Page 3 - A Closer Look - Software
Like the Asus Xonar D2, I wasn't too surprised about the interface of Asus Xonar U1's drivers, personally I would much prefer functionality over flash -- as with most 'overdone Hi-Fi inclined' interfaces. Newer users might also be quite stumped at first look. Part of it is the lack in ease of use; it's basically the same as the Asus Xonar D2 interface with slightly modified tabs at the bottom and red-on-blue instead of blue-on-blue implementation.
The main screen of the Asus Xonar U1 configuration screen. Hitting the Menu button at the bottom right corner of the main window section will reveal the bottom half as shown in the screenshot above; showing five additional tabs for different settings. The main screen allows you to select sampling rate and output; on the digital side, options to switch between Dolby Digital Live and DTS:Interactive are provided within the drop down menu.
Under the volume control section with a 'knob' is a Mute and SVN button, respectively, as well as four buttons to select between four DSP modes (Game, music, movie, and Hi-Fi presets) which are all just basically a combination of different settings. The rate of which the Asus Xonar U1's hardware volume knob turns is not synchronized with the way the volume knob animates, by the way ;) Hi-Fi mode simply resets everything to default/neutral 'plain audio' without any DSP modes enabled, and makes the Xonar U1 unit's LED light on the volume control knob glow blue constantly.
The Mixer tab allows the user to configure input and output selections, as well as individual volume for each. This includes independent settings for Line-In and Microphone, despite the fact that they both share the same jack. A Reset button puts everything back to default, which is usually turning everything back to maximum, or at least somewhat close to there for others that are not.
Identical to the Asus Xonar D2, the Effect tab allows the user to 'simulate' an environment and environment size. Similar to Creative's EAX effects for different environmental effects; which in my opinion has more of a fun factor than function factor.
An array of equalizer presets are also accessible from the software. User preset profiles can be saved; but on the Xonar U1 I would not really recommend the use of the equalizer -- firstly because it does not respond to the equalizer nearly as well as most Creative cards (Or, for that matter, it doesn't respond very well at all), and secondly the equalizer on the Asus Xonar U1 would prevent sound from sounding naturally. Significant adjustments on the software equalizer is directly proportional to others -- meaning that, for example, if the low frequencies were adjusted higher on the EQ, the middle and higher frequency outputs would be suppressed.
The Karaoke tab, which to an extent is more or less a microphone input control. Magic Voice changes your voice input, which can be quite useful for some prank calling.
The Array Mic setting can be enabled here, as described previously.
Not shown in the above screenshots are Asus' PMP Lite software. It permits audio processing with MP3 or WMA files. The Asus PMP software can be used for normalizing volumes with your music, as well as permanently encoding Dolby effects into your digital audio files. While I am not a big fan of encoding effects into music when they aren't actually there, you can certainly give it a try and see how it works out for you. Keep in mind though -- if you have a large music collection, the Asus PMP Lite software does not take a huge advantage of your CPU; which in turn means that time consumption is as much as a Hummer on a single tank of gas.
The main difference between Asus PMP Lite and the actual Asus PMP software used with the Asus Xonar D2 comes down to hardware support; the Asus Xonar U1 does not have the Audio Loopback Transformation.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Specifications, Bundle
2. A Closer Look - Hardware
3. A Closer Look - Software
4. RightMark Audio Analyzer 16-bit/48 kHz
5. Subjective Listening and Conclusion
