Page 3 - Contents
iii Contents Contents ...................................................................................................... iiiNotices .......................................................................................................... v Federal Communications Commission Statement ..............
Page 4 - Notices; Federal Communications Commission Statement; may cause undesired operation.; Canadian Department of Communications Statement; This class B digital apparatus complies with Canadian ICES-003.
iv Notices Federal Communications Commission Statement This device complies with Part 15 of the FCC Rules. Operation is subject to the following two conditions:• This device may not cause harmful interference, and• This device must accept any interference received including interference that may cau...
Page 5 - Safety information; that came with the package.; Trademarks
v This symbol of the crossed out wheeled bin indicates that the product (electrical and electronic equipment) should not be placed in municipal waste. Check local regulations for disposal of electronic products. Safety information • Before installing the device on a motherboard, carefully read all t...
Page 6 - Introduction; Package contents; Windows
1 ASUS Xonar Essence STX 1. Introduction 1.1 Package contents • ASUS Xonar Essence STX PCI Express audio card• 3.5mm-to-RCA cable x1• 3.5mm-to-6.3mm adapter x1• S/PDIF TOSLINK optical adapter x1• Support CD• Audio Precision Test Report 1.2 System requirements • One PCI Express 1.0 (or higher) compat...
Page 7 - Specifications summary
2 ASUS Xonar Essence STX Items Description Audio Performance Output Signal-to-Noise Ratio (A-Weighted): 124dB for Front-out110dB for Headphone-out Input Signal-to-Noise Ratio (A-Weighted): 118dB Output Total Harmonic Distortion + Noise at 1kHz(-3dB) : 0.0003% (-110dB) for Front-out0.001% (-100dB) fo...
Page 9 - Xonar Essence STX card layout
4 ASUS Xonar Essence STX 2. Xonar Essence STX card layout (continued on the next page) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 No Item Description 1 Front Right Out port Connect the Right audio cable (red) from your 2/2.1 channel speakers to this port. For multi-channel speaker systems, connects to the Front Right In port ...
Page 11 - Installing the hardware; Preparing your computer; Remove the chassis cover.
6 ASUS Xonar Essence STX 3. Installing the hardware 3.1 Preparing your computer Before you proceed with the following installation steps, it is recommended that you disable the onboard audio device in the BIOS settings, or uninstall any other sound cards on your PC. For BIOS setting or uninstallatio...
Page 12 - Installing the Xonar Essence STX card; Secure the audio card with screws and the metal bracket.
7 ASUS Xonar Essence STX 3.2 Installing the Xonar Essence STX card 1. Secure the audio card with screws and the metal bracket. 2. Connect the 4-pin power cable of your power supply unit to the power connector of the audio card. 3. Put back the chassis cover. 4. Reconnect all cables. 5. Plug the powe...
Page 13 - Connecting to a TV tuner card
8 ASUS Xonar Essence STX 3.3 Connecting to a TV tuner card 1. If you have a traditional PCI or PCI Express TV tuner card on your PC, you may need to connect it to the Xonar Essence STX card to send the tuner card’s sound to your PC speakers. 2. Secure the PCI/PCI Express TV tuner card and screw it i...
Page 14 - Installing software; Installing the card driver; automatically detects the HDAV card and searches for device; Cancel; from your; END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT; ” in the process and make sure you
9 ASUS Xonar Essence STX 4. Installing software Installing the card driver Ensure that you have installed the VGA card driver before installing the Xonar Essence STX driver. Otherwise, driver installation error may occur. 1. After you have installed the Xonar Essence STX card, turn on your computer....
Page 15 - Connecting speakers and peripherals; Connecting digital speaker systems (Home Theater)
10 ASUS Xonar Essence STX 5. Connecting speakers and peripherals 5.1 Connecting digital speaker systems (Home Theater) The Xonar Essence STX supports Dolby Digital Live technology, which transcodes any audio, including games and music, into industry-standard Dolby Digital surround bit-streams. This ...
Page 16 - Connecting stereo headphones
11 ASUS Xonar Essence STX 5.2 Connecting stereo headphones The Headphone Out port has a built-in high-quality amplifier to drive headphones. Connect your stereo headphones to the Headphone Out port son the Xonar Essence STX card. Headphone Out
Page 17 - Speakers
12 ASUS Xonar Essence STX 5.3 Connecting 2/2.1 channel speakers No Item Description 1 Front Left/Right Out The Left/Right Front Out ports have a built-in high-quality amplifier to drive headphones. Connect the 2/2.1 speaker set’s 3.5mm plug to the bundled RCA-to-3.5mm Y cable, and then connect the L...
