Asynch 1 and Windows 8.1 installation - playback fun

[wobbleu]

Hiya

I've just moved from a USB Dac with Sabre chip to the Asynch 1 and having fun getting it going - particularly 24 bit playback.

I've installed/uninstalled and re-installed the drivers several times but always end up with the same result.
I can get playback through Direct Sound in both Foobar and JRiver at 16 and 24 bit, but any of the WASAPI options with USB2 True Audio device gives unrecoverable playback error unless I set Output data format to 16 bit and play a 16 bit file.
With the ASIO driver, and ASIO support installed I can only play 16 bit - the ASIO window only offers 16 bit as an option.

With the Sabre device 24 96 playback was fine with Wasapi, and I also have a DAC Magic XS and that will allow playback at 24 192 with their driver. So I don't think it's anything but a driver installation problem

I'm normally pretty good with installation but this one has me beaten for now. If anyone has any pointers they'll be gratefully received.

PC is self-built Intel NUC with 2.4 dual core pentium, 4gb ram and 120gb ssd. USB lead is genuine USB 2 lead and I'm feeding an optical signal into a Rega DAC. Music is stored on WD Nas and it's a 1 mbit wired network connection.

I

[struth]

Might need high speed usb2 for those rates and bit levels. Mine works with foobar on wasapi but jriver it only works direct sound; thats an old vista machine. sure Stan 'ill be around soon.

[wobbleu]

I've got USB2 & 3 ports on this board, Asynch is plugged into USB2 with a high speed lead.

I tried removing the DAC Magic XS driver to see if that was confusing the issue but it made no difference.
I'll try the Asynch on my laptop and see if that is different.

Funny old things computers aren't they :scratch:

[Buggleskelly]

Funny old things computers aren't they :scratch:

Yeah, about sums it up :rolleyes:

I've had no problem with Direct Sound or playing via WASAPI 24/96 & 24/192 with Win 8.1/ 8 when the krap top's want to behave themselves. However, ASIO just does not want to play ball and haven't found a solution to it yet, probably never will. I removed the M2 Tech driver to see if that made a difference - nope, no joy there.

One thing I did find is, that with JRiver I had to tick the 'event' box in the audio device set up for it to start work, otherwise no sound at all! Have you tried that?

I still get the problem of the actual signal dropping out and the M-DAC losing lock - this is with 24/192 and on the odd occasion 24/96, it seems that the Samsung laptops have something going on in the background, as the performance meter goes nuts - haven't located what's doing it yet. Other times they can be good as gold and I have no problems.

Be very interested to know how you get on with the laptop.

Cheers - Stevie

[StanleyB]

CMedia, who makes the USB chip in the ASYNCH, have released their own ASIO driver for use with their chip. I have listed it on the same page as the drivers and manual on my site. The CMedia drivers should be tried out in preference to the "regular" ASIO releases.
As for WASAPI: I don't know much about that, but it works fine on my W7 PC. I haven't got a W8 PC, but I have just ordered one this week. So I'll give that a go as soon as the PC gets delivered to me.
Gazgam suggested trying out different memory buffer sizes in JRiver. I use MedaMonkey myself, which also benefits from experimenting with the buffer size.

[Buggleskelly]

Thanks Stan. I'll give C-Media ASIO a go.

I did what Gazjam suggested with all the buffer settings in JRiver but it started doing the drop out again (also with MusicBee), when it starts you can see the HDD light going nuts or steady on and the performance meter for the drive is at max. I've been disabling services to see what's doing it but haven't found the culprit yet. I think it's something odd with the Samsung hardware/software/driver configuration (both laptops are Samsung). The annoying thing is that won't do it for a while and then it starts mucking about. The other thing never did it with the Hi Face M2 on Win8.1 :scratch:

I'll get to the bottom of it eventually.

Cheers / Stevie

[StanleyB]

There is a program called Latency Checker that can sometimes find out what might be causing buffering issues etc. I know that you have to be careful with the amount of programs that you run on a PC when you are also playing back audio files. A multi core i7 processor has a far bigger advantage over say a dual core Pentium processor as well.

[Buggleskelly]

Ah yes! that's program I came across a couple of weeks ago but couldn't remember what is was called - so thanks for the nudge about it. I'll have a mess around with it as see what that finds.

In the back of my mind I've had suspicions that the Samsung's CPU's / an architecture may be struggling a bit in processing the audio files and the other stuff going on. I try and shut down and much as I can.

Thanks again for the reminder about the Latency Checker.

[Andrei]

Wobbleu
Could you please be a bit more specific.
Motherboard model?
Sound Card?
How many Dac's? The Rega. What inputs does that have?
The Dac Magic, what inputs does that have?
What was the USB DAC with Sabre Chip?
Did any of your DACs come with their own drivers?

Couple of thoughts for now
- Occasionally a reboot after a driver uninstallation may make a difference;
- You may now have a conflict on a USB Bus. The (primitive) way I avoid that is that my USB output to my DAC is my only USB connection;
- Have you tried Kernel Streaming?

