ASUS 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

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 wit h RMAA v6.0.5 and the complete test results by updated X onar 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. T urn off all sound effects including Dolby, D TS, 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

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4. Go to the Mixer Recording page and select “ AL T” 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

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Note: Yo u may al so ch oose 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.

3.5mm Line Cable

ASUS Xonar D2 Audio Card

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)

RMAA6.0.5 Test Guide V.1.1

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2. Configuration and Test with RMAA

Start RMAA and follow the setup procedure below.

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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.)

ASUS Xonar D2 Audio Card

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.

RMAA6.0.5 Test Guide V.1.1

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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

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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.

ASUS Xonar D2 Audio Card

7. Select one empty slot to save the data and you may change the name. Then click “OK”.

RMAA6.0.5 Test Guide V.1.1

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8. RMAA will pop up the Test results window.

to “Make html report”.

You can click the “Select” checkbox and click

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9. Check and key in the report name/options as follows and then click “OK”.

ASUS Xonar D2 Audio Card

RMAA6.0.5 Test Guide V.1.1

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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. Gener ally 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 no te that

though Xonar D2 has good anti-noise design, the test results may ha ve slight devi ation 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

ASUS Xonar D2 Audio Card

RMAA6.0.5 Test Guide V.1.1

DirectSound 24-Bit Te st Results

MME 16-Bit Test Results

ASUS Xonar D2 Audio Card

RMAA6.0.5 Test Guide V.1.1

MME 24-Bit Test Results

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 gr aphics 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 au dio card is for both output and i nput (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

ASUS Xonar D2 Audio Card

IMD at 10 kHz, % 0.0005 Excellent General performance Excellent

RMAA6.0.5 Test Guide V.1.1

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

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

ASUS Xonar D2 Audio Card

Left Right Dynamic range, dB +115.0 +115.1 Dynamic range (A-w eighted), dB +116.2 +116.3 DC offset, % -0.00 -0.00

RMAA6.0.5 Test Guide V.1.1

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

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

ASUS Xonar D2 Audio Card

Crosstalk at 100 Hz, dB -116 -112 Crosstalk at 1000 Hz, dB -115 -114 Crosstalk at 10000 Hz, dB -112 -112

RMAA6.0.5 Test Guide V.1.1

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

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