ASUS Xonar Essence "One" Coming Soon

[PirateBoy]

Couldn't really find a more dedicated place for this, and I didn't want to wait until someone else here would post on the main site so I thought I'd post this here -->

This thing looks awesome. It does bit-perfect 192Khz. This is so my next DAC. I would project around $300 on release.

Here are some early working specs..
1. Hardware

Front IO:
Headphone out (1/4)
Headphone amp gain knob
Line out volume (independent to headphone volume)
LED indicators showing current playback sample rate
LED showing bit perfect (lights up when you’re kernel streaming)
Source select (USB/SPDIF)
Mute – it fades out instead of cut out the sound immediately, whichwill protect your gear, the same rules apply when you un-mute.
Power
Upsampling on/off
There is an estimated a 3% boost to SNR/THD when upsampling.

Back I/O:
Line out: RCA & XLR, unlike ST/STX, line out doesn’t share thesame DAC with headphone out. (XLR is balanced I/O and RCA is unbalanced)
S/PDIF in (both types)
USB in
AC in – a linear power adapter built inside to get the best power available

2. Software

A “invisible” driver, without it’s own UI and DSP settings. It gives you 192K and bit-perfect ASIO support it needs driver installation to work.

Circuit Details:
Input: USB2.0, S/Pdif
MAIN DAC: TI PCM1795
HeadAmp: NS LME49600TS -support up to 600ohm headphones.
Upsampling to 352.8Khz(44.1/88.2/176.4Khz) or 384Khz (48/96/192Khz), 32bit
Outputs: 1/4" headphone output
Unbalanced RCA line out
Balanced XLR Line out

Source - XtremeSystems

 

[PirateBoy]

comments? anyone?

 

[slyfox2151]

it looks expencive but if its under $300 i would definetly consider buying it.

 

[PirateBoy]

Should be good. Will most likely beat the M-box's spec wise in many regards, and as an external unit, I believe this will probably be less susceptible to noise induced from various things inside a PC.

 

[Ra97oR]

I was expecting a USB DAC with dual DAC. Doesn't look that much better than the Essence ST/STX to be honest. I also hoping it is a fully discrete DAC instead of using lots of Opamps.

However getting 32bit DAC, up sampling control and balanced out is a good sign. There is a lot of comparable DAC with this spec, I wonder how will Asus price this. If priced right and sounds good, it could be another killer product.

 

[STCNE]

I may trade in my essence for one of these, will make my upcomming micro-atx build much much easier.

 

[Ra97oR]

Line out: RCA & XLR, unlike ST/STX, line out doesn’t share thesame DAC with headphone out. (XLR is balanced I/O and RCA is unbalanced)

What? The headphone out use a different DAC? What does it use then?

 

[PirateBoy]

I guess people will have to keep an eye out for further information on this.

 

[plugmein]

Hey guys, a few random thoughts here. Again I have bumped a thread I know, and I have no reason to know why Pirate was banned, but I am wondering if I am a lone wolf or in agreement with the masses here. How many of us really feel the need to add a headphone amplifier? If I am going to buy any kind of audio interface it better have two phantom power inputs and a lot more capability than this piece of junk. M-Audio and AVID are pretty much the standard, I don't trust Asus at all as the last piece of hardware I purchased from them forced me to run data recovery. Have you heard of Datanumen.com?

 

[jalyst]

Built-in amp practical...
Can do your own mods to make it as good as (or close to) any discrete.
And then you don't have to mess with 2x physically sep. devices.

Anyhoo back on topic...
What I wanna know is, why all the silence on this thing now?
Heard absolutely nothing... has it been canned?

 

[FreedomEclipse]

dude got banned. but the Essence "One" looks interesting. could have been USB 3.0 at least