Hey, guys. This is the email I wrote to Asus, and to make the story short Asus D2 really blows away X-Fi DAC converters.


"Hi,

I just had to write this email to someone at Asus to thank them on the most amazing sound quality sound card I ever used. I recently purchased Asus D2X. It is incredible. I do a lot of music processing for my DJ hobby. To keep it short, I had an X-Fi Xtreme Music, and I did not know what I was missing. I was always unhappy with the way my stereo system sounded, and I have very expensive gear, as I spent thousands and thousands at home and in the car. Yes, I love my music! Now, I realize with the X-Fi, it was like taking a song, and lets call it a clean shirt for this, and process it using X-Fi, and it was like throwing it in the muddy water, also the sound came out not just muddy, but also it lacked certain frequencies. Now, the music sounds full again, and crystal clear. No degredation from the original track after processing. Thank you very much! You made my music alive again. I really did not think it could be this good!!! Can you please forward this to whoever you think will be able to appreciate the feedback."

X-Fi only seems to sound good when you use a "Crystalizer", which is basically a loudness feature. It appears the quality is pure garbage, do not get fooled by the specs on paper with high S/N etc. It need heavy processing to sound good, but if you use it for music creation, pure garbage comes out, and I always thought, why does my stereo sound so-so. Kept upgrading equipment, and was never blown away. Now, I have a decent system, and after using the new sound card to process my music, the sound changed entirely. It doesnt sound much different on the PC/headphones, but in the car and on home theatre it is just night and day.

Hope this helps you to make the right decision. I am not on Asus payroll or anything, I am just an extremely happy customer. It seems this is the consensus if you google. X-Fi is usually good for games, as the sound is good enough, but for sound audiophiles, X-Fi is definitely not the card.

 

Agreed, i used to work in the computer industry for 4 1/2 years as a technition and can say that Asus is the shiznick. I haven't had the opportunity to try their soundcard yet as ALL my money is going into my car for my wall & new sub's in the spring, i never was impressed with Creatives X-Fi when listening to my mp3's on my computer... all that the X-Fi is good for is gaming.