HRT HeadStreamer: WASAPI woes in FooBar - Page 4

Ahh thanks anyway. I guess I should leave it unticked anyways since the dac supposedly accepts all sampling rates anyways.

I just bought a Headstreamer and arrived here because I had some of the symptoms this thread highlights.

I haven't worked on getting it functional with my Linux machine yet.  My Music Streamer II works great on that machine; I love it.  The Headstreamer volume control doesn't work yet, and based on previous experience with sound on Linux, I assume the correction will be the result of changing something on my system, and is not going to take tons of work, though I expect to get annoyed at ALSA or PulseAudio as I have many times before.

I got concerned when the Headstreamer wouldn't quit with the popping and stuttering on my Windows 7 machine.  I anticipated issues with WASAPI and I tried every solution proposed in this thread, with no success.  I tried several players.

Then I connected the Headstreamer directly to my computer so that the Headstreamer is not sharing a USB root hub with any other device.  It now works flawlessly.  So perhaps this issue ought to become part of the Headstreamer literature (or lore): sharing a USB root hub can cause symptoms that sound a lot like WASAPI, buffer length, etc. issues.

In W7 (I don't know similar stuff in Linux -- at least Fedora -- because I've never had this issue with Linux), you can see what devices are connected to which USB root hubs, and assigned to which controllers, in the Device Manager.  W7 says that the Headstreamer is a 250 mA device, so power could well become an issue depending on what devices share a root hub with the HS.

I can make my HS misbehave by connecting it so that it either 1) shares a root hub with another connected device, or 2) is part of a port network that necessarily shares a root hub with several others (as in typical front-panel ports, of which my computer has several that share one root hub and are amperage-limited to a level below 500 mA).  This is easily remedied on a desktop-like system with lots of root hubs and ports; I can see it might be more of a problem with a netbook that is hub/controller-limited.  But maybe this issue is rare.  If I plug the HS into a cheap generic USB hub (the external port-adding kind), I can really make the HS sick.  It pops constantly when connected to this hub.

Some users on this thread report that other devices work fine when connected to the same port that the HS was connected to when causing problems.  Maybe those devices don't have this sensitivity, or use less power?

In any case, this was a very cheap and easy fix for me.  I have found the sound quality coming out of the HS through my HD-595s to be worth this negligible trouble.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by melosoares 

 

http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_out_asio

 

 

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by veracocha 

Hi ,

 

problem solved ?

Not only is the stutter/pop problem resolved in foobar, 192khz files get automatically downsampled to 96khz and playback without hassle. Its been running without issues for 2 months. My buffer is set to the lowest setting (50ms). Highly recommended for HRT users.

Thank you for the link to the ASIO plugin melosares.

I am not sure what the difference is between the HRT HeadStreamer and the HRT Music Streamer, but I just purchased a HRT MS2+ and had similar problems (blips, hiccups, etc.) with playback in Foobar via WASAPI. At first, I thought I'd just "downgrade" to DirectSound to solve my problem (couldn't get KS or ASIO to work with the HRT MS2+ either).

Then I just downloaded MusicBee, and all of my problems went away.

So long Foobar; you had a good run.

The foobar2000 WASAPI plugin is being rewritten right now.

Please try it out and post feedback to Peter

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=94907

Quote:

Originally Posted by A_Man_Eating_Duck 

The foobar2000 WASAPI plugin is being rewritten right now.

 

Please try it out and post feedback to Peter

 

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=94907

HRT's DAC designer has suggested lowering the player's buffer setting as much as possible, and so I tried that on other players that allow the buffer to go all the way down to zero (such as MusicBee mentioned by the previous poster), and it works great.

Then I asked Peter to simply allow an option for the buffer to be lower than 50, because of the above, and he steadfastly refused, claiming that it made no sense.

I asked three times, wording it three different ways and his response - which I have seen before from him - is the Gollum one of covering his ears and saying loudly "I'm not listening, I'm not listening."

I think I remember reading this on HA. It look like Peter has now taken it on board so if you can could you please test. Even if you don't plan on using Foobar as a player you might be able to help someone else out.

jologsmaster has reported sucess with his HRT HeadStreamer DAC.

Quote:

Originally Posted by A_Man_Eating_Duck 

I think I remember reading this on HA. It look like Peter has now taken it on board so if you can could you please test. Even if you don't plan on using Foobar as a player you might be able to help someone else out.

 

jologsmaster has reported sucess with his HRT HeadStreamer DAC.

In that thread, someone else reported having to roll back to an earlier version in order to even get lower than 1000ms and the HRT products need 20ms or less, so it doesn't seem like anything has changed.

By the way, in Hydrogen Audio Forum, if you post "the HRT MusicStreamer sounds better than other DACs because of these three electronic design techniques..." you will be banned, according to their rules.

The group of people who cannot hear the difference between a 128k MP3 and an SACD, and therefore claim that there is no real difference, is growing every day - along with the millions who believe that Obama was born in Kenya and the entirely separate millions who believe that 9/11 was an inside job (and I should not forget the millions who believe that humans never landed on the moon)...

if you post "the HRT MusicStreamer sounds better than other DACs because of these three electronic design techniques...", How do you know that there isn't a better sounding DAC out there? you don't, which makes the post redundant.

You shouldn't get banned but you will be asked to back up your claim (TOS8), which is perfectly understandable. You see people making posts about .WAV having higher quality than a lossless format like FLAC or WAVPACK even though they are mathematically identical once decoded. Wouldn't you want these people you perform a blind ABX to prove their conclusion?

It's the same thing with headphones, what sounds good to you might not work for me. I definitely found this out when I was in Singapore checking out the Jaben store with the Shure 535's.

I think TOS8 is a good way to help remove the snake oil salesman from audio.

Please don't take this as me having a go at you, I'm just trying to get my point across.

TOS8? That sounds like something from another site :)

Okay, change the sentence to say "these other DACs, X123 and Y345" rather than "other DACs".

TOS8 doesn't remove snake oil from audio, it removes Hydrogen Audio web site from audio.

Double blind testing can never be shown to fail to work, because the only testing allowed by the anti-audiophile religion is double blind testing.   It is an entirely circular argument.

Ultimately, audio cannot work in the way suggested by the anti-audiophiles, because audio is for the purpose of listening with human ears, and so human ears are the only judge possible.   Anti-audiophiles are uncomfortable with that, because they know they would either have to depend on their own listening, or trust some "expert reviewer".  That fact that they don't want to trust someone else is healthy, but they fact they don't want to trust their own ears is quite revealing...

BTW, in modern times, people have garbled the whole "snake oil" story.  Snake oil was recently scientifically proved to have health benefits (same ingredient as fish oil), and has never been found otherwise.  But 100 years ago or so, there were a lot of guys selling bottles of stuff that had little or no snake oil in the bottle - they were committing fraud.  So the correct phrase would be "snake oil salesmen" applied to con men and fraudsters who sell fakes.

I'm not here to argue with you so lets just end this here since it's getting way off topic.

Crap!! Just bought a msii. And I use foobar with waspi of course. We'll have to see if I have the same issues.

As wilky says above, MusicBee works fine with HRT MS2 (and has lots of great features).

Or switch from WASAPI to ASIO (which actually sounds a little better in the viewpoint of some observers).

WASAPI does not actually work as well as its initial theory said it should...