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.
Value -Ah, yeah… price. Well the Xonar Xense with its Sennheiser headphones is not going to be an inexpensive option. But then again they are absolutely not aimed at the entry level gamer or entry level anything to be perfectly honest. They are aimed squarely at the audiophile gamer and audio enthusiast. This is the market that will see (ok hear) the value in the additional OpAMPs, the headphone amp, and the significantly better headphone set. This group knows what this will bring to the gaming and multi-media table. As such the $280 price tag is not going to shock them. Instead they will see it as a more than fair price for the components involved. To the average consumer this price will seem very high, for “just a sound card”. Conclusion -I have liked the Xonar series since Asus launched it. It was a fresh breeze in what was becoming a very stagnant market. Over the years since it hit the Xonar line has done nothing but improve. The Xonar Xense is one of the results of this improvement. I say “one of” because there are other sides to the Xonar line up. There is the Home Theatre line and the Music Enthusiast line. Each of these has their own top end card that fills the need for that market. When Xonar launched one of the few complaints was that its gaming performance was not as good as it could have been. I personally did not feel this was an issue but many other reviewers did. With the Xonar Xense you would not have that complaint at all. It is truly built with gaming in mind. Asus did not leave out other types of multi-media though. You still get great audio from watching movies (of any type) or just listening to your favorite music. I found the Xonar to be a great addition to my gaming experience. It provides a new level of immersion to even older games. The clean audio and roomy “live” sound really puts you into the game on a whole new level. The price tag of $280 is well worth it for the hardware and performance you are going to get. I do wish the microphone was removable and it would have been nice to use Burr Brown Digital to Analog converters but in all truth once I started using the PC 350 Xense headphones with the Xense audio card I quickly forgot those complaints. If we gave out awards for our reviews the Asus Xonar Xense would certainly get the highest one we had.
