarks are those that we can't print – playing games, listening to music and watching movies in a room set up to be as acoustically neutral as possible.

Here, though, we can show that there's no benefit to offloading sound processing in terms of frame rates any more, and using Rightmark's excellent Audio Analyzer tool shows us how close to the claimed specs the electronics are.

Far Cry 2 - Frames per second (higher is better)

RMAA total harmonic distortion (lower is better)

RMAA Dynamic range (Higher is better)

Asus Xonar Xense: Verdict

We haven't talked much about the Sennheiser PC-350s yet, and with or without the Xonar card in tow, they're an astoundingly good set of cans.

Everyone has their own particular preferences when it comes to reviewing audio gear, but to our ears the balanced tone of the Sennheisers – which don't overplay the bass, and leave high frequencies crystal clear – can make any old on-board sound chip sound like you're sitting in the Royal Albert Hall.

If you prefer something with more of a big bass punch, however, then you're clearly better off choosing your own scalp-clamping sound boxes.

The bigger issue is that the breakout cable for speakers feels slightly inelegant, and may need another adaptor if your speakers don't have 3.5mm inputs. It doesn't quite feel in keeping with the quality of the headphone channel, and makes the whole package slightly inflexible.

Anyone who wants to hook up an external amp will prefer the RCA connectors of the Creative X-Fi Titanium HD or Asus' similar Xonar Essence STX, which also has an excellent on-board headphone amp.

Both high-end Xonars can match the impedance output of the amp with the input requirement of the headphones too. You can dial down the power from 600ohms to 150ohms in the driver settings to match the PC-350's requirements.

Just make sure you do that before plugging them in or you could blow out the speakers.

The overall soundscape produced by the card and cans, though, is warm, rich and with an excellent dynamic range that's a fair rival for a much more expensive stack of audio separates.

It benchmarks better in Rightmark's Audio Analyzer than Creative's ostensibly superior X-Fi Titanium HD, and is great for gaming, with easily located positional effects, and the clarity to hear voice chatter above background explosions.

The Xonar driver suite is also easy to set-up and configure, with equalisation presets for different games, films or spatial settings.

As with any sound card review it's very easy to point out that similar quality which is almost indistinguishable to the casual gamer is available for less elsewhere, and there's a small stack of perfectly serviceable options ranging from the £40-odd Xonar D1 or Creative X-Fi Xtreme Gamer.

It's hard to fault the Xense on the value-for-money front, though, since bought separately, the total price of the headset and sound card would be around £260.

So if you want an excellent quality set-up and don't mind the diminishing returns over a much cheaper sound card and headset combo, the Xonar Xense is actually the most sensible way to get into high quality headphone hi-fi for gamers and music buffs alike.

We liked

By adding in one of TechRadar's favourite gaming headsets that almost comes close to studio quality sound, the Xonar Xense dodges the value-for-money bullet which makes it so hard to recommend high end PC audio gear to anyone but the most fanatical phonic fan.

The sound card itself is truly excellent, matching Asus and Creative's best.

We disliked

By emphasising on the headphone use, the card is slightly crippled elsewhere. It just seems unlikely that anyone spending £200 on audio kit is going to accept the dodgy dongle and 3.5mm jacks for everything else.

Final verdict

Essentially a £160 sound card for £100. If you haven't got a high end set of headphones, it's a good way to buy into hi-fi audio.

We get it now. Asus has proved its point. A few months back, we sat dribbling and agog as we reviewed its Essense STX sound card, and marvelled with flopping tongue at its hitherto unrivalled recording crispness and overall outward brilliance.

This month, although we've not been rendered quite as floppy and pliable, the Xonar DS has us convinced that there's still room in the world for outboard sound cards (that is, sound devices which don't live directly on the motherboard). They're essential.

Some of the advantages are obvious. Doing sound processing on a separate card removes electrical interference, which has a tendency to turn onboard sources into a hissing mess. This is definitely true of the Xonar DS, which gave a markedly clearer sound output than that of our test machine's bog-standard Realtek sound interface.

In addition, you can often take advantage of more advanced sound processing than you'd normally have. The DS uses Asus' noted AV200 processor, albeit in a slightly cut-down form. Dolby Digital support, which the AV200 has previously been capable of, is ousted presumably to save on licensing costs.

