Review on Enhance Your Audio Experience with the ASUS Strix SOAR Sound Card by Jnis vele ᠌

Name: Enhance Your Audio Experience with the ASUS Strix SOAR Sound Card
Item: Enhance Your Audio Experience with the ASUS Strix SOAR Sound Card
Rating: 4

July 04, 2023

I am satisfied with the product, I recommend it to everyone.

A few words why Asus.
In general, at first I wanted to buy a Creative Sound Blaster Z, and after a week of collecting information, I almost bought it. Asus was repelled by bad reviews, but among them there were really significant, well-reasoned ones, which made me at least open the reviews and look at it in detail. The creative has an old chip, I don't know from what age. Yes, in the 2022s, I still remember that they started this epic with cards, they held the market. But selling 15 years is the same thing? With a different sauce? I won't say that Asus are great and that they are pushing us not the same. At least in this map! I was attracted by the chipset from the older and more expensive ASUS Xonar Essence STX II model. Also, Creative has a very interesting situation: I found a review where it is compared with my old card. and my old card is even slightly better in terms of performance characteristics. It's been 8 years. I'll leave the links in the "flaws". Creative THD (coefficient of harmonic distortion) 192 kHz/24 bit is 0.0048%. Asus SS has 0.0015 at 192/24. I thought - I should try, and I bought it.

Now the most interesting, for which I am writing a review.
So, I bought it for an old PC assembly. Motherboard MSI Z77A-G45 on socket 1155 (2022). WIn 7 x64, everything got up without problems, I emphasize. The operating system was 6 years old. First, I removed the old firewood (Asus DX), rebooted. Installed ASmedia USB driver for it (off site), rebooted. And also installed directly the card driver itself, also rebooted. As a result, no problems. I installed drivers from 2022 (there are from 2022, I tried them on win 7, they work).
Similarly, on the new assembly am4 socket. Motherboard Asrock Extreme 4 X570. Everything got up on Win 10 x64 without any problems, absolutely. I didn’t even install the built-in driver, it was turned off on the previous assembly, that is, everything worked without problems. All players work for me, foobar2022, AIMP, PotPlayer, Windows Media Player, MPC-HC. I connected it to the far slot with a separate 6-pin connector. Chrome does not lag, does not stutter.
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Pros

I put the card in two computers on win 7 and win 10. Who doesn’t need a review, scroll through the penultimate paragraph to the comment. The sound quality has improved significantly compared to the Asus Xonar DX. I mainly listen to uncompressed formats through Sennheiser HD 380 Pro headphones or 2.1 speakers. I also connect to a regular amplifier from the 90s and listen to music at the cinema. I'm not a sound engineer, I didn't finish courses, in short, I'm not a scientist, but I will say that after the first inclusion of any song on this map, instruments that were not heard appear. As if the old card did not have enough power for these channels. Even our 2022 flac CDs of not very high quality played well. Pleases headphone jack, there are three modes. Very good! twists the sound in blu-ray movies in the original voice acting. Sound detailing is at a height even compared to DX, it plays juicier. In headphones in games, the sound also changes significantly, I absolutely say for sure. Fallout 4 especially noticed this (RDR2, Dirt Rally 2.0). I didn’t use the radar in the map, I never had CS 1.6 either. In games, movies, music, I do not use any enhancers. Flat preset. Shocking vocals. Cuts the ear only on bad digitization. I have no problems with sound stuttering, the sound does not disappear either in games or in videos. There is no "white noise" like DX. I took it because I don't need upgrades like in creative. 7.1 I also don't use it for the reason that most of the old films, digitizations are recorded in stereo (2-channel) sound. And the use of software sound spacing already introduces third-party distortion. My opinion, I do not promote, but simply explain that I do not need this and I did not try this feature on the map. It is also interesting that he compressed the sound into mp3 for a flash drive, listen to it in the car. And the sound appeared exactly the same, exactly the same instruments that had not been heard before. I didn't expect this. Apparently, it's time for me to rewrite old discs.

Cons

I put the card in twocomputers on win 7 and win 10. Who doesn’t need a review, scroll through the penultimate paragraph to thecomment. The sound quality has improved significantlycompared to the Asus Xonar DX. I mainly listen to uncompressed formats through Sennheiser HD 380 Pro headphones or 2.1 speakers. I alsocomnnect to a regular amplifier from the 90s and listen to music at the cinema. I'm not a sound engineer, I didn't finishcomurses, in short, I'm not a scientist, but I will say that after the first inclusion of any song on this map, instruments that were not heard appear. As if the old card did not have enough power for these channels. Even our 2022 flac CDs of not very high quality played well. Pleases headphone jack, there are three modes. Very good! twists the sound in blu-ray movies in the original voice acting. Sound detailing is at a height evencompared to DX, it plays juicier. In headphones in games, the sound also changes significantly, I absolutely say for sure. Fallout 4 especially noticed this (RDR2, Dirt Rally 2.0). I didn’t use the radar in the map, I never had CS 1.6 either. In games, movies, music, I do not use any enhancers. Flat preset. Shocking vocals. Cuts the ear only on bad digitization. I have no problems with sound stuttering, the sound does not disappear either in games or in videos. There is no "white noise" like DX. I took it because I don't need upgrades like in creative. 7.1 I also don't use it for the reason that most of the old films, digitizations are recorded in stereo (2-channel) sound. And the use of software sound spacing already introduces third-party distortion. My opinion, I do not promote, but simply explain that I do not need this and I did not try this feature on the map. It is also interesting that hecompressed the sound into mp3 for a flash drive, listen to it in the car. And the sound appeared exactly the same, exactly the same instruments that had not been heard before. I didn't expect this. Apparently, it's time for me to rewrite old discs.