[section_title title=”Closer Look”]Closer LookÂ
Taking a look at the premium grade ASUS Essence STX II sound card, the first thing that draws my attention is the lovely EMI shield; it features a nice gun metal grey colour and also sports a lovely abstract design of a tiger, raaaawr.
Aside from the EMI shield, we have plenty of capacitors to look at which are of course gold; this is a common feature on high-end components these days. Touching the actual components, the STX II utilises some fairly high end and classy parts such as the Ti 6120A2 headphone amp which is actually featured on quite a few different dedicated sound cards; a good sign of quality really. The Op-amps are of course using MUSES which is a great addition which in the STX II’s case, these are MUSES 8920 chips.
The STX II also uses CS5381 120dB ADC (analogue to digital converter) by Cirrus Logic which is of course featured on the original Essence STX sound card; not necessarily a bad thing as it did a fantastic job first time round.
The ASUS Essence STX II also has an addition daughter board available which we currently don’t have, but this opens up more possibilities in terms of connectivity; there is of course an additional cost and connects with a straight ribbon cable. To power the sound card, ASUS have gone with a 4pin Molex connector which will displease some people due to the messy nature of trailing a Molex cable; pretty much the only valid way to provide the power this kind of card needs.
ASUS have also implemented the Texas Instruments PCM1792A 132dB DAC for ultra-high fidelity; something to make use of those audiophile high fidelity cans and a really nice compliment to the general theme of the STX II, quality.
Black PCB is always favourable and ASUS are no different in implementing the cleaner look of the all-black look; nothing super special about the rear but a nice back plate would have made a nice addition given the price point.
Last but not least we have the I/O which includes a 6.3mm headphone port, 6/3mm line in/microphone port, 2 x RCA for speakers and a S/PDIF/coaxial out; there is 1 x 6.3mm to 3.5mm adapter included but ASUS could have included 2 as most headset mics which aren’t USB utilise 3.5mm jacks.
