ASUS Shows Off Xonar Xense Gaming Audio Card Bundle

One of the worst kept secrets in the audio world over the past couple of months has been with regards to ASUS’ Xonar Xense, a solution that promises to deliver top-rate audio fidelity and performance to gamers and audiophiles alike. Unlike previous Xonar audio cards, part of the rumor around the Xense is true… this card will come bundled with a pair of Sennheiser headphones.

The product representative at the booth was unable to tell us if the audio card would be sold separately as well for those who already own a good set of headphones, but we could assume that ASUS wouldn’t withhold that as being an option. As an audiophile solution, the Xense is designed to utilize headphones with 1/4″ jacks, although with a simple adapter you could use 1/8″ as well.

Like previous Xonar cards, the Xense delivers high-quality specifications and is not meant to be taken lightly. The signal-to-noise ratio is 118dBA, and the frequency response is <10Hz to 46KHz. With the card’s built-in amp, you won’t have to worry about what set of headphones you own, as it supports impedance of 32-600 ohms.

ASUS won’t have to change the driver all too much for the Xense, as it retains the AV100 chipset, based on a C-Media audio processor, although as a gaming solution, we can likely expect there will be some optimizations put in place for that purpose. For those who want to use something other than headphones, you can, as the card’s DAC also supports 6-channel audio. For all intents and purposes, though, the Xonar Xense is developed with headphone-use in mind.

As a gaming solution, it’s of little surprise to see the card boast EAX 5.0 support, but like motherboard audio processors that state the same, we can assume that it won’t be a true EAX 5.0 solution, but rather that the driver will support Creative’s technology in some small way. Personally, I don’t believe EAX should even be in the thought process when choosing an audio card.

One of the more interesting aspects of the Xonar Xense is the included headphones, created by Sennheiser. These are based on the company’s Sennheiser’s PC 350’s, which haven’t been well-received in the audiophile press. ASUS told us that the drivers (physical drivers in the earcups) in the bundled headphones are tweaked, however, so they can’t be directly compared. Just what kind of tweaking has gone on, we’re unsure.

Pricing isn’t confirmed for the Xonar Xense bundle, but I think a safe guesstimate would be ~$350. The bundle should appear at retail sometime this summer.