Introduction

One of the more intriguing events at this year's CES was EVGA's introduction of the NU Audio sound card. Being a piece of hardware you "get for free" with any motherboard, sound cards aren't easy to sell—more so when you consider that many users simply don't care about sound quality all that much, especially if they don't own a good pair of headphones or speakers. This is particularly true with high-end (expensive) sound cards. With a price tag of $250, the EVGA NU Audio definitely is pricey, so let's just tackle that fact head on. This isn't a product that is going to have a huge audience, nor would I assume EVGA expects it to. Some of you will undoubtedly be quick to discard it based on price alone, thinking you can buy a quality external USB DAC/headphone amp for less money. Yes, there are plenty of excellent DAC/amps available in the $250 (or lower) price bracket. A Schiit stack (Magni + Modi) will cost you around $200, the JDS Labs O2+ODAC combo comes to around $290, Cambridge Audio sells its DacMagic 100 for $200, AudioQuest wants around $200 for the excellent DragonFly Red, and less-known Asian brands, such as FiiO, offer some very interesting choices for less than $100 (the fan-favorite FiiO E10K currently goes for about $75). While all of them are nice upgrades to the sound quality of your headphones or speakers, those aren't "real" sound cards. What a fully fledged sound card such as the EVGA NU Audio will offer you and a DAC/amp won't is a dedicated microphone input and a software solution you could potentially use to tailor the sound performance of your speakers and headphones to your liking. A line output is another feature not all DAC/amps include, but most sound cards do. If it's not available, you'll have to plug your active speakers into the already amplified 3.5 mm audio output and deal with double amplification, along with everything that comes with it—signal distortion and damage to your components.



EVGA was kind enough to provide us with two samples of the NU Audio sound card. One went through the diligent hands of the one and only VSG, so please refer to his excellent and thorough unboxing and preview (available here) to see the ins and outs of the EVGA's NU Audio sound card. There's really not much for me to add in terms of the boxed contents, general design, or layout of the card and its PCB, or the hardware EVGA decided to use for the PCB. It should be noted that the engineering for the sound card was done by Audio Note, an English company with close to 20 years of experience in the higher end of the hi-fi business. Audio Note makes power amplifiers, integrated amplifiers, pre-amps, loudspeakers, DACs, audio cables, turntables, and CD players. It's less known as one of only a couple of hi-fi companies making every single part of their products on their own without resorting to mass-produced components. They generally lean toward a more analogue "flavor" of sound—their best-known power amps use tubes instead of transistors. I was very surprised to find out that EVGA managed to establish a cooperation with a brand that is as deep into high-end hi-fi as Audio Note, but the word on the street is that EVGA's CEO is a die-hard audiophile, so I can only assume that's part of the explanation. Getting back on track, the second sample of the NU Audio sound card was generously sent overseas, all the way to Croatia, so I could share my thoughts on its performance, compare it to various external DAC/amps at my disposal, test its microphone input, and examine its software. Let's do exactly that.

Specifications

External Design and Features

The EVGA NU Audio comes in a single-slot PCI Express form factor and needs a PCI Express x1 Gen2 slot to communicate with the rest of the system. You can, of course, connect it to any full-size PCI Express port at your disposal. You'll also need a SATA power connector to power its electronics as the integrated circuitry needs more power than the 25 W provided by the PCIe x1 slot.


As for the external design, it's nice to see that one part of the card (the bottom, after you've installed it into the case) is fully metal-shielded, although it's quite odd that the bottom of the PCB isn't shielded as well. Even if Audio Note and EVGA played around with this and realized it's not needed for signal cleanliness, an all-around metal shield would go a long way in terms of overall aesthetics. The way the card is designed, the only time you'll see its beautiful metal shield is when taking it out of the box. After you start using it (and assuming you have a case with a transparent side panel), you'll have to look at the unshielded part of the PCB. Well, that and the RGB-lit side of the NU Audio sound card. More on that in a moment.


I was somewhat surprised to find out that the EVGA NU Audio doesn't come with a true 5.1/7.1 analog output. You can digitally send the audio signal to a 5.1/7.1 AV receiver and have it decoded there because of the built-in S/PDIF out, but there's essentially no way to connect a surround system to the sound card directly. Not many users bother building surround sound speaker systems around their PC, opting for good stereo sound instead, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a feature you might expect considering the $250 price tag, as well as the fact that most integrated sound cards offer this functionality. What you do get is a 3.5 mm line input and microphone input, a dedicated 6.3 mm headphone output, and a pair of RCA line outputs, which can be turned into a single 3.5 mm output for regular PC speakers by using the supplied adapter. One more port can be found on the side of the sound card—it's the front-panel audio header. If you want your case's front-panel audio input and output to be connected to the EVGA NU Audio instead of your integrated sound card, you'll need to use this built-in header. I have a strong feeling that the front-panel header would be better located on the rear side of the card, next to the SATA power connector, both in terms of cable management and reachability.