Asus Xonar ESSENCE ST Internal Sound Card (PCI, EAX 5.0)

Title : Asus Xonar ESSENCE ST Internal Sound Card (PCI, EAX 5.0)
ASIN : B002BZIZ04
Description : ASUS XONAR ESSENCE ST SOUNDCARD PCI 124DB SNR FOR AUDIOPHILES XONAR ESSENCE ST Components Sound Cards
Features :

• Form Factor:Internal
• Device Type:Sound card
• Interface Type:PCI

List Price : £142.24
Price : £142.24


category: Products
brand: ASUS
Item Page Detail URL : link
Rating : 4.3
Review : A sound card for audiophiles
I bought this sound card to replace an M-Audio 24/96, which has been the leading high-fidelity sound card for many years. The Essence is an amazing advance on the older card. I listened to Mackerras' performance of Mozart's Jupiter symphony direct from an uncompressed flac file downloaded from Linn Records. I compared it with the same download, converted to wav, burned to CD-R and played on my Naim CD player, which is priced in four figures. There was little difference. Eventually I decided the CD player was better after all, but the ability of this sound card to reproduce the vitality of the music (some call it "prat") is quite remarkable, certainly better than a cheap CD player.

So far I have not tested its recording (A-D) capabilities, something the M-Audio 24/96 does very well.

Why is there always a drawback? At the moment it only works with Microsoft operating systems. If you use Mac or Linux you are out of luck, although I think there is a Linux...