Asus Audio Card Xonar D2 User manual

Xonar D2
7.1 Channel Audio Card
192KHz/24Bit DuplexHDTM
Featuring Dolby
®
and DTS
®
Technologies for Home
Entertainment
RMAA 6.0.5 Test Guide and
Results
Revision: 1.1
Date: Aug. 10, 2007

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ASUS Xonar D2 Audio Card
RMAA6.0.5 Test Guide V.1.1
The Xonar D2 driver CD includes RightMark Audio Analyzer (RMAA) v.5.6, popular software
intended for testing the quality of audio equipment, be it a sound card, portable MP3 player,
consumer CD/DVD player, or a speaker system. However, the latest RightMark Audio
Analyzer v6.0.5 is available now. This document describes the test guideline with RMAA
v6.0.5 and the complete test results by updated Xonar D2 driver package (8.17.20 or later),
which improves RMAA MME test quality inherently limited by Windows to faithfully present
Xonar D2’s hardware quality. The measurements are conducted by playing and recording
test signals, and using frequency analysis algorithms. The following provides a step-by-step
loop-back test guide for your Xonar D2 audio card.
1. Setting Up Xonar D2 Audio Card
Open the Xonar D2 Audio Center. Use the settings below:
1. Select the sample rate you will be using with RMAA test (here we set 48KHz for testing
48KHz/24bit signals).
2. Set analog output to 2-speaker mode (to get rid of any channel processing over RMAA
stereo signals in the driver)
3. Turn off all sound effects including Dolby, DTS, 7.1 speaker shifter, EQ, Environment, etc.
A quick way to do so is to enable the “Hi-Fi mode” button in the Audio Center.

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ASUS Xonar D2 Audio Card
RMAA6.0.5 Test Guide V.1.1
4. Go to the Mixer Recording page and select “ALT” as the recording source. Click “Reset” to
make sure the recording volume is on the default highest level (0dB). This is actually a
high-quality onboard loop-back path from the Line-out directly to the Line-In. This
allows you to get realistic output and input quality ratings for the Xonar D2 audio card.
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ASUS Xonar D2 Audio Card
RMAA6.0.5 Test Guide V.1.1
Note: You may also choose to use an external 3.5mm line cable as follows (as short as
possible) to connect the Front-Out jack to the Line-In jack for loop-back testing. In that
case, please select “Line In” as the recording source on the mixer page. However, this
external cable may cause unexpected performance drop depending on its cable quality.
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3.5mm Line Cable

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ASUS Xonar D2 Audio Card
RMAA6.0.5 Test Guide V.1.1
5. Click “Reset” on the playback volume mixer page to keep the volume setting on default.
6. Turn the master volume to the MAX level (0dB)
2. Configuration and Test with RMAA
Start RMAA and follow the setup procedure below.
1. Select the playback device as “[DirectSound]ASUS Xonar D2 Audio” (or [MME] ASUS
Xonar D2 Audio) and recording device as “[MME] ASUS Xonar D2 Audio”. (Please also
mind that NOT to select “ASUS Xonar D2 Audio Converter”, which is for ALT and PMP
purpose.)
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ASUS Xonar D2 Audio Card
RMAA6.0.5 Test Guide V.1.1
2. Select 24bit and 48KHz for the test signals. (If you change the format here, please
remember to go back to set the SAME sample rate output in the Xonar D2 Audio Center.
Please mind that Xonar D2 currently supports 44.1K, 48K, 96K, and 192KHz. 88.2K,
176.2KHz, and 32bit(float) tests are not supported.)
3. Click the General test options in RMAA and make sure “Analyze noise and distortion only
in 20Hz-20KHz range” (audio in-band for human hearing) is selected.
4. It’s recommended by RMAA to ignore the two tests: “Frequency response (swept sine)”
and “Total harmonic distortion (set of tones)”, which are for speaker test primarily.
5. Click loop-back playback/record test button .
6. Check that the Adjusting level window shows that the levels are OK (the level meter will
be green). Begin the test by clicking the “Start test” button.
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ASUS Xonar D2 Audio Card
RMAA6.0.5 Test Guide V.1.1
If the recording volume level is not high enough, please check and make the WAVE and
Master Volume have been at the maximum level; Instead, if the recording volume level is
too high, please lower the WAVE and Master volumes gradually until the level is ok. If you
cannot get the level to be “OK” after the previous step, click “Start test” to try anyway.
After starting test, there will be a pop-up progressing bar and please wait a few seconds.
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ASUS Xonar D2 Audio Card
RMAA6.0.5 Test Guide V.1.1
7. Select one empty slot to save the data and you may change the name. Then click “OK”.
8. RMAA will pop up the Test results window. You can click the “Select” checkbox and click
to “Make html report”.
9. Check and key in the report name/options as follows and then click “OK”.
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ASUS Xonar D2 Audio Card
RMAA6.0.5 Test Guide V.1.1
3. RMAA Testing Results
The following tables copied from RMAA disclosed the complete test data results for
DirectSound_16bit, DirectSound_24bit, MME_16bit, and MME_24bit. Each table contains
44.1K, 48K, 96K, and 192 KHz sample rate tests. Generally speaking, Xonar D2 can achieve
up to 116dB SNR for 24-bit and up to 102dB SNR for 16bit in RMAA loop-back test. Most
important, all results can get “Excellent” general performance credits. (Please note that
though Xonar D2 has good anti-noise design, the test results may have slight deviation on
different PC platforms due to the various levels of system noise interferences and distortion,
especially for 24-bit 116dB-high sensitive quality.)
DirectSound 16-Bit Test Results
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ASUS Xonar D2 Audio Card
RMAA6.0.5 Test Guide V.1.1
DirectSound 24-Bit Test Results
MME 16-Bit Test Results

