ASUS XONAR Essence STX PCIe Audio Card
Centrance ASIO Latency Test Utility v3.7
Audio Stream Input/Output (ASIO) is a computer sound card driver protocol that provides for low latency interaction between sound cards and professional audio applications. ASIO drivers also reduce the latency between external keyboards or controllers and sound applications. Using low latency ASIO drivers, when a key is depressed on the controller, there is no perceived delay time before the sound is generated by the soft synth or other sound applications. This is of course also dependent on the performance level of the sound card, computer and number of active instruments or tracks used. For reference, latency times of 2-4ms are practically undetectable by human hearing. The average hardware synthesizer has a latency of 2ms.
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To test ASIO Driver performance we used the Centrance ASIO Latency Test Utility v 3.7. Tests were performed using an input sensitivity of -12dB and varying Buffer Size / Latency and Sample Rates settings. The Asus XONAR was capable of Buffer Sizes down to 4 samples and the M-Audio 1010 LT started at 64 Samples. The results are shown in the chart show below. |
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To provide an accurate reference we used the closest matched available ranges:
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| Interpreting the results above tell us that using the Xonar in a Digital Audio Workstation with Professional Audio apps will yield latency results that are undetectable by human hearing and in fact quicker than your average hardware synthesizer. |
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