As I was using the headphones and listening to music through the Xonar Essence One, I realised that my lack of knowledge when it came to terms like “upsampling” or understanding the finer points of sound was going to be a bit of a problem. It was like King Kong reviewing knitting needles – he could do it, but it was likely to be a bit of a mess.
The thing is, I firmly believe that a soundcard like the Xonar Essence One is accessible to anyone. While the audiophile will look at it and instantly start drooling it can seem intimidating to the man on the street. However, the Xonar Essence One offers something to both types of user. For the audiophile there are more settings than you can shake a stick at, for the sound loving human without a clue (me) it does something to sound that makes us tremble.
It was while I was playing Assassin’s Creed: Revelations that I feel a little bit in love with the Xonar Essence One. I had my headphones on so as not to wake the children and the sound cranked up as far as it should go without breaking my ear drums and I was lost. Utterly immersed in the world of the game.
Sound was so much crisper and richer than I was used to with my old sound card. I could hear things more clearly and the musical interludes carried a brightness that I hadn’t even known was there in the past. In short, it was pure entertainment. So, obviously, I needed to see how much more I could get from the Xonar Essence One.
The first thing I did was find out what the upsampling actually meant. Yes, it is a world first for ASUS to have 8x symmetrical upsampling, but what does it mean for me? Upsampling (according to Audioholics.com) is a rate conversion from one rate to another arbitrary rate. If you, like me, are unsure as to how upsampling works in the audio domain, this entire article is exactly what you need to read.
Once I’d read that, I was a lot more excited by what the Xonar Essence One could do for me, and the adventures we were about to have together. It’s going to be very interesting having this awesome gadget teach me all about the world of sound.