Sorry, not the Asus Xonar Prestige, but the Asus Xonar Essence ST.  I have no idea why I said Prestige.

Oh. That can work.

I am not very sure about AudioTrak. Is it good? How much is it?

I like the Essence is because I am looking for good, 'almost' audiophile-grade music.

Running on Windows Vista.

Hi all,

  New Roccat-eer here. I just wanna share my experience with everyone. And maybe get some advice.

  I bought the Roccat Kave the day after I read the review on The Star In-Tech. I didn't even know the brand existed before that, cause I don't read HWM and have never seen it on sale in Low Yat. Maybe I didn't look hard enough cause I am not big into gaming. I just play L4D2 and not even very good at it. I just play for the fun and laughter of spitting at Survivors.

  Anyway, what attracted me to the Kave is that it has real 5.1 surround with actual speakers inside, and not just virtual surround (which although impressive, just isn't the same thing). As you might have guessed, I am heavy into surround sound. My home theater is all 7.1 Blu-ray lossless and all that, but lately I have been getting complains, and my work brings me home late at night so I can't really enjoy movies at louder settings. So I have been searching for a good surround headphone and the Kave was just what the doctor ordered, with multiple speakers and 3 x 3.5mm stereo inputs.

  However, my experience with the Kave was not all sunshine and lollipops. When I first unboxed and plugged it in, I got a very loud static from the USB. This I connected to my PC. I tried connecting it to my amplifier, same thing. I connected it to my PS3, same thing. Not knowing what else I could do, I called the distributor (not the shop where I bought it from) and they adviced me (a day later) to bring it back to the shop for testing and maybe replacement. I did. I knew the shop very well by the way. The interesting thing was, when we tested it there, the static was not present. It was dead silent. Frustrated, I whipped out my laptop (which I had forgotten to test at home), and not only were there no static, it even sounded good. I brought the Kave back home and plugged it into my PC again, and this time around, no static! It's been over a week and the static issue has not re-surfaced. I hope it won't, ever again.

  Then another issue arises. I read the reviews from a lot of sites, local and international, and almost all commended the Kave. I believe in them, that's why I bought it. Unfortunately, I can't quite get the Kave to work for me as I wanted it to. The sound was somehow not there. I mean, I am not comparing this to an Audio Technica or Sennheiser or AKG or Denon or Shure, but it just didn't convince me that this is what the reviewers heard. I mean, I didn't even get any vibrations. I was about to return the headphone to exchange with the Logitech G35.

  Before I decided to do that, I thought maybe I should call up the distributor again. This time, I spoke to a product specialist, who discussed with me in great details on how to get the best out of the headphone, listened intently on my concerns and tried his best to help me with any advices that he could give. And after that, he even sent me an e-mail chronicling our conversation. I am more than impressed. At that point, I decided regardless of whether I can get the headphone to work or not, I am not returning it, just to show my support and appreciation for this kind of rare after-sales service.

  But like I said, I wasn't expecting the Kave to sound like an AKG. I only wanted to hear what the reviewers heard. So I began to suspect my sound card settings (which worked for my Logitech Z5500), may not work this headphone. Ok, I knew it won't work (after all, I am not THAT noob) but no matter how much I tinker with the settings, I didn't get THAT sound. After reading through this thread, I realized something. I am using the Creative X-Fi ExtremeMusic sound card, 5-years old and discontinued. It was introduced even before Vista. And when I migrated to Vista, I only installed the driver and has been configuring the sound card from only the driver itself. So when I saw the screenshot of the Creative Launcher, I knew I have found the solution. Downloaded it, installed it, and from the various posts in this thread, I finally hear THAT sound.

  The treble is clear and crisp even at higher volume. The mid-range is nothing to shout about, but not bad either. The surround, although not as pronounced as the Logitech Z5500, but that is to be expected. Still, I could pinpoint to the bulleyes where zombies are coming from. The vibration is kinda nifty, but very selective. L4D2 didn't seem to have it (although a teammate from Singapore told me that his similarly priced SkullCandy emits vibration from L4D2). No matter. Music and movies are properly configured now, but I only got the game settings in late last night. I was having trouble with the equalizer because the gunshots were either too sharp, or I couldn't hear the Special Infected. It's good now. Although, if anyone has some good settings, I'd welcome the advice.

  And the headphone is LOUD! I often use it as a speaker! This is because I only have one soundcard and I need to pull out and plug in every time I want to switch between speakers and headphone. Actually, I do have an on-board Realtek soundcard but I really don't like the sound of it compared to the Creative. Maybe I am missing some calibration software again. I am not sure. So my problem now is, I need to be able to switch between the speakers and the headphone on the fly. I bought some splitters, but they were too big and they cannot fit side by side on the soundcard. So I bought extender cables for the splitters, and you know what I got after splitting the output? Mono sound. I have no idea why this is so. The splitters I bought were supposed to be stereo splitters, unless I was duped. So as of now, the Kave is connected to the X-Fi while the Z5500 is connected to the Realtek. Any advices?

  On a related note, I am also looking into audiophile music playback on the PC, so maybe getting the Asus Xonar Prestige will solve my problem. Wonder if it will be as good for movies as it is for music. But then again, I will need to get another headphone for music. Maybe the Audio Technica M30 (I can't afford the jump to M50 and I owned the M30 before and I liked it).

  It's a bit confusing right now with all the cables and multiple set-ups. Any advices you guys can give me will be very much appreciated. If not, I'll just keep testing out components by components. Thanks for reading by the way. It's a long post.

An OEM Creative Sound Blaster X-FI Elite PRO at RM330 from kucingfight will do .

agreed, am using it with kave now