Asus Xonar Essence STX- Manuals

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...

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...

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 ...

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...

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...

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...

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....

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 ...

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

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...