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In Reply to: Can I use ASIO? posted by mikee55 on September 29, 2006 at 05:27:37:
I am pretty sure there is not an ASIO driver for that card.ASIO is a way to pipe audio streams directly to hardware and CONTROL (not necessarily MINIMIZE) latency to match up delays with other devices during the recording process. This is necessary when multitracking, and is important for getting proper sychronization of audio tracks in the multitracking process.
Audiphiles are ASIO-happy because they *think* it sounds better, and in many cases it surely does. It does (in most cases) inherently bypass the windows k-mixer under Windows XP. The kmixer is bad for CD playback because it resamples everything to a common sampling rate - which is 16bit-48khz and NOT 16bit-44.1kHz. This (ultimately needless) sample rate conversion is considered to be a source of signal degradation by most audiophiles, who strive to maintain "bit-perfect" or "bit-accuarte" playback of the digital stream with no level changes or sample rate conversion or *anything*! The kmixer also employs digital volume control, which is simply a no-no according to the audiophile community. Not only are you mucking with the datastream when you change the volume digitally, you sacrifice *precious* dynamic range in the digital domain when using this method. Analog volume controls are still the way to go (unless you are using a digital amp, of course, but that's another matter.)
With newer audio Codecs like Intel's High Definition Audio Spec or the newest Windows Vista, it's not clear whether or not the k-mixer is even an issue any more, but it does not seem to matter. ASIO is a surefire way to get around the "resampling" and digital volume controls.
You could try ASIO4ALL, but this is just a "piggyback" for the Windows WDM drivers and is not a "true" ASIO solution, although it DOES give the user some ASIO functionality. Personally, I think the REASON for using ASIO4ALL in the first place is largely misunderstood and is based on "gotta get ASIO - ASIO4ALL is the next best thing".
I would get a decent soundcard with *true* ASIO drivers and experiment with that. Do NOT get the M-Audio revolution 5.1/7.1 cards if you want ASIO operation when using SPDIF.
Most folks who are building 'audiophile grade' PC Servers around here are now going with USB solutions that are NOT powered by the USB bus but employ external (and very clean) power supplies. There is much "hype" about getting the D/A converters "out of the box", but then MANY of these devices drag dirty PC power through the USB cable right to the device. Basically it's like having a device inside your computer - just with a longer cord. Silly if you ask me.
You get into a USB DAC like the Scott Nixon for a reasonable price. There are USB DACs from Wavelength audio, Apogee Electronics, PS Audio, Hagerman "Chime", Sutherland Engineering 12dAX7, and many others. Prices range from a couple hundred USD to thousands.
Although there are some PCI cards that have really good sound (like the reports of the Lynx users around here - which retail at around $1000), most guys are trying to understand the latest buzz about USB technology. Why? USB uses data transfer protocols that "reclock" the audio date at the receiving end, so if you have a really good clock at the receiver, you can get around a lot of the jitter issues that plague SPDIF from PC or AES-EBU from PC interfaces (this is my understanding of it anyways).
Hope that helps.
Follow Ups:
Very good post for some of use new to pc audio. I need lots more primer type material.I am just beginnning to understand some of the issues around pc audio. I did myself a favor and upgraded my desk system by investing in some nice Swans desktop powered speakers and then disabled the cheap built-in soundchip on my mother board. I picked up an entry level sound card called EMU 0404.
Since it seems to be using a program called Patchmix DSP for controlling the audio, can I assume I am not using Kmixer?
And is ASIO only for output through SPDIF? I am not using that output but merely using the analog out to the powered speakers.
I guess I will have to learn a lot more about PC Audio, maybe even try to get some tunes on the big rig via some sort of SONOS or Squeezebox type device.
Consider junking gaming cards like Creative and go for a serious sound card such as rme ,lynx or others .Do a search.
nt
I am not 100% familiar with the patchmix dsp software. from what I know it's just a fancy GUI (grapical user interface) to get the user to "patch" the inputs and outputs he wants to use. You would want a very minimalist (simplest) setup - with just two outputs (left and right).Whether or not Patchmix DSP "uses" the kmixer is probably dependent on whether or not you are using the WDM driver or the ASIO driver for the EMU card. If you are using the WDM driver, you are probably still very likely using kmixer. Using the ASIO driver should solve this issue.
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