Attention G73 Owners!

I just got in my Asus Xonar U1 and this thing is amazing! It enhances my gaming experience 10 fold due to Dolby Digital Live. I highly recommend one to anybody looking for 5.1

 

Thanks for the info.....here's a review to support your thread.

http://aphnetworks.com/reviews/asus_xonar_u1

 

i currently use a usb x-fi 5.1 and it works spectacular on g73 with logitech 5.1 speakers.

 

shizdan, have you noticed any difference when using headphones?

Alos, the thread title is a bit misleading as the Xonar U1 can be utilized by all PCs with a USB port and not just the G73

 

I have also used it with headphones and the thing is well worth $100 IMO if you want a surround sound experience!

 

Getting a decent PCMIA or express card DAC (Digital to Analogue converter) would cost around the same and provide better audio.

And the Dolby Headphone technology(5.1 Sound in headphones) can be had for free by using Foobar with the Dolby Headphone plugin. It does wonders for music.

FYI, the Asus U1 uses a mediocre class DAC, so basically buying that would just be paying for a cheap DAC and Dolby licensing fees on top of retailer markup.

But the Asus U1 is tons better than integrated realtek.

 

G73 doesn't have any of those. I also have a Little Dot Dac_III paired with a Little Dot MK III with some HD600's.

 

What are you talking the G73 doesnt have any of those

I never said the G73 had anything

On second thought, I guess English isn't your first language so I'm just gonna let it go.

 

The only reason to get an external soundcard IMO is if it allows sound processing to be offloaded onto it, which I doubt happens, still processed on CPU and then thrown at the soundcard making it essentially just a amplifier.

 

My 5 year old notebook creative audigy 2 ZS offloads audio processing from the CPU

 

No, the only reason is if it has better DACs or can transmit/decode 5.1/7.1 for a home theatre/very good soundsystem.

 

I read the link and I'm a little confused about it's purpose. You connect this thing so you can use it's headphone jack, rather than the one on the laptop with your existing headphones? And, you use this thing to get 5.1/7.1 sound, rather than spending $20 on a HDMI cable?

 

Well the product's purpose is to provide a higher quality sound that's lacking with integrated sound for headphones or speakers.

 

Most people cannot hear the difference between the Wolfson D/A used in an iPod and the 1704UK D/A in my DAC....

 

The only reason I got it is so it can send a 5.1 signal for al sounds excluding dolby digital hard coded movies etc (Which the G73 cannot do) to my Z-5500 Receiver for games such as Half Life 2 or Fear. IMO this device is amazing and It just makes the gaming experience 3x better. I am coming from owning a Xonar STX, X-FI Prelude and a Forte.

 

Sounds cool if you like that kind of setup

 

5.1 for game? Who doesn't!

 

Ah, I see.

According to some spec sheets and the Realtek Audio HD Manager and Sound Properties, the G73's headphone jack is suppose to double as a SPDIF audio out jack. I say according, as I have not attempted to use it myself. This approach didn't work for you?

 

I have the G73JH-A1 (although not for much longer if I can't resolve this). There is a SPDIF out in the headphone jack, which works fine for digital sources (like a blu-ray's DTS or DD soundtrack). However, I can't figure out how to get games to be 5.1. The RealTek audio card is ALC269, which doesn't seem to support DTS connect or dolby digital live so there is no way to get EAX games to produce 5.1 sound. I can't believe the engineers at Asus are actually stupid enough to make a "gaming" laptop that can't support sound in games (stereo was possibly acceptable 10 years ago), so perhaps someone can explain to me what I am doing wrong. My receiver only does spdif so I don't know if HDMI supports 5.1 in games, but I haven't seen anything to indicate that it does in the software. Thanks to the lack of expresscard slot, I can't put in an x-fi. Are there any good USB sound cards that can do analog 5.1, DDL, or DTS connect?

 

encoding 5.1 is a whole different ballgame. you can push up to 7.1 across HDMI. You need to have the ATI HDMI driver installed.

 

I will agree with you about the 5.1 issue. Although I wasnt able to find an analogue 5.1 that would do DD or DTS through usb.