Page 18 - Connecting microphone
13 ASUS Xonar Essence STX 5.4 Connecting microphone No Item Description Front Left/Right Out port/Headphone port Connect the headphone’s 3.5mm plug to the bundled RCA-to-3.5mm Y cable, and then connect the Left/Right ends to the to Front Left/Right Out ports on the Xonar Essence STX card. 1 Micropho...
Page 19 - Connecting Line-In audio sources; Mixer
14 ASUS Xonar Essence STX 5.5 Connecting Line-In audio sources No Item Description 1 Line Input Jack Connect the CD/MP3 Player or any other Line level analog audio sources to this Line-In port by using the bundled 6.3mm-to-3.5mm adapter for sound recording or real-time Dolby sound processing through...
Page 20 - Xonar Audio Center; Xonar Audio Center GUI; Essence STX Audio > Xonar Essence STX Audio Center
15 ASUS Xonar Essence STX 6. Xonar Audio Center 6.1 Xonar Audio Center GUI 1. After the driver installation is complete and your computer has been rebooted, you will find the Xonar Audio Center’s icon in the system tray on the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. Double click this icon to open th...
Page 22 - Main Setting; Sample Rate
17 ASUS Xonar Essence STX 6.2 Main Setting 6.2.1 Sample Rate The sample rate determines the number of audio samples per second that the Digital-to-Analog Converters (DAC) and S/PDIF digital interface will output. The Xonar Essence STX card can support sample rates up to 192KHz (44.1K, 48K, 96K, 192K...
Page 23 - Analog Out mode
18 ASUS Xonar Essence STX 6.2.2 Analog Out mode No Item Description 1 Analog Out The Analog Out setting is used to match your actual speaker setting, such as headphones and 2/2.1 speakers. Xonar Essence STX will play the channels and do the proper 3D/Dolby sound processing accordingly. Select the co...
Page 26 - Virtual Speaker Shifter; The 7.1 Virtual Speaker Shifter has the following major features:
21 ASUS Xonar Essence STX 6.2.5 7.1 Virtual Speaker Shifter The 7.1 Virtual Speaker Shifter has the following major features: • Expanding/upmixing audio to 7.1-channel surround sound• Virtualizing 7.1 surround sound over any set of speakers• Shiftable virtual speaker positioning allows you to adjust...
Page 28 - Dolby Headphone
23 ASUS Xonar Essence STX 6.2.7 Dolby Headphone Dolby Headphone creates a stunning multi-channel surround experience over ordinary stereo headphones for playing 3D games, watching 5.1 DVD movies, and listening to music. Dolby Headphone produces surround sound cues so realistic that you will believe ...
Page 29 - Dolby Virtual Speaker; II processing, delivers a virtual
24 ASUS Xonar Essence STX 6.2.8 Dolby Virtual Speaker Dolby Virtual Speaker technology simulates a 5.1-speaker surround sound listening environment from as few as two speakers. Dolby Virtual Speaker also creates a wider two-channel environment during playback of stereo CDs and MP3 content, and when ...
Page 30 - Playback Volume
25 ASUS Xonar Essence STX 6.3 Mixer/Volume The mixer page is designed to control the volume for playback and recording on the Xonar Essence STX. In addition, the Xonar Essence STX also provides a high-quality digital monitoring function for hearing the recorded audio from the speakers. You can also ...
Page 31 - Recording/Monitoring Volume
26 ASUS Xonar Essence STX 6.3.2 Recording/Monitoring Volume No Item Description 1 Recording Volume Tab Click this button to show the recording volume page. 2 Left/Right balance This horizontal slider controls the volume between the left and right channels. 3 Recording volume slider Drag this slider ...
Page 32 - Mix
27 ASUS Xonar Essence STX 6 Monitoring button Click this button to monitor and loopback recording audio to outputs (PC speakers). Therefore, the recording volume will influence the monitoring signals from speaker outputs. The audio will be mixed into the streams you are playing out from your PC and ...
Page 33 - Effects; Environment Effects
28 ASUS Xonar Essence STX 6.4 Effects 6.4.1 Environment Effects Environment effects can be used to create realistic listening experiences that mimic different environments. There are a total of 27 environment options, which can be applied to all 2D sound sources, like music. No Item Description 1 De...
