Redefine High Fidelity and Clarity
Digital music sources are an important source for
audiophiles. Catering to the needs of the user, the
ASUS Xonar team launches its first hi-fi USB DAC,
the Xonar Essence One, and commits to subvert the
low quality digital music stereotype. It is the
industry-leading, high-end USB DAC with the world's
first 8x symmetrical upsampling, an extremely high
120dB SNR, audiophile class headphone AMP with a
full op-amps swappable function.
Hi-Fi audio through the world's first 8x
symmetrical upsampling
The Essence One preserves faithful details of your
music collection. While common upsampling USB DACs
just transfer whatever audio source to 192kHz
indistinguishably, the Essence One upsamples
44.1/88.2 /176.4kHz input to 352.8kHz and
48/96/192kHz input to 384kHz in a symmetrical
manner. The Essence One also supports to increase
data volume by upsampling the bit-rate to 32bit
corresponding to the original content. (Note:
44.1*8=352.8kHz; 48*8=384kHz)
Extreme audio clarity with 120dB SNR
The average SNR of other USB DACs is about 110dB.
With the extremely high SNR (120dB), the Xonar
Essence One provides audiophiles clearer sounds with
every detail while significantly reducing noise
level.
Built-in headphone amp powers up even 600 ohms
impedance headphones
The Xonar Essence One intergrates an
audiophile-class headphone AMP circuit which powers
up ALL Hi-Fi headphones and grants 100% performance,
even with impedance up to 600ohms. It offers extra
dynamics, sound details and low distortion.
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Drives ALL high-end headphones, even
with impedance up to 600ohms.
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Fail to drive Hi-Fi class headphones
with higher impedance
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11 swappable OP-amps for customizable tonal
characters
This is the unprecedented attempt for any hi-end USB
DAC. Op-amp is the key part that amplifies the
analog signal in your DAC and affects tone
characters(darker, brighter, sound image, etc.)
Xonar Essence One allows user to swap almost every
OP-amps for a fully customized sound.
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Op-amp
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Cleanest sound thanks to a dedicated internal
power supply
The internal power supply supports all international
voltages and has generous margins for over and under
voltage conditions. It provides the cleanest power
for the cleanest sound with excellent immunity to
noise on the AC line.
Balanced XLR output
The Xonar Essence One also features balanced (XLR)
outputs. This is a higher quality output that is
useful for eliminating unwanted noises and
interference. Since a balanced line contains two
signal carrying conductors of equal magnitude but
opposite polarity, noises induced along the cable
path cancel each other out when they reach the
destination load. This makes balanced lines perfect
for professional applications where long cable
connection with induced noises might be a problem.
XLR connectors should be wired as follows:
Pin 1- Ground; Pin 2- Hot (in-phase); Pin 3- Cold
(phase-inverted).
Bit-perfect with ASIO 2.2 Driver
Bit-perfect is how the audio stream will come from
your PC. If you are running bit-perfect with ASIO,
you will hear the music as it was encoded on the CD.
The ASUS Xonar Essence One’s ASIO 2.2 driver
simplifies the process of multiple audio streams,
bypassing latency issues in Windows, to deliver a
low-latency, high fidelity sound file that is
identical to the original audio file. (PS. When you
run bit-perfect, the “BIT PERFECT” LED in the front
panel will light up.)
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Windows Audio engine
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Low Clock Jitter with Asynchronous Data Transfer
Most USB audio uses Synchronous Data Transfer mode
to adjust the internal clock to compensate different
data transfer rates between PCs and USB audio
devices. But the jitter is worse if the transfer
rate is different between a PC and the audio device.
To avoid this issue, the ASUS Xonar Essence One
supports Asynchronous Data Transfer mode. This
mechanism feedbacks the buffer status to the system,
and the system is based on buffer status to adjust
to the speed of the data transfer, which leads to a
low amount of jitter in the Xonar Essence One.
Dedicated Volume Controls
The ASUS Xonar Essence One is fitted with two
dedicated volume controls: one for the headphones
and another for speakers. Unlike most USB DACs which
use only one volume control for the output level of
both headphone and speaker (or even no volume
control), The Xonar Essence One allows users to set
the headphone and speaker volume level separately.
Toslink and Coaxial S/PDIF inputs
The ASUS Xonar Essence One is fitted with a set of
digital inputs, Coaxial and Toslink, which enable
the connection of source components. The digital
inputs accept data formats at sample rates up to 192
kHz.
![Product Image of ASUS Xonar Essence One](javascript:openindex("images/parts/SOUND CARD/XONAR-ESSENCE-ONE.jpg",500,500))
