In the PC world audio components are often overlooked. There are only so many items that your average consumer can keep track of. They know CPU, GPU Motherboard. Some will know about the power supply but really not much else. After all, Intel and others have been fighting to say the build in Audio CODEC on your average motherboard is as good as a discrete audio card so why should consumers think different? Well, if you think about it logically this does not make sense. After all, can you name one IGP (integrated graphics processor) that is as good as even a simple mid-range discrete GPU? I would not even say that the IGP on the i7 2600K is as good. So why would anyone think that an on-board audio CODEC would be better or even “just as good”? It is all marketing. We have tested multiple boards and also multiple add-in audio cards and can attest to this. Now I think I have found “the one”. The one audio card that finally brings the audiophile level expectation to the PC world. This is the Xonar Xense. It is Asus’ flagship audio card and one that has them partnered up with Sennheiser. The Xonar Xense comes complete with a pair of Sennheiser PC 350 Xense Edition headphones, a tuned audio card (complete with custom gain levels), and a head phone amplifier this is one serious piece of audio gear for your gaming or multi-media audio pleasure. So let’s put the PC 350 Xense headphones on, sit back and see what we can hear.
The test system and comments -For our testing I used our GPU testing system that consisted of the following components;We also used the most current version of the Xonar software from Asus’ website. This is a nice utility for customizing your audio experience.When you first open the Xonar Xense Audio Center software, it is a little on the intense side. The predominance of the color red can be a little eye watering, however you do quickly get used to it. On the landing or home screen you have your options for the number of channels you want to use, the sample rate, and how active you want your Dolby headphone option to sound. There are also found small “buttons” below the virtual volume knob. These are for preset DSP (Digital Signal Processing) options. Asus has included the following presets; driving, first person shooter, movie, HiFi, and GX mode. A slight word about GX mode and Netflix. If you are using Windows Vista or 7 along with the Netflix (from the Media Center plug in) the GX mode can cause your audio to stutter and pop. It is recommended to leave the GX mode off. This will not impact audio quality in any measurable way so it really can be safely turned off and left off. Between this group of five buttons and the volume knob we find the SVN and Mute buttons. Mute is very obvious while the SVN might not be. SVN is a smart volume option. This helps to equalize the volume or games, movies or other multi-media types to maintain a consistent listening experience. Have you ever been watching a movie and had to constantly adjust the volume up and down? Well, this is what SVN is supposed to prevent. It keeps the loud scenes from being too loud but makes sure you can still hear the voices later on.If you look at the analog out option you will see what looks like a small hammer. Clicking on this when Headphones is selected will bring up the custom gain profiles. These profiles allow you to tune the power sent to the headphones to ensure that TI headphones amp is giving the best audio quality. The gain profiles are based on impedance, the higher the impedance the higher the power from the amp to properly drive the headphones. Asus and Sennheiser have come up with a custom profile for the PC 350 Xense headset. I would highly recommend using this as it really does make a difference in how alive the audio sounds. The mixer page is very self-explanatory; it is nice to have this option though.The Environment Page (Effect) is another one that is very nice to have included. It is not really much more than another DSP option but it can allow you to add flavor to your audio. As you can see there are a few presets available or you can setup a custom EQ and save it to the available profiles. For all of our testing we left things flat here to see what the Xonar Xense set could really do.FlexBass (the last button) is a virtual crossover option. What this does is to help remove some of the “mud” from your midrange and high end speakers. That is it can do this if they do not already have a real crossover circuit built in. If not or if you want to assist the crossover you can adjust the frequency that the system pushes to your subwoofer right from this page. Again for our testing purposes this was left off.