Page 35 - Karaoke
30 ASUS Xonar Essence STX 6.5 Karaoke The Xonar Essence STX provides powerful features for Karaoke, including Key-Shifting, Vocal Cancellation, and Microphone Echo. Key-Shifting can change the pitch of Karaoke background music, and Vocal Cancellation can reduce the original vocal in songs and keep t...
Page 36 - FlexBass
31 ASUS Xonar Essence STX 6.6 FlexBass FlexBass, an advanced bass management and enhancement mechanism, allows you to select each satellite speaker’s type for optimal sound performance from the speakers. (Small: common speaker that cannot produce low frequencies; Large: wide-band speakers that can p...
Page 38 - Smart Volume Normalization
33 ASUS Xonar Essence STX 0dB (Full-scale) - -10 dB Music 1 Music 2 SVN Off SVN On T 6.7 Smart Volume Normalization Smart Volume NormalizationTM (SVN) automatically keeps all music or video/TV audio output at a constant level to reduce manual adjustment hassles inherent with sound sources of differe...
Page 40 - DS3D GX and DSP Modes; Supports latest DS3D GX 2.0 for gaming on Vista & XP
35 ASUS Xonar Essence STX 6.8 DS3D GX and DSP Modes Xonar Essence STX is introducing an innovative technology –DirectSound 3D Game Extensions v1.0 (DS3D GX 1.0)- to restore DirectSound 3D Hardware acceleration mode and its subsidiary EAX effects on Windows Vista for 3D games. Unlike some proprietary...
Page 42 - VocalFX
37 ASUS Xonar Essence STX 6.9 VocalFX VocalFX is an innovative voice processing technology to let your voice get into the realistic game landscape (VoiceEX) or to emulate the background scenes in online chat (ChatEX). It also allows you to change your voice pitch to disguise who you are (Magic Voice...
Page 43 - For 3D Games; Check the check box of VoiceEX and Local VoiceEX.; For VOIP; Press App List
38 ASUS Xonar Essence STX For 3D Games 1. Check the check box of VoiceEX and Local VoiceEX. 2. Make sure you and your team member can talk to each other in the game. For VOIP 1. Press App List 2. If you don’t see the VOIP application of yours in the list, press Add.(Make sure the Skype and MSN Messe...
Page 44 - Your VOIP application has been added into list.
39 ASUS Xonar Essence STX 4. Your VOIP application has been added into list. 5. Check the check box of ChatEX and Magic Voice. 6. You can use ChatEX and Magic Voice when you chat online. Click the checkbox to enable VocalFX function, then a prompt message will pop up: This message implies the record...
Page 45 - Troubleshooting and FAQs; Remove the card, plug it into another PCI Express slot, and try again.; I cannot find the Xonar Essence STX Audio Center; Make sure you have installed the driver
40 ASUS Xonar Essence STX 7. Troubleshooting and FAQs [Troubleshooting] The audio card driver could not be installed on my PC. Instructions: 1. Make sure that you have properly plugged the audio card in the PCI Express slot on your motherboard. 2. Check that the Windows hardware device manager has d...
Page 46 - Try restarting your Windows.
41 ASUS Xonar Essence STX 3. Ensure that the device master volume or the software player has NOT been muted on the Xonar Essence STX Audio Center. 4. If you are using Dolby Digital Live encoder through the S/PDIF output, the analog output will be muted to get rid of the interference between your dig...
Page 47 - Q3: Why is Xonar Essence STX the best audio card for HTPC and multi-
42 ASUS Xonar Essence STX I found no sound effects when playing 96K or 192KHz sound sources.Instructions: 1. Currently Xonar Essence STX effects including Dolby supports common 44.1K, 48KHz sound sources processing and will assure high-definition audio (96K/192KHz) in hi-fidelity playback. This is a...
Page 48 - Q6: What is the most important benefit of the Xonar Essence STX for
43 ASUS Xonar Essence STX Q4: Does the Xonar Essence STX support EAX on Vista?Answer: Yes, Xonar Essence STX can support EAX2.0 not only on Windows XP but also on Vista through innovative DirectSound3D Game EXtensions v1.0 (DS3D GX 1.0) technology. Q5: Why do I need Dolby for PC games?Answer: 1. Dol...
