Interface
What I really like about the Xonar DG’s Audio Center interface is its similarities to the much more expensive Xonar Xense. Even though the Xonar DG is a very fairly priced card, it receives the same great software and driver support as the top of the line Xense. Also the Xonar DG’s Audio Center is a very lightweight application. It only takes about 32MB of RAM, and the interface can be completely closed once you have things configured to your liking.
The main panel of the interface allows us to select number of channels (2 – 8), sample rate (44.1kHz – 96kHz), analog out (headphones, 2 speakers to a 5.1 channel setup, and front panel outputs), and you can enable or disable S/PDIF. One thing to note here is that you can only get 2 channel PCM over the digital output. The Xonar DG does not have a passthrough or Dolby Digital Live. So if you want 5.1 channel sound, it has to be through the analog jacks. A nice feature of the Xonar DG is it does come with a headphone amp. The headphone select screen is very similar to the one featured on the Xonar Xense. There’ll be more information on the headphone amp in the Testing section.
Onto the ‘Mixer’, ‘Effect’, and ‘FlexBass’ tabs. Each of these are almost identical to the more expensive Xonar Xense. Sometimes on less expensive soundcards you won’t be able to select Stereo Out (Mix) or Wave as input devices, although the Xonar DG gives you both as an option. The only difference between the Xonar DG’s Mixer tab and the Xonar Xense, is the Xense has one extra microphone input. The Effect tab is identical to the Xonar Xense. Also, as with the Xense, the DG’s Effect tab is the place I spent the least amount of time. The DG’s Effect tab has exactly the same equalizer presets as the Xense, which I feel are completely incorrect, and I don’t really care for environmental effects. The FlexBass tab is also identical to the Xense’s FlexBass. With my current setup, I don’t have much of a need to adjust the LFE crossover, however, I do think this is a great feature to include with the DG.
While the Xonar DG does share a lot of features with the Xense, the DG has a few tricks up its sleeve. There are three all new tabs in the DG’s Audio Center, Karaoke, AEC, and VocalFX. The Karaoke tab features Key Shifting, Vocal Cancellation and Mic Echo. The most fun out of these three is definitely Key Shifting. With Key Shifting, you can shift your own voice, or anything you play on your computer to a completely different key. The cool thing about Key Shifting is it preserves the tempo while changing the key. So, you can lower the key of your voice or any song without altering the timing whatsoever. Key Shifting can also be used for VoIP. All of those boring Skype conversations you get pulled into, can become a lot more fun when you change up how everyone else sounds 🙂
Voice Cancellation attempts to cancel out the vocals in a song to provide you with a pseudo-instrumental. This works really well on some songs and not so great on others. Its reliability isn’t a hardware or software fault. Inherently the cancellation technique is hit or miss. Regardless, it is fun to experiment with and a quality option to include on a Karaoke tab.
Mic Echo is exactly what you’d expect, echo applied to your mic. Although the DG actually let’s you apply the echo only to the microphone input, or to the overall Stereo Out (Mix).
Next up is Acoustics Echo Cancellation (AEC). This is very useful if you experience a lot of echo in your VoIP communications. It should be noted that with AEC enabled, it forces the Xonar DG into 2 channel mode and disables any other effects or equalizers settings. When AEC is disabled, all settings are returned to normal.
VocalFX is much like the Karaoke tab, but instead of sliders the VocalFX tab features preset buttons. It will also allow you to apply vocal changes for in game voice chat. So if you want to mask your voice for whatever reason, it can be done right on this tab. While most people may elect not to use vocal effects in games, they can definitely be fun on occasion. Or if you’re into audio production and need to quickly change voices, this is a quick and easy way to do it. One great thing about the VocalFX is you can configure which applications you want to be effected. This makes it really easy to configure everything once, while not having to worry about turning it off and back on.