[wobbleu]

@ Andrei

Hi
Just to say first of all I'm a big fan of little computers and have built quite a few SFF boxes over time, My last PC was based on an Intel mini-itx D525MW (dual core Atom 1.8)
and I replaced that about 6 months ago with this NUC which is tiny in comparison but more powerful, and only consumes 65w.

Board is DN2820FYK it's part of the barebones kit Intel sell.
No soundcard - Realtek audio chip on board, hence using external device
Rega DAC is current model in same format case as Brio-R - has USB (16bit only) Composite and Optical (16 & 24) handles up to 24 192 audo.
I'm using toslink between Asynch and Rega same as the Sabre dac
I have a small collection of DACs but only have one device connected to PC at any one time.
DAC Magic XS is USB only handles up to 24 192 with their driver (is similar to the Dragonfly and is aimed for portable use really)
Sabre DAC is the one from HiFiMeDiy which gets raved about here link : http://hifimediy.com/sabre-dac-uae23
It doesn't come with drivers but Windows finds an appropriate driver automatically

I have rebooted every time I've uninstalled the Asynch drivers before re-installing.
There are 2 USB2 ports on the NUC one has the Asynch the other has the usb dongle for wireless keyboard /mouse.
other connections are hdmi to TV and network cable to router.
Only software installed is music based Foobar/J river/Itunes/MP3tag
Also Camera software (canon) Calibre(ebooks) and Browsers/antivirus - I only have AV, NAS software running in background - average CPU load with no programmes running is around 5%

I've not tried Kernel Streaming I didn't think it was appropriate for Win8.1 - didn't work on my old PC when I tried it.

When I set the Asynch up I did the following
Updated Foobar to latest version XXX3.3
Installed Foobar Asio component, having copied the ASIO driver in Stans installation set in the component folder of Foobar too (the 64bit version only).
Started up Foobar, selected the ASIO for CMedia USB device then opened the ASIO page in preferences and double clicked Asio for Cmedia USB device and that gives me an ASIO window where I only get 16 bit option in the drop-down and Latency from 2 to 50ms - I left it at the default and clicked OK.

Have I perhaps missed anything/done something in the wrong order?

I didn't have to do anything like this with the Sabre chip dac it just worked.

Apologies if this is a bit of an epistle (I used to manage a help desk so I know the need for accuracy)

Thanks to everyone for their input - can I say I'm not knocking the Asynch at all this is the 3rd product of Stan's I've had and enjoyed them all -Even with Direct Sound the Asynch makes nice noises and I don't get any drop outs I just want to get the best I can out of it

Chris

[Andrei]

First up I would be reluctant to use a USB to Spdif converter. If the DAC cannot accept USB then the choice may be taken away from you. (I have used sound cards with Coaxial and toslink Out, and they worked fine). I guess it's clocking ability may have benefit if your DACs are not of the asynchronous persuasion. What you win on the swings you may lose on the roundabouts (another conversion process and loss of the otherwise more favourable USB input on the DAC). Still, the converter vs no converter may sound better.

I note you are using toslink. This would be my first port of call. Try a good quality Co-ax such as Oyaide DR-510 of 1.0m or 1.3m. The reason is the bandwith of Toslink is limited. It seems your DACs can take the bandwidth, you have the drivers - so I can't help looking at that protocol. I have heard of instances of it supporting higher rates but I think that was in the context of higher end equipment. Incidentally I see the likes of the Empirical Audio Off-Ramp, does not even have a Toslink output.

Rega DAC. I find this unbelievable. It appears that its USB capabilities are less than Co-ax / toslink?! Stan, will be able to shed more light on this, but my understanding is that the data stream from Co-ax/toslink includes clocking information. It may be that this is getting screwed up somehow (ie a driver problem) in that the Rega DAC is receiving data that tells it that the source is USB (which the DAC can't handle at the higher rate). In theory that should not happen as that is the very job of the Asynch to convert it to a spdif Stream. However, the driver may be written on the (not unreasonable) basis that it is ultimately going to end up in a DAC that does not support USB. I'm not particularly confident that this is the problem, but can't rule it out.

"I can get playback through Direct Sound in both Foobar and JRiver at 16 and 24 bit, but any of the WASAPI options with USB2 True Audio device gives unrecoverable playback error unless I set Output data format to 16 bit and play a 16 bit file." This is really puzzling but points the finger at Windows.

Here is the link for Colonel Screaming on Foobar http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_out_ks This should give similar (the same even) results as WASAPI and Asio. Basically all three do the job of bypassing windows internal mixer. I don't think the problem lies here, but definately worth a go so as not to leave any stone unturned.

I take it you have gone Control Panel > Sound > Playback > you have the correct device > Advanced > and ticked the 'exclusive control' and 'priority' boxes and tested the various bit rates and hertz rates. Also set windows sound scheme to 'No Sounds' and set the volume to 100% (control volume in Foobar / JRiver, or better still via your amp). Also in the BIOS of the PC you have disabled the Realtek Audio Chip. If that can't be done disable it in Device Manager.

