Cary Cinema 11 not 11a vs Asus Essence ST

Hello all. I'm contemplating switching up my setup. I currently have a Cary Cinema 11. I'm thinking of switching to an Asus Essence ST w/ Expansion card for 7.1.

All of my audio originates from my PC (games, cablecard tuner, etc) so all I have is a SPDIF connection from my PC to the Cary Cinema 11.

My main reasons for contemplating the switch are two-fold:
1. Cary Cinema doesn't support Dolby True HD or DTS-HD.

Which I was willing to live with until...

2. Issues with some applications not wanting to output over SPDIF to my Cinema 11 in anything above 2.0. The same applications I can get to output everything fine on my motherboards onboard 5.1 audio.

Having said all of that, from the spec sheets, it looks like the Essence ST is on par or better than the Cinema 11.

Anyone have any practical experience with the Asus Essence ST or both?

Cheers,
Jason