Mr.Radar
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2004
- Posts
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I just got my AV-710 and here's how I've set mine up.
Important notice: I haven't updated this guide in a while (the last edit before this one was on 6-21-05) and I don't plan on updating it very soon (I replaced my AV-710 with an 0404 many months ago). Not all the information in this guide may be accurate now (there are newer driver versions and a new version of Foobar2000 is coming out that will change the layout of the settings dialog making the pictures in this guide inaccurate).
A note on amping and line-outs: Recently there have been many reports from people that their AV-710s have sounded weak, bass-less, or just bad in general. The reason for this in many cases is the lack of proper amplifcation. The Alt-Out/high quality output jack on the AV-710 is only a line-level output and cannot drive headphones directly. To use the AV-710's high quality output with headphones you need a headphone amplifier such as a CMOY, MINT, HeadRoom AirHead, or a stereo receiver with a headphone jack.
Links: Here are some more guides for the AV-710:
More in-depth, entirely text-based guide.
How to setup ASIO, analog output without resampling, and J-River Media Center.
If you're on Linux scroll down for instructions.
When physically installing the AV-710 insert it into the lowest available PCI slot to help keep it away from electrical noise caused by components such as the CPU and Video card.
After you've installed the card, download and install the 1.43d drivers from Via's website (they've hid it so here's a direct link) or from TechSpot. The installer is pretty straightforward. When it asks if you want to reboot say yes.
When your computer is done rebooting there should be a new icon on your taskbar.
Double click this icon to launch the Via Vinyl Audio Deck. When you're in the Audio Deck select the "Digital Out" tab.
[NOTE: The Via logo has been removed from these screenshots for compression reasons]
Enable the digital out by checking the "Enable Digital Output" option then check "Enable High - Sample Rate(96KHz)". [NOTE: If you're only using this card for digital output then you should leave the High Sample Rate mode OFF.] In the high sample rate mode all sounds will be sent to the high quality stereo-only 24/96 Wolfson DAC which outputs on the channel 7/8 port (the one right above the optical out) so all WaveOut and DirectSound sounds will be resampled to 24/96 and all Kernel Streaming, and ASIO sounds must use stereo 24/96. Set the Master Volume to maximum for the best sound quality.
If you need to use the 3.24c drivers for some reason then enabling the high sample rate mode is even easier. You simply select "High Sample Rate 2 Channel" as the output mode. As said above, you should put the back stereo and master volumes at the highest for the best sound quality.
NOTE: There is a bug in the 3.24c drivers where the master volume control only affects one of the channels when the high sample rate mode is enabled. If you need to adjust the master volume, first disable the high sample rate mode by selecting the standard "2 channel" mode then adjust the volume and re-enable the high sample rate mode as decribed above. If you need to adjust the master volume while in high sample rate mode, you should switch to the 1.43d drivers. This may have been fixed in the most recent drivers but I am not sure.
The next section applies to using Foobar2000 with the Wolfson DAC only (you do use Foobar2000, right?). If you do not wish to use Foobar2000 then you can ignore this section.
Open the Preferences dialog and select the Playback -> Output screen.
Select Kernel Streaming as the Output method, then goto the Kernel Streaming settings. If you're on Windows ME or 98 then you'll need to use WaveOut or DirectSound instead. If Kenerel Streaming isn't available as an option and you're using Windows 2000 or XP then you need to install the Kernel Streaming output component which can be found here.
Select "Envy24 Family Audio (WDM)" as the device then go to the Playback settings.
Check the "show all options" checkbox in the Output section (you'll need to check it twice) then select "24bit fixed-point padded to 32bit" as the Output data format. It is normal to come back to the Playback settings at a later time and have the Output data format selection blank (to make them visible again check the "Show all options" checkbox). If Dither is enabled then disable it. Then head to the Playback -> DSP Manager settings.
If the Resampler (SSRC) DSP isn't in the left column add it by selecting it in the right column and clicking the left-arrow button. Then head to the Resampler (SSRC) settings.
Set the Target sample rate to 96000 Hz and enable slow mode. If Foobar2000 uses too much of your CPU in slow mode then you can disable it. You'll loose a bit of sound quality but FB2k will use much less CPU. This shouldn't be an issue on Inte CPUl's over 2.0 GHz and AMD CPU's over 2000+ (1.6 GHz). For slower CPUs where even SSRC's normal mode uses too much CPU then you should use the PPHS resampler available in the 0.8.3 special installer or attached below (to install it place it in your Foobar2000\Components folder normally found in C:\Program Files\). It is much faster than SSRC but is slightly lower quality. Performance differences between regular and Ultra mode with PPHS are negligible so you should use Ultra mode.
Your system is now setup to get the maximum sound quality from the AV-710. As always you can experiment with settings to see what you like but this is a good starting point.
EDIT: Some people have been reporting strange problems with the 1.43d drives. If you experience any difficulties with the 1.43d's then upgrade to the 3.10a's from Via's website (www.viaarena.com under Envy HT-S drives).
Linux
These instructions on getting the high sample rate mode to work under Linux with ALSA were originally posted by Head-Fi member ADS at www.vandemar.org
Quote:
EDIT: The attached asound.stat file only works with ALSA 1.0.6, which is an outdated version.
Important notice: I haven't updated this guide in a while (the last edit before this one was on 6-21-05) and I don't plan on updating it very soon (I replaced my AV-710 with an 0404 many months ago). Not all the information in this guide may be accurate now (there are newer driver versions and a new version of Foobar2000 is coming out that will change the layout of the settings dialog making the pictures in this guide inaccurate).