As with most computer, car, health problems the first problem is to find out what is the problem. Once you have done that things are easy to fix, work around, or accept as unsolvable. Good luck.

[wobbleu]

Hi

Andrei
I have got all the settings that you suggested, I will try Kernel Streaming tonight/weekend to be thorough.

Last night I tried using my Laptop as a source (Lenovo G505s, A10 processor, 8gb ram) it doesn't have Foobar installed just JRiver and a selection of my favourite albums for when we're away. The result was exactly the same - only option I could get a peep out of was direct sound, which registered as a 44.1/48 signal at the Rega DAC irrespective of the bit rates of the files JR was playing.

I'll have another go with the C-media ASIO drivers next

regards

Chris

[wobbleu]

Hi

Since Friday night I've spent a lot of time working through this problem, and I've come to the conclusion it's just not going to work for me.

I've removed all audio drivers and disabled all the on-board audio, and uninstalled Foobar and made sure there were no remnants left in any folders.

I re-instaled the latest version, reinstalled the Asynch drivers including the C-media oes.
I first tried Foo_out_ks as the only output in foobar other than the default - unrecoverable play back errors at all bit-rates (I'm using Court and Spark by Joni Mitchell as my test files as I have that album in CD rip, 24-96 LP rip from Nimbus Pressing and 24-192 HD tracks issue.
I removed Kernel streaming then restarted and installed WASAPI with the same result except the CD rip played ok.
Another restart after removing the WASAPI component and then tried ASIO component again only file that would play was the 16 bit.
Direct sound would play all 3 bit rates but was only outputting 16-44.1 to the Rega DAC.

I then removed the Asynch drivers re-booted and returned to the HiFiMeDiy Sabre DAC - windows 8 loads a driver as soon as it connects.

Using Foobar with the WASAPI component re-installed I get playback at all bit-rates apart from 24-192 which is to be expected, JRMC does the same bit-perfect playback (audio path icon turns blue) at 16bit and 24-96.

Both these devices run on USB power whether the ASYNCH needs more power than the other I don't know - if I could find the right power adapter I could power the asynch from a separate power source but I'm not sure it would make a difference.

I would be interested to know what processors people are using in the PC's they get successful output from with their Asynchs.

regards

Chris

[Buggleskelly]

Hi
I would be interested to know what processors people are using in the PC's they get successful output from with their Asynchs.

regards

Chris

Interesting to know your experience Chris. As I said in an earlier post, my issues have been to do with drop outs. Stan replied about using LatencyMon to check if the laptop had problems.

Anyhoo, I just did that and LatencyMon results showed that with R510 Samsung it will probably experience with drop outs, stuttering. This laptop has he minimum stuff installed on it to help prevent this from happening. To help matters I went into the BIOS and have disabled the power management and the Intel CPU thingy that steps the CPU - it's now at full chat. This has seemed to help;however, if I run up say Google Chrome then the drop out start until the program is idling.

I found the LatencyMon on this page http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/faq/id-1655607/optimize-dpc-latency-windows.html - interesting article about Win8 DPC latency. I also did what was recommended on the page to help matters.

With regard to the Win 8.1 laptop I've only ran the LatecyMon ,with out Jriver running an audio stream, and the results was much better, but that is to be expected as it's a more recent laptop. I'll have a go with LatencyMon and JRiver over the Bank hols when I have some time.

The Spec of the Laptops is as follows:

Samsung R510
OS: Win 8 32 bit
CPU: Intel Pentium Dual Pro - T3200 @ 2Ghz
RAM: 3 Gb

Samsung NP300E5A
OS: Win 8.1 64bit
CPU: Intel iCore - 2330M @ 2.2Ghz
RAM: 4 Gb

I did try out the C-Media ASIO driver on the R510 with JRiver but no joy out of that all, went back to WASAPI and all was well and the lappy behaved its self.

Chris: try running the LatecyMon and see what result you get. It's always worth a try.

Cheers / Stevie

[Gazjam]

Just needs an 8.1 driver from Cmedia....

Everything else is just a workaround imo.
Windows 7 just works with Stans box, because of the correct driver.

Patience folks, all will be well. :)

[wobbleu]

Hi Stevie

I tried running latencymon while JRMC was playing a 24-96 track and it said that my pc would have no problems playing real time audio. That was with the Sabre DAC installed. I very rarely get drop outs anytime, unless I start transferring large data files to the NAS where my music is stored which I guess is to be expected

I'm not around for a few days so will try it with the Asynch whenI'm back.

Gaz

I have tried looking on C-medias website but didn't see anything that looked appropriate

thanks again

Chris

[Gazjam]

Theres no Cmedia driver for 8.1 yet Chris.
That'll solve all the problems you guys are having.

Windows 9 Preview is out late September, In my experience, MS releasing the latest version of windows usually gets the Driver slowcoaches to provide up to date(ish) drivers.
Hopefully an 8.1 specific one out soon.

Might be worth contacting CMedia and asking the question?