In a market flooded with muddy onboard audio codecs and laughable "multi-core" DSP effects devoid of actual audio fidelity, ASUS is thankfully one of those companies who have invested quality engineering with the intent of the faithful reproduction of PC audio. Today we take a look at their flagship S$699 sound card - the Xonar Essence One USB DAC & headphone amplifier.
Over the past couple of weeks, we've noticed that ASRock and Creative started to go more and more "hand in hand" with each other. Today, ASRock announced a "Blaster" sound card.
Over at the 64th floor of the luxurious Trump Hotel in Vegas, we got our readers some exclusive sneaks of ASUS's new ROG Xonar Pheobus sound card, which is a PCIe 118db SNR standalone offering. Also on display was the ROG 'ThunderFX' USB powered audio breakout box (sequel to the R3E-Black Edition's Thunderbolt), to be bundled with a planned special edition of the ROG Rampage IV Formula.
Almost three months ago back in September of 2011, Creative announced their Sound Core3D™ "quad core" chipset, and it has since featured in their latest gaming focused sound cards and headsets as well as on motherboards like the ASRock X79 Extreme9. We got the Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Professional PCIe sound card in our labs today to see if it pleases the audiophilles or the hardcore gamer groups.
Remember that "quad core" sound chip Creative announced back in September? Well, the first reviews are starting to come in now and we're finally getting a look at the actual chip. It turns out that we were almost right in suspecting that the Sound Core3D wasn't quite what Creative made it sound like.
After its roughest times in years, Creative seems to be coming back to what created it, pun intended - the most advanced sound cards around. The already powerful X-Fi chippery is now supplanted by their Sound Core3D multicore audio processor under the new Sound Blaster Recon3D line, and yes there are matching headphones - all mostly focused on gamers and movie watchers tis time
We've already seen the Sound Blaster Recon3D and Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Professional, but it looks like Japan is getting an exclusive on no less than two additional models, the Sound Blaster Recon3D Professional Audio and the Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Champion edition. Both cards are of course based on the new Sound Core3D chip from Creative which the company was touting as a quad core audio processor a little while ago.
Once upon a time there were as many sound card makers as there were graphics card makers, but today only one of the old companies are still alive, good old Creative (what happened to the Labs bit on the end?) and today the company has announced its first quad core sound cards based on its recently announced Sound Core3D audio processor. This might sound like total overkill for a sound card, but it's not four identical cores, instead we're looking at very specific audio DSPs that have their own tasks to perform.
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Creative Technology, well-known for its Sound Blaster sound cards and audio devices, has just introduced Sound Core3D high performance audio processor. Read on.
If you are in the mood to expand your desktop or notebook PC's functionality with a few new peripherals, ASUS's latest product launches for the day would probably be of great interest to you. This is because the Taiwanese OEM has just announced two new accessories to enhance a PC user's multimedia experience: an external Blu-ray writer known as the BW-12D1S-U, and a new Xonar U3 Mobile USB mobile soundcard.
Gamers and Overclockers, you’re in luck as ASUS’s new offering, the Republic of Gamers Rampage III Black edition is here to stay.
The Monster Powerbeats by Dr. Dre was one of the headphones announced at 2010 year end collection in Singapore. Designed for athletes and outdoor sport users, the stylish and durable Powerbeats by Dr. Dre is now available at Harvey Norman, HMV, i Studio, Nubox, Sprint-Cass and all stereo electronics outlets. Pricing details inside.
Philips has recently launched their latest SHL series of headband headphones in Singapore. Come in four trendy colors, the headphones feature soft leather ear cushions that isolate noise to give you great music enjoyment.
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