ASUS Xonar U7 USB Sound Card and Amp Review

Subjective Listening: 3D Audio, Movies, and Games

3D Audio

The Xonar U7 driver package comes with two different virtual surround sound technologies called Dolby Home Theater V4 and Cmedia Xear Headphone Surround. We listened to Cmedia Xear in the past with the Corsair HS40 headset and werent impressed by the result. Besides not achieving noticeable simulated surround sound, sound quality was also degraded.

Dolby Home Theater V4 does come with virtual surround sound capabilities which can be tuned for stereo speakers and headphones. While it is an improvement over Dolby Headphone in that sound quality is not massively butchered, simulated surround sound was oftentimes hard to notice.

Movies & Games

The Xonar U7s software enhancement options arent as necessary with movies and games, but theyre fun to experiment nonetheless. The usage of Intelligent Equalizer with other Dolby Home Theater V4 settings disabled was the usual favorite as was with music. The virtual surround sound wasnt usually noticeable, but it has its moments most often with dialogue positioned around a room. Further comments on the Xonar U7s audio performance with movie and game audio playback would mirror much of what was outlined in the music playback analysis similar detail and frequency response to ASUSs lower midrange sound card offerings, but with an edge with the software options.