Realtek ALC892 Does Not Play 88.2Khz Files - Page 2

Quote:

Originally Posted by monoethylene 

Yeahhh like the HiFace for example and as you ve said they arent cheap. In other threads the digital interface by Audio gd or the v-link by music fidelity (http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/537080/musical-fidelity-v-link-usb-spdif) were also recommended but there are a lot of other solutions. At least it has to be capable of playing almost all formats.

 

Personally I am using the Thingee (Blue Circle Audio) beside the HiFace as a D/D converter even though the Thingee is like a passthrough only and doesnt upsamle.

 

I am in the lucky circumstance that I nearly only have 16/44.1 files.

 

It would be really good when you can post the reply of Realtek.

If I hear from Realtek or Asus on this, I will post the reply.

Before spending for a USB to SPDIF converter, I'll wait to see if I can track down the correct PCI module for the internal SPDIF header, and try the coax. Seems the next step, short of a driver problem or other issue that eludes me right now.

Another alternative is to find an audio card that supports all the usual formats including 88.2, and passes the native bit depth and sampling rate of the file through to a digital out (I actually prefer Toslink at this point - it solved a minor, but annoying ground loop problem I had previously) and on to my DAC.

Thing is, I know nothing of sound cards any longer, having used on board for many years now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roseval 

Probably a driver issue: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=63546.0

Thanks for the link.

I'm beginning to think this is the case.

I'd still like to find that module just to confirm.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wildstar 

Alternatively, maybe as a stop-gap measure, you can use the SoX resampler for foobar2k.
I use the 'mod' version, where you can specify a list of sampling freqs you want to exclude from conversion.

Thanks for the link. I'll give this a try as I see how other things shake out.

Install like any other Foobar plug in?

This is definitely a driver issue.

Asus had nothing to say but to offer me an RMA. The board isn't broken, so that's a giant waste of time and money.

Realtek has not responded to any of my inquiries. They did recently release version R2.60 drivers for their HD Audio codecs, so I dutifully installed it hoping they might have included a fix for limiting their own hardware.

During the installation the old driver is uninstalled, the computer must be rebooted, then the new driver is installed.

During the restart process I got the little windows notification about New Hardware, driver is being installed. Not paying attention I opened the properties from the generic Windows sound icon in the tray, and lo and behold, 88.2kHz was now an option.

Hooray!

Then the Realtek installer popped up, automatically finished the driver install, and upon reboot the 88.2 option was gone.

IOW, the generic Windows driver recognizes the hardware capability, but Realtek's own driver intentionally disables one of its output modes.

The Realtek driver includes all the EQ and sound effects software, but I'm not sure I need that, so I uninstalled all audio drivers and let Windows install its own driver a 2nd time, and now I have 88.2kHz playback capability.

I just don't get why a manufacturer would disable a mode advertised as a feature of their product.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wildstar 

Could be due to system instability (beware of bluescreens), hardware faults or plain lack of testing.
 

 

Nothing like that has occurred. 88.2 play without difficulty.

If any of those problems are the case they should update the features list for the codec and remove 88.2 capability. A lot more high resolution audio content is becoming available at that sampling rate. If their hardware or drivers really are unstable, they should stop advertising it is a capability you get when you buy a motherboard with the ALC892 on it.