Affordable, feature packed, 5.1 channel sound, headphone amp and built in S/PDIF, this is the ASUS Xonar DG. Yes, it is the cheapest card in the Xonar lineup, but it definitely carries more than its weight. The Xonar DG is Dolby Headphone and GX2.5 enabled which takes care of all current gaming support. While its great sound quality (up to 96kHz/24bit) makes all movies, and music truly enjoyable. There will even be times when you blindly mistake the Xonar DG for its bigger brother the Xonar Xense. Putting all of that fancy stuff aside, if you need a new soundcard and are on a budget, the Xonar DG is the card for you. Continue reading to find out all of the reasons why.
Special thanks to ASUS for providing us with the Xonar DG Sound Card to review.
Specifications
| Audio Performance | |
| Output Signal to Noise Ratio (A-Weighted) | 105dB for 5.1ch |
| Input Signal to Noise Ratio (A-Weighted) | 103dB |
| Output Total Harmonic Distortion + Noise at 1kHz (A-Weighted) | Up to 0.0025% (-92dB) |
| Input Total Harmonic Distortion + Noise at 1kHz (A-Weighted) | Up to 0.0022% (-93dB) |
| Frequency Response (-3dB, 24bit/96kHz input) | <10Hz to 48kHz |
| Output/Input Full Scale Voltage | 1Vrms (3Vp-p) |
| Headphone Impedance | Optimized for 32-150Ω |
| Main Chipset | |
| Audio Processor | C-Media CMI8786 High Definition Sound Processor (Max. 96KHz/24bit) |
| Sample Rate & Resolution | |
| Analog Playback Sample Rate & Resolution | 44.1K/48K/96kHz @ 16/24bit (all channels) |
| Analog Recording Sample Rate & Resolution | 44.1K/48K/96kHz @ 16/24bit |
| S/PDIF Digital Output | 44.1K/48K/96kHz @ 16/24bit |
| ASIO 2.0 Driver Support | 44.1K/48K/96kHz @ 16/24bit |
| I/O Ports | |
| Analog Output Jack | 3.50mm mini jack (x3) (Front/Rear/Center-Sub) |
| Analog Input Jack | 3.50mm mini jack (x1) (Line In/Mic) |
| Input (for CD In/TV Tuner) | Aux-In (4 pin header on the card) |
| Digital S/PDIF Output | High bandwidth Optical Connector supports 96KHz/24bit |
| Front Panel Audio Header | Supports headphone jack detection, automatically switch audio output from back panel to front |
| Driver Features | |
| Dolby Headphone GX2.5 (up to EAX 5.0) Smart Volume Normalizer VocalFX Karaoke Functions FlexBass Xear3D |
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Packaging
The front of the Xonar DG box is very ‘audio-ish’. There are traveling sound waves, planes flying at high speed, a picture of the soundcard, and a wireframe model of a person using a headset. The text on the box is glossy and embossed. Some of the DG’s features are displayed on the front such as Headphone Amplifier, Dolby Headphone, GX2.5 , and Jack Sensing Front Panel. The left side of the box lists Package Contents and System Specs, whereas the right side lists the Product Specs and Features. Rotating the box 180 degrees from the front brings us to the back. Here we find the key features of the Xonar DG in 15 different languages.
Opening up the box we see the Xonar DG card tightly nestled in place. And once everything is out of the box, in addition to the Xonar DG we’ll find the Quick Start Guide, Driver CD, and a Low Profile Bracket.
Closer Look
The Xonar DG features a darkish brown/black PCB with the ASUS and Dolby logos prominently displayed in the bottom center. A normal sized bracket is already installed, however there is a low profile bracket in the box for HTPC’s. It is a 5.1 channel card, so as expected you’ll find three 3.50mm jacks for main, rear and center/subwoofer (LFE). Also, similar to the Xonar Xense, there is only one input jack. This one jack doubles as a mic and line-in input. Finally there is the S/PDIF digital optical output.
I think that it’s unfortunate that after over a year, Asus has not even addressed that the FP audio always kicks in after hibernate or a reboot even if you don’t have anything plugged in at the front. 3 pages of detailed information about the errors and issues and it has no Asus employee monitoring the forum.
Your review omits the critical issue that every time you start or restart windows you must manually open their application to manually reset Xonar from the unused Front Panel to the plugged in (but ignored) back panel. Other than looking at the free toy they gave you, did you even try it? It’s been over a year and people still have not gotten an explanation or a work around for this issue… Asus should go back to making half decent motherboards
I used the card for about 3.5 weeks. I never experienced the problem you’ve described, which is why it isn’t in the review.