Stereophile magazine's John Atkinson loved the Asus Xonar Essence ST/STX sound cards. They are, by far, the least expensive way of turning a PC into a genuine high-resolution audio source. Ex-movie ...

Motherboard audio is good enough for most people. When it is not, the obvious upgrade is usually an external DAC or headphone amplifier: Easy to connect, easy to reach and easy to carry over to the ...

I'm considering giving one a try to see how I like it, but I thought I'd see if anyone here can tell me how much difference they thought it made in SQ compared to, say, and Audigy. I recently bought ...