I have the Essence ST sitting in a box because I have tried everything possible to get it to work without it having "cracklin oat bran" or "pops" in playing back most files. Tried latest drivers, modded drivers, buffering, JRiver, Foobar, shutting down services etc. When it does playback without those things it's very good. <br />
<br />
I also have a Auzen Forte that works great and was in my system until I got a M2Tech Evo.