A note on amping and line-outs: Recently there have been many reports from people that their AV-710s have sounded weak, bass-less, or just bad in general. The reason for this in many cases is the lack of proper amplifcation. The Alt-Out/high quality output jack on the AV-710 is only a line-level output and cannot drive headphones directly. To use the AV-710's high quality output with headphones you need a headphone amplifier such as a CMOY, MINT, HeadRoom AirHead, or a stereo receiver with a headphone jack.
Links: Here are some more guides for the AV-710:
More in-depth, entirely text-based guide.
How to setup ASIO, analog output without resampling, and J-River Media Center.
If you're on Linux scroll down for instructions.
When physically installing the AV-710 insert it into the lowest available PCI slot to help keep it away from electrical noise caused by components such as the CPU and Video card.
After you've installed the card, download and install the 1.43d drivers from Via's website (they've hid it so here's a direct link) or from TechSpot. The installer is pretty straightforward. When it asks if you want to reboot say yes.
When your computer is done rebooting there should be a new icon on your taskbar.
Double click this icon to launch the Via Vinyl Audio Deck. When you're in the Audio Deck select the "Digital Out" tab.
[NOTE: The Via logo has been removed from these screenshots for compression reasons]
Enable the digital out by checking the "Enable Digital Output" option then check "Enable High - Sample Rate(96KHz)". [NOTE: If you're only using this card for digital output then you should leave the High Sample Rate mode OFF.] In the high sample rate mode all sounds will be sent to the high quality stereo-only 24/96 Wolfson DAC which outputs on the channel 7/8 port (the one right above the optical out) so all WaveOut and DirectSound sounds will be resampled to 24/96 and all Kernel Streaming, and ASIO sounds must use stereo 24/96. Set the Master Volume to maximum for the best sound quality.
If you need to use the 3.24c drivers for some reason then enabling the high sample rate mode is even easier. You simply select "High Sample Rate 2 Channel" as the output mode. As said above, you should put the back stereo and master volumes at the highest for the best sound quality.
NOTE: There is a bug in the 3.24c drivers where the master volume control only affects one of the channels when the high sample rate mode is enabled. If you need to adjust the master volume, first disable the high sample rate mode by selecting the standard "2 channel" mode then adjust the volume and re-enable the high sample rate mode as decribed above. If you need to adjust the master volume while in high sample rate mode, you should switch to the 1.43d drivers. This may have been fixed in the most recent drivers but I am not sure.
The next section applies to using Foobar2000 with the Wolfson DAC only (you do use Foobar2000, right?). If you do not wish to use Foobar2000 then you can ignore this section.
Open the Preferences dialog and select the Playback -> Output screen.
Select Kernel Streaming as the Output method, then goto the Kernel Streaming settings. If you're on Windows ME or 98 then you'll need to use WaveOut or DirectSound instead. If Kenerel Streaming isn't available as an option and you're using Windows 2000 or XP then you need to install the Kernel Streaming output component which can be found here.
Select "Envy24 Family Audio (WDM)" as the device then go to the Playback settings.
Check the "show all options" checkbox in the Output section (you'll need to check it twice) then select "24bit fixed-point padded to 32bit" as the Output data format. It is normal to come back to the Playback settings at a later time and have the Output data format selection blank (to make them visible again check the "Show all options" checkbox). If Dither is enabled then disable it. Then head to the Playback -> DSP Manager settings.
If the Resampler (SSRC) DSP isn't in the left column add it by selecting it in the right column and clicking the left-arrow button. Then head to the Resampler (SSRC) settings.
Set the Target sample rate to 96000 Hz and enable slow mode. If Foobar2000 uses too much of your CPU in slow mode then you can disable it. You'll loose a bit of sound quality but FB2k will use much less CPU. This shouldn't be an issue on Inte CPUl's over 2.0 GHz and AMD CPU's over 2000+ (1.6 GHz). For slower CPUs where even SSRC's normal mode uses too much CPU then you should use the PPHS resampler available in the 0.8.3 special installer or attached below (to install it place it in your Foobar2000\Components folder normally found in C:\Program Files\). It is much faster than SSRC but is slightly lower quality. Performance differences between regular and Ultra mode with PPHS are negligible so you should use Ultra mode.
Your system is now setup to get the maximum sound quality from the AV-710. As always you can experiment with settings to see what you like but this is a good starting point.
EDIT: Some people have been reporting strange problems with the 1.43d drives. If you experience any difficulties with the 1.43d's then upgrade to the 3.10a's from Via's website (www.viaarena.com under Envy HT-S drives).
Linux
These instructions on getting the high sample rate mode to work under Linux with ALSA were originally posted by Head-Fi member ADS at www.vandemar.org
Quote:
| Originally Posted by ADS In order to get the Chaintech AV-710 to run in high-res mode and use the superior Wolfson DAC, download the asound.state file (available below). Copy this to your /etc/ directory as root, and run ‘alsactl restore’. This will enable the high-resolution jack. Notice that this will not mute the volume on your speaker outputs (unlike the windows version), so you can listen to your headphones and speakers at the same time. It’s a fun effect, but you’ll probably want to disable it. To do this, open up alsamixer and mute the ‘Master’ and ‘Master Mono’ controls. If you want your speakers muted by default, then after alsamixer run ‘alsactl store’. If still haven’t figured out how to get the card into 96000 Hz sampling mode without problems, so if someone could get that to work I’d appreciate it. I know it has something to do with the ‘Multi Track Internal Clock’ setting. To play around with it you can use ‘amixer cset numid=43′. Let me know if this works, and if anybody has any luck getting it to run at 96000 Hz. 
|
EDIT: The attached asound.stat file only works with ALSA 1.0.6, which is an outdated version.
