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Back to our copper on the costlier take. I had to admit being too spoilt by better stuff. It just didn't make sense to engage Stu in the big system. The Muses Edition Essence One at $895 had been welcome there and cut a good figure. But Stu was better off on the desktop. Add a bit of choice trickery or better, trick choice, and it got a leg up on the $599 DS5. That was due to analog vs. digital volume control and using a hi-gain amp to necessitate deep attenuation. I set up the overachieving gainclone 25i integrated from Hong Kong's Clone Audio. With 30dB of voltage gain it forced Ami Musik's on-chip digital volume down to just 8 clicks above mute. The difference between that with Clone's Alps pot fully open versus Ami Musik at full output and the Clone in charge of volume was drastic. Analog trashed digital. At these levels digital forced into 1st gear washed out to get pale, flat and thin. Nein danke.

The chip amp's feisty lit-up ballsy highly separated character—young energetic and slightly brash, not old mellow tame and shortsighted—merely added to the trick in choice. It easily absorbed Stu's thicker slightly fuzzier personality without getting dominant. Think marriage between a brainy German guy and an earthy Italian gal. As a desktop preamp with DAC where priorities put the onus on attenuation, Stu had the DS5 beat. As a desktop DAC with fixed output the Japanese/Korean deck was the plainly more advanced, resolved and lucid to satisfy cost offset. The headfi game went both ways. With its higher output gain the Ami Musik could even drive the HifiMan HE-6. But again by virtue of analog volume Asus produced essentially constant sound quality from the cans in its purview. The DS5 sounded best with loads that parked its digital volume in the upper third of its range. Sounding better when things went its way, the DS5 still dropped the ball on easy loads like Aëdle's VK-1 which parked it in deep digital doo doo (attenuation).
Desktop rig with competitor Ami Musik DS5 at play
By necessity desktop speakers are small(er). Unless they're active with DSP-compensated bass to counter size, a sub beneath the desk often completes the picture. That's if you're a gamer blowing big shit up or a fan of music with very low bass. Whilst most subs can connect speaker level (think biwire, one run to the monitors, one to the sub), the preferred connection is line-level. Here we need two pre-outs or fall back on 1-to-2 adapters. Stu as is doesn't accommodate a sub feed. Neither does the DS5. As I said in the latter's review, a 3.5mm output 'round back already would cater to such use if real estate forbade a second set of RCAs. I'd like to see that on either machine.
Same rig with Asus, leather-clad Aëdle VK-1 and cherry-red MrSpeaker™ Alpha Dog headphones
As I'd done for the DS5, I used metal adaptors. The dual volume control scheme here had an unusual wrinkle. A can inserted won't mute the main outputs. Those only mute with their dedicated control closed. If you belong to the rare genus of audiophilicus extremus, you could wear open-backed cans and run a speaker system simultaneously just loud enough to bleed into your headphone experience for some FX fun. Especially with a sub that gets interesting! Headphone gain isn't changeable with the 6.3mm port stuffed by the way. You must pull the headphone out to toggle the gain. So be sure to first turn the volume down if you go from low to high. The difference isn't small.

My main complaints with long-lost uncle Stu? Our chappie had gotten a bit pudgy. Soft around the edges. Given the earlier descriptions on opamp rolling plus my prior comparison of the three Essence One versions separated by just opamp cred/cost, this could surely be exorcized to beef up incision, separation and air. If so desired. Seeing how former contributor Michael Lavorgna already had his read on Stu up on AudioStream, I took a look. "My main gripes... when mated with my MacBook Pro, Pass INT-30A and DeVore Fidelity The Nines is [that] it presented a rather heavy-handed sound. Music was a bit amorphous sounding where the musical image was rather dense and the differentiation between the various players was less distinct than I've heard from other DACs." That's what I heard too. To the 't'. Michael then describes more air possible elsewhere whereas the Asus plays it more fulsome. Spot on again. Then he says "I tend to equate a darker richer presentation with fun and a lighter-weight more detail-oriented sound with an intellectual approach to listening. That puts the STU USB DAC square in the fun camp."

With RWA-modded Astell&Kern AK100 via AudioQuest Diamond Toslink; 160GB iPod Classic via Zu Event S/PDIF; and Windows XP Pro streaming Spotify+ at 320mbps via Telos Audio USB
My allocations toward fun versus cerebral might diverge but I fully agree on 'darker'. 'Richer' depends. Relate it to cheaper chocolate and I'm with Michael. Invoke detail, ambient recovery and tone modulations and it's not rich but slightly hooded, somewhat dull, dry and shady. It sure makes for a very friendly unchallenging sound that never goes nervy. With a $399 sticker it's likely to be mated to gear that'll err in the other direction. Once again I'll call that deliberate smart counter voicing. If I sounded critical it's only because my ancillaries no longer err in that direction. They don't require this brand of band aid. I'd thus spend $50 more on a NuForce Icon HDP. If your situation mandated more of a Burson-type flavor, you'd prefer the Asus. Dancing as it does on the lit-up incisive fresh side of the fence, from my arsenal of cans I thought the €350 French Aëdle VK-1 to be quite a dream match on sound and coin.


The $300 Mad Dog is already of the chocolaty sort as is the Audeze LCD-2. Those designs like sunnier climes. The $500 Alpha Dog's top end meanwhile is rather more developed than those two. It teamed up far better with Stu. If Sennheiser's HD800 with stock leash feels too bright to you, Stu could be your uncle too. If you think the 800 one of the most highly detailed cans, you'd notice that the Asus steps down some of its magnifying power. Should the AKG K-702 sound somewhat dry and staid to you, Stu won't be a total antidote. These snippets painted out context. When all is said and done, our snob cop relegated to day duty on the affordable beat makes this confession. What today's money buys you in the Xonar Essence STU USB DAC is a lot of functionality. It comes in a simple yet elegant case and packs a solid dose of the fundamentals called tone weight, body and substance. Those add up to long-term ease even off lesser sources and with music which the audiophile police would otherwise write up for shaky production values. No ticket. No sticker shock either. Hey, this deck is easy to like!
 
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