Asus's Xonar D2X and D2 sound cards support the analog hole

Looks like Creative isn't the only Asian component manufacturer trying to get away selling the analog hole: Asus is set to horn in on the X-Fi's territory by pimping its new Xonar D2X and D2 sound boards, which feature a secondary audio processor for Analogue Loopback Transformation -- basically it takes your high quality DRM audio output and redirects that to DRM tracks. Oh, did we mention the 118dB / 115dB playback and recording SNR, and Dolby Digital, Dolby Live, DTS Connect, and DTS 5.1 support? Yeah, we're kind of excited, too.

[-bob- @ Mar 16th 2007 6:04AM]

A company selling what people, rather than industry, actually want? Lunacy!

[ForumMaster @ Mar 16th 2007 6:10AM]

finally a great sound card. i hope the quality is as good as the stats and if so, well i do need a sound card. =]

[Telémaco @ Mar 16th 2007 6:28AM]

Veeery nice. But let's see if we don't need to sell an eye to buy it.

[CowboyGA @ Mar 16th 2007 8:45AM]

Oh, Ryan Block. You had me until "Analogue Loopback Transformation." Your "basic" explanation didn't help much, either.
Since I'm not in the hobby-music industry, I'll chalk this one up as neat for high end media centers, but overkill for me.

[Ben @ Mar 16th 2007 11:33AM]

Oh, CowboyGA. You had me until I realized that you were too fuckin lazy to even click on the link in the description that explains the analog hole, but not too lazy to post a dumbass comment.

[h0mi @ Mar 16th 2007 12:58PM]

"basically it takes your high quality DRM audio output and redirects that to DRM tracks."

Looks like a typo. Shouldn't that say "redirects that to " .... well not DRM tracks... the whole point is you're eliminating DRM.

[Jeff @ Mar 16th 2007 1:38PM]

I also didn't understand the explanation, even after reading the full page about the analogue hole. The only problem was that the term "DRM tracks" is not very descriptive. So, what does that refer to?