[Svirre]

I have for a long period of time used the optical toslink my integrated soundcard to connect my PC to my Benchmark DAC1 that I use as a source for both my stereo and headphone setup. From time to time I experience a decrease in quality, almost as the music is downgraded to 64 kbps mp3-files. All I have to do is restart the program and the problem is gone, so this is probably just a software issue. But I do hear some distortion, from time to time, so just for my peace of mind I want a dedicated soundcard.

What would you guys recommend? As I mentioned I only need the optical out.

 

[blessingx]

One of the Turtle Beach Audio Advantages?

Turtle Beach PC Sound Card - Audio Advantage Micro

 

[myinitialsaredac]

not sure u want to run a an optical out of a usb adapter?

Might introduce too many clock cycles resulting in some nasty jitter.

Dave

 

[Svirre]

They did seem small and handy, but I would preferre something with a toslink output so I wouldn't have to use adapters. The price of those cards almost seemed too cheap, but I guess as long as I only need a digital output it doesn't really matter?

I was thinking of something in the lines of the Onkyo SE-90PCI, but that might be overkill since I only really need the digital output?

In terms of setup, how should I configure Vista for a bitperfect output? I use MediaMonkey as my audio player.

 

[myinitialsaredac]

Svirre, I don't know much about mediamonkey, but I use itunes with multiplugin set to use the foobar bypass and set up wasapi in foobar to get bit-perfect through my optical. This essentially gives me the itune foreground, which is easy to use and allows for playlists to be created and ipod management, with the foobar playback engine, running the alac codec. Wasapi is very easy to set up for optical, simply select it as your playback device in foobar and right click on the speaker icon in the lower right hand corner of your desktop and select a different device as default, turn off all system sounds, turn up the volume in foobar to 100% and shizzam the universe works its magic and you get bit-perfect playback with a hardware potentiometer all in an easy to use skin.

Cheers,
Dave

 

[Svirre]

So the sound isn't going untouched out through my soundcard in Vista? I thought they had resolved the sound issues they had with XP with Vista, but I guess not?

 

[myinitialsaredac]

Svirre,

Microsoft did in fact build a new sound architecture, but they are still using a mixer, its just not on the kernel level anymore. They need to employ a mixer if your computer is playing different sounds at once.

Dave

 

[olblueyez]

Foobar + ASIO4ALL = Best way for you to go. Sounds like you haven't really heard your music properly yet.

 

[Svirre]

Ok, but the sound isn't being resampled like it was in XP, right? Anyway, I'll check out wasapi and see if it's possible to use a similar setup with MediaMonkey. Is there any alternatives if wasapi is not compatible with my current setup?

 

[Svirre]

Thanks for all the replys!

I really didn't think I had to do that much with the sound in Vista, but I guess I was mistaken. It seems that ASIO4ALL is compatible with MediaMonkey, so I'll have to give that a try. Who knows, maybe that will cure the issues I'm having with the sound so I don't have to buy a soundcard.

 

[myinitialsaredac]

As far as being resampled or not, I think its safe to assume that it probably is.
Foobar + ASIO4All is another option, but i'd recommend wasapi over it because its easier to use IMHO.

Dave

 

[olblueyez]

WASAPI and ASIO4ALL sound different so I assume one is not bit perfect. WASAPI sounds veiled to me.

 

[Svirre]

Aren't both supposed to be bitperfect? If so, how can there be a difference?

Anyway, I gave WASAPI and foobar2000 a try. Is it really as easy as it seems? I downloaded the WASAPI .dll and put it in Foobars component folder, and then chose WASAPI as the output source throug s/pdif. And then everything just worked... With MediaMonkey I had tons of documentation and tweaking in the walkthough, and it didn't even work! Setting up WASAPI took me about a minute. Everything is seemingly working and sounding great, but I just can't come around how easy it was.

 

[olblueyez]

I stand corrected, I updated Foobar and my plugins last night and got both WASAPI and ASIO4ALL working and they sound exactly the same to me now.