Although this is most definitely a budget card, that proper processor means it rarely shows any signs of being so. Full 7.1 support is one of the obvious selling points, and Vista users will relish the DS3D GX drivers – the Asus equivalent of Creative's ALchemy – which translate EAX 3D sound into something Microsoft's audio-challenged OS can handle with aplomb.

The built-in ASIO support is a must if you're even considering recording, and with an impressive signal-to-noise ratio of -107dB the DS definitely performs in that regard.

Perhaps the most exciting facet of the DS is that this is a low-profile card running on a PCI platform; if you've taken the plunge and set up a media box under your TV, 7.1 support is no doubt on your horizon. Since many media-specific boxes lack the requisite ports (and often have fairly rubbish power supplies), a PCI express card like Asus' own Xonar DX often isn't an option.

Full size cards are entirely out. But the Xonar DS gets the job done under bus power, and there's an easily-installed, low-profile backplate included in the box, so it'll fit happily in any case. Full front panel support caps the package off nicely.

For those who appreciate fantastic fidelity (and don't mind the lack of Dolby Digital processing), the Xonar is a real low-cost gem.

Although everyone loves netbooks, almost to the point of copulating with one every night, they're usually fairly impotent in certain departments. Possibly the most noticeable of these – outside graphical limitations – is sound, where hideous onboard solutions rule the roost. Creative's X-Fi Go! promises to add high-quality sound to your portable PC via the magic of USB.

Yet the situations where X-Fi Go! provides you with a genuine benefit are fairly limited. Not that the USB device doesn't deliver on the audio front – the Crystalizer is effective in rounding out your MP3 and ALchemy adds support for ageing games under Vista.

The simulated 3D effect is fairly convincing in games, too. It all sounds great, until you realise it's bumped up your processor usage by 25 per cent. Just what you want when your Eee's flimsy battery is dying.

For home use it could just about work – although a full-size internal card would be a preferable solution. If you're out but near a power point then it might come in handy and we reckon anyone who uses their netbook to DJ would find it useful.

But the sharp increase in processor use ultimately negates its intended purpose of delivering quality sound on the go. Not quite the aural Viagra we were hoping for, then.

This isn't just a fancy sound card, you know. Oh no. Let us quote from the included Audio Precision Test Report, a fancy document bound with gold string to compound its obvious legitimacy: "The development of the new Xonar Essence line has triggered us to engage a new quest in search for true high-end audio and the essence of sound."

Asus toiled long and hard, and as best we can understand, said essence is a combination of man's desire to search for the perfect sound and good electronic components. So here we are: high-quality capacitors, a PCI-e socket, and a Chinese lion engraved on the heat sink. Lovely.

You get a nice fast software driver, which is supposed to give you the best response in games. In practice the difference isn't too great, and the benefits of the Xonar software rarely rise above the pointless; you could play Team Fortress 2 with your audio mashed into some nightmarish satanic warble, but the fact is you won't.

Less unnecessary is the dedicated headphone amp, which means a vast sonic range and decent clarity at virtually every level.

Although there's not much difference in the high end, bass frequencies seem more brutal, and it's definitely easier to distinguish multiple sounds at once while wearing a decent set of headphones.

Plugs a' plenty

Another benefit? Fat 6.35mm jack plugs, for proper equipment, and a flexibility in how those ports are used. Plug in a guitar and the line port sets itself up to the correct levels; switch it for a mic or an MP3 player and either will automatically work.

You're given separate outputs, red and white RCA connections for speakers and a jack for headphones, because the powerful headphone driver would give your speakers a trashing.

Completing the package is a microphone pre-amp, which vastly increases headset clarity, particularly in combination with the main asset of the STX: superlow signal to noise.

Asus claims 124dB SNR; we can't argue. The microphone sensitivity really is phenomenal, and there's no detectable buzz in the equation. Whereas we've experimented with USB sound devices and had to post produce to get rid of mountains of static, here we're having to filter out the fan noise from our PC, replicated crisp and clear by a tiny headset mic.

Pointing a Shure SM58 away from the noise did the trick; a veritable flat line. if you're considering going anywhere near a podcast, get yourself a decent sound card first. This card is more than worth the £160 of software you'd have to buy to get the same effect.