Hi all,

A bit of a background prior to explaining my problem: I’ve been using the ASUS Strix Raid DLX for a little over a week now. Prior to this, I was using an ASUS ROG Xonar Phoebus for ~3.5 years and a SoundBlaster ZXRi (onboard version, on my Gigabyte G1 Gaming mobo) for 1.5 months. I’m on Windows 10 Pro (64-bit) and my other system specs are in my profile. With all my sound cards, I primarily use a pair of AKG Q701s or Sennheiser HD600s, as well as AudioEngine A2+ stereo speakers. The problem I’m about to describe occurs with both pairs of headphones and the speakers. It only pertains to the Strix; the Phoebus and ZXRi sound perfectly fine. That said, here’s my issue…

With the Strix, in-game sound is extremely muffled and what I would describe as “reversed.” This holds especially true in FPS games (e.g., CSGO, BF4, PlanetSide 2, etc.). What I mean by this is, sounds that are supposed to originate at or near my character (e.g., footsteps, gunfire, callouts), are exceptionally low—barely audible, even. Sounds that are farther away from my character, however, are loud, as if they were originating at my character. This is exacerbated when many sounds are occurring at once. For example, in PlanetSide 2, when multiple explosions are going off, many characters are shooting, and many callouts are being made, sounds at or very near my character all but disappear. However, sounds from further away are blaring loudly. Literally—I can’t even hear myself fire my own shotgun, but I can hear a guy 150m out firing his rifle as if he was 1m away from me. Furthermore, the expansive soundstage I enjoy on my Q701s feels pushed in very closely, perhaps as a result of this.

This only happens on the Strix card, and it only happens in-game. That is, the Phoebus and ZXRi handle all in-game sounds perfectly—as you’d expect them to be represented—and they sound fantastic. Despite these in-game issues, I never notice any oddities with the Strix when listening to music, watching videos (e.g., Twitch, YouTube, etc.), or when watching movies/shows. All else seems fine.

The problem is present even with ALL of the enhancements turned off. I’ve tried to toggling on/off every setting possible (e.g., setting different bit rates, turning on/off virtual surround and reverb, turning on/off the equalizer, etc.). I’ve tried all three impedance levels for the headphones. I also tried it with and without the additional “box” that comes with the card. No matter what, the problem persists. I can say that Virtual Surround makes it WORSE, but the problem is still present even with it off. Conversely, the Compressor option does make it a little BETTER, but not enough to be considered “normal” compared to the Phoebus or ZXRi.

Also, just to cover all of my bases: Yes, I completely uninstalled the drivers for and disabled my on-board sound prior to installing the card. Yes, the card is properly seated and powered on the mobo. Yes, I’ve tried reinstalling the latest drivers. Nothing seems to work.

I apologize for the lengthy post. I’d greatly appreciate any insight you can give me as to whether this is somehow a defective card, bad drivers, bad software, or another issue entirely. I’m honestly boggled.

Thanks!
P.S. The latest drivers for the Strix also cause Adobe Flash to crash in 64-bit Firefox unless hardware acceleration is disabled. This problem is also unique only to the Strix and disappears when the drivers are uninstalled.