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ASUS Xonar D2 Audio Card
RMAA6.0.5 Test Guide V.1.1
MME 24-Bit Test Results

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ASUS Xonar D2 Audio Card
RMAA6.0.5 Test Guide V.1.1
4. HTML Test Reports
You can review the HTML report including the graphics for the test plots. Open the html file
you created and saved in the test above (section 2), and it will display the report with both
data and plots in your browser. The following report is an example and you can see how
high-fidelity and crystal-clean the Xonar D2 audio card is for both output and input (one of
the world’s finest sound cards, it has even higher quality than most CE devices.) You can
also try testing the performance for other sample rates and bit-depths with the same
procedure.
RightMark Audio Analyzer test report
Testing device ASUS Xonar D2 Audio
Sampling mode 24-bit, 48 kHz
Interface DirectSound
Testing chain External loopback (line-out - line-in)
RMAA Version 6.0.5
20 Hz - 20 kHz filter ON
Normalize amplitude ON
Mono mode OFF
Calibration singal, Hz 1000
Polarity inverted/correct
Summary
Frequency response (from 40 Hz to 15 kHz), dB +0.08, -0.04 Excellent
Noise level, dB (A) -116.3 Excellent
Dynamic range, dB (A) 116.2 Excellent
THD, % 0.0003 Excellent
THD + Noise, dB (A) -105.0 Excellent
IMD + Noise, % 0.0009 Excellent
Stereo crosstalk, dB -115.3 Excellent

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ASUS Xonar D2 Audio Card
RMAA6.0.5 Test Guide V.1.1
IMD at 10 kHz, % 0.0005 Excellent
General performance Excellent
Frequency response
From 20 Hz to 20 kHz, dB -0.11, +0.09
From 40 Hz to 15 kHz, dB -0.04, +0.08
Noise level

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ASUS Xonar D2 Audio Card
RMAA6.0.5 Test Guide V.1.1
Left Right
RMS power, dB -115.0 -115.2
RMS power (A-weighted), dB -116.2 -116.4
Peak level, dB FS -92.8 -93.2
DC offset, % -0.0 -0.0
Dynamic range

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ASUS Xonar D2 Audio Card
RMAA6.0.5 Test Guide V.1.1
Left Right
Dynamic range, dB +115.0 +115.1
Dynamic range (A-weighted), dB +116.2 +116.3
DC offset, % -0.00 -0.00
THD + Noise (at -3 dB FS)
Left Right
THD, % +0.0003 +0.0003
THD + Noise, % +0.0005 +0.0005
THD + Noise (A-weighted), % +0.0006 +0.0005
Intermodulation distortion

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ASUS Xonar D2 Audio Card
RMAA6.0.5 Test Guide V.1.1
Left Right
IMD + Noise, % +0.0010 +0.0009
IMD + Noise (A-weighted), % +0.0005 +0.0004
Stereo crosstalk
Left Right

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ASUS Xonar D2 Audio Card
RMAA6.0.5 Test Guide V.1.1
Crosstalk at 100 Hz, dB -116 -112
Crosstalk at 1000 Hz, dB -115 -114
Crosstalk at 10000 Hz, dB -112 -112
IMD (swept tones)
Left Right
IMD + Noise at 5000 Hz, 0.0006 0.0006
IMD + Noise at 10000 Hz, 0.0005 0.0005
IMD + Noise at 15000 Hz, 0.0005 0.0005