Review on Enhance Your Audio Experience with the ASUS Strix SOAR Sound Card by Charles Purnell

Pros: Better sound quality and noise floor than my built in audio. (Realtek ALC887 with Crystal Sound 2) - Soundstage is better than my Fiio E10K - Amplifier drives my K612 Pro headphones without any problems - Has enough connections to connect headphones and 7.1 speakers at the same time - The included software (Sonic Studio) is easy and intuitive to understand . Comes with a hood for an attractive look and protection while working. this cannot be said for many sound cards. Cons: - Requires a 6-pin power cable (I assume they did this to reduce EMI, but make sure your power supply can handle it.) - No front-panel connectors - Sonic Studio leaves Flash Player intermittently crash when using Firefox. (This issue has been fixed, see my update below.) - Like its competitor, the Sound Blaster Z, the card has an LED that you can't turn off. It's not too bright but may conflict with your color scheme. The card itself makes a loud "click" when you switch outputs or boot up your computer. Your speakers will make a loud "bang" if the power goes out unexpectedly, e.g. B. during a hard reset. - Seems to cause random crashes in Studio One (It took me a while to figure this out. I assumed it must be something else because it uses ASIO drivers, but trial and error proved me wrong.) Other thoughts: - It's not obvious But when you first launch Sonic Studio you need to right click on the headphone icon and select headphone impedance to increase the gain. Anyone who claims that the amplifier is not strong enough has apparently not yet discovered this feature. In fact, there are currently only three PCIe sound cards priced around $100 on the market: ASUS Strix Soar, Creative Sound Blaster Z, and XT Omega Phoenix. Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses. Quick spec comparison: (From left to right: ASUS Soar, Creative Sound Blaster Z, HT Omega Fenix) - Amplifier Power ------ 600 ohms*- -- 600 ohms*--- 600 ohms*- S/N ratio - ------------ 116 dB --- 116 dB --- not specified**- Channels --- ---- --------------- --------- 7.1 --- 5.1 --- 7.1- ASIO 2.0 Driver ------ --- ---- -------- Yes --- Yes - -- No- TOSLink Out -------- Yes --- Yes --- Yes- TOSLink In ------ ---- -------------- -- No --- Yes --- Yes- Front Panel Connector ----- - No - -- Yes --- Yes* Headphone wattage is specified by the manufacturer. Each of the three cards uses a different amplifier model. ** My results show somewhere around 100-105 dB. mm. The recording volume must be set to at least 98% for the audio to be heard clearly. I have nothing to compare these results to, but I was somewhat discouraged by Soar's inability to provide adequate gain until it was near max. There also doesn't seem to be a microphone gain setting in Sonic Studio. Updated 01/16/2017. I haven't had any problems with Flash Player in the last few months. I think it's safe to say that the problem has been fixed. Update 02/19/2017: Studio One doesn't seem to like this particular card very much. While it was easy to hook up, I've noticed that over time I'm getting more and more unrecoverable software errors that force me to hard reset my computer and download a backup of my songs. After speaking to Presonus Technical Support, I reinstalled the program and tried again. after a few days the problem came back. The last thing I was advised before closing the tech support ticket was to switch to Windows Audio. Since I stopped using Strix Soar I haven't had any crashes in Studio One. I really didn't want to give up this sound card, but random failures of the entire system are completely unacceptable.