If a review of the Asus Xonar U1 USB Audio Station isn’t quite what you expected to see after searching for “big knobs for laptops”, then we’re sorry to have misled you with this Google-baiting sentence. The Xonar is indeed a big knob for laptops, but it’s one that plugs into a USB port to upgrade its onboard audio, rather than, er, any other kind for purposes we can’t imagine.

Actually, we have seen other USB-connected knobs before – the Griffin PowerMate has been available since 2002 and we reviewed the 3DConnexion SpaceNavigator for Notebooks earlier this year. Rather than just act as a mere rotary controller though, the Xonar actually packs a high-quality external sound card into its compact form.

Designed to sit on the desk within easy reach, the Xonar U1 USB Audio Station is fashioned from metal with a glossy enamel coating, in either black or white. It doesn’t feel anywhere near as substantial as the aforementioned SpaceNavigator, but it’s much better at staying in one place. The potentiometer that sits beneath the rotary knob has gently notched freewheeling mechanism, so it can be cranked back and forth without the base turning with it. The knob does wobble from side to side rather more than we think it should, but apart from feeling a little cheap, it doesn’t affect the Xonar’s operation.

The Xonar U1 USB Audio Station works well as a physical volume control for Windows, though it lacks detents to tell you when you’ve reached the maximum or minimum setting – and there’s no on-screen indicator for volume level, either. Pressing the knob mutes the audio, with the blue LED on top changing from blue to lilac in the process.

Of course volume control is the least of the Xonar’s abilities and once connected to a USB port and the Asus Audio Center software installed, you can wave goodbye to your laptop’s crummy onboard audio.

By default, Audio Center shows just a graphical spectrum analyser and the current audio configuration, but its Menu button opens a much more useful control panel. From here you can choose from various Dolby sound enhancements, adjust the channel mixer and fool around with DSP tricks like different sound environments, key shifting and voice cancellation.

The Xonar U1 USB Audio Station, via Audio Center, supports Dolby Headphone, Virtual Speaker, Pro-Logic IIx and Digital Live technologies for various pseudo surround-sound effects through stereo speakers and headphones.

Unfortunately, the DSP modes are really best avoided, since they tend to diminish the sound quality rather than enhance it, and the pseudo-surround sound is a very unconvincing substitute for having five or more speakers in the room. DVD movie dialog is perhaps a little more focused with the appropriate mode enabled, but the considerable reverb that this and the other DSP modes introduce more than negates this small benefit.

Fortunately, the unadulterated audio quality of the Xonar U1 USB Audio Station more than compensates for the failings of such audio novelties. It’s difficult to describe how much better music sounds through the Xonar without calling upon into such awful audio anachronisms as “tight bass” and “accurate mid-range response”, but if your laptop has the same mediocre audio chipset as most models, listening through the Xonar is the electronic equivalent of an ear syringing.

The Xonar isn’t quite so successful at improving surround-sound movie soundtracks, thanks largely to its ineffectual DSP modes, but you will at least benefit from better quality stereo sound. The inclusion of an optical S/PDIF output (via an adapter that plugs into the headphone socket) also means that you plug your laptop into a home cinema amp if you do experience true surround sound when watching a movie or playing a game.

At around £50, the Xonar U1 USB Audio Station is rather pricey compared to other external USB sound cards, though we’re not aware of an equally portable model with similar sound quality. If you’re unhappy with your laptop’s onboard audio, like listening to music and want something that you slip into your laptop bag, then it’s a good choice – but the Xonar would be more useful if it was better with movie soundtracks.

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