[Shahrose]

Quote:

Originally Posted by leeperry /img/forum/go_quote.gif haha yeah I'm clueless....thanks for showing me the light simple test, again... -set the samplerate at 48KHz and open a youtube video -simultaneously, open a 24/96 FLAC in foobar/ASIO my M-Audio ASIO drivers will give an error msg, saying they can't set the hardware samplerate to 96Khz...I'm forced to close youtube to get my 24/96 FLAC working in ASIO the Asus STX will play! it will downsample to 48KHz, ANY stream is resampled at the locked samplerate set in the drivers(there's no "auto" rate, that's the problem!)...it's clearly explained 3 TIMES in the manual(maybe it's time you read it ), it's even a known issue on the D2 as well. there's a thread about that on AVS. I suggest you play around w/ more professional cards(like Echo/M-Audio/RME/etc... ), these will never resample under ANY cirmcumstance...and as you know resampling increases the THD/THD+N rates anyway, even w/ sloppy resampling this card is great...just a bit of whining to the Asus techsupport might improve it one last step further.

Who says I use ASIO? I use WASAPI and it does not allow me to play the file simultaneously with youtube. Anyways, if you want to argue about this topic, start another thread. I won't be discussing this issue any further as I'm just repeating myself at this point. You've been heckled by so many members in the STX thread for a reason.

 

[leeperry]

only Asus could have the fantastic idea of resampling ASIO

Universal Soldier: ASUS Xonar D2 PM Sound Card Review (page 8) - X-bit labs

Quote:

The Xonar D2 provides full support for ASIO 2.0 with 16-bit and 24-bit data precision and frequencies of 44.1, 48, 96 and 192kHz. [...] The card doesn’t adjust the frequency automatically. If the frequency differs from the base one, the signal is recalculated using a high-quality software resampling algorithm. For comparison, the Creative X-Fi begins to switch the generator’s frequency in this case, clicking with the relay.

every soundcard on earth will switch the hardware samplerate(even Creative!), except the Asus

send an email to Asus to complain about that, if you care about SQ that is.

 

[ROBSCIX]

Yes, but as you have been told over, over and over setting the sample rate by hand will still allow you bit perfect output.

We all know that a auto setting would be great but that is far from your suggestion the card is incapable of bitperfect output.

 

[leeperry]

it's a big fail to not allow automatic hardware samplerate switch and resample ASIO. BIG! HUGE! GARGANTUESQUE!

who wants to manually change the sampling freq all the time? I play DVD/DVD-A/CDDA on a regular basis..."oops I forgot to switch back the sample rate to 44.1 <click click>

"

you boast about getting prototypes from Asus, yet you don't even tell their "engineers" about this big failure...even Creative does it(bitmatched playback)! how lame can they get, I'm astonished...drivers worse than Creative, well it's possible! it's called Asux.

They should also force us to set the bit depth manually, and I dunno something else really annoying too, like maybe auto-mute for each new rate/depth change, and you'd have to manually unmute in their lame drivers(requiring 10 clicks if any possible, or maybe requiring a reboot)? now that'd be convenient! maybe you can ask them for a such an annoying feature to add? that'd be craptacular, perfect!

 

[ROBSCIX]

Your a troll, nothing more.

 

[gurubhai]

sorry for being away from this rather heated discussion, I had an exam this weekend.

@Leepery - I have read some of your posts on various forums.I agree with you that it would have been better to have the driver to automatically adjust to the provided sample rate.But, since most of my audio (flac and V0 mp3) is 44.1 k so I won't mind setting that as my default and get the bit perfect output.

As for Asus drivers, I got first hand experience recently when my roommate bought D2X recently. I must add that unlike the crappy onboard soundcard resampling, D2X does an excellent job at resampling.I am hard pressed to find any difference between nonresampled vs. resampled while with onboard resamling, even my non neo-audiophile friends would find significant difference.
These D2X drivers are supporting Kstreaming on win7, and I thought not having a Kmixer would have eliminated their support

Meanwhile , I actually tried to purchase the Essence but found that the dealer was out of stock.
So, i have more time to debate my decision.

thanks to all the responders here and I hope that more people would contribute with their experiences.

 

[sonci]

@Leepery
Thanks man, for saving me some money, I didnt read your posts on the essence thread (too long)
Maybe Ill go for the Forte, it should be automatic bit matched playback,
on the other hand many years of building soundcards should serve for something.

@ROBSCIX
So many reviews, not a word about this..
but I wanna be positive..

 

[leeperry]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ROBSCIX /img/forum/go_quote.gif Your a troll, nothing more.

and you are clueless(even in grammary). kthx

 

[leeperry]

the Forte 7.1 headphone amp is based on a JRC4580, bad choice!

actually the STX is great, take 1 minute to whine to their tech support and send them this email if you can.

if 50 ppl whine about resampling, maybe some engineer will enlighten and realize that ASIO should be bit-perfect...and not resample WHATSOEVER

the form is available here : ASUS Online Service

try to change it a bit, so if it doesn't look like a drone attack.

Quote:

hi, please forward it to the Xonar audio drivers engineers..thanks! your STX soundcard is great, but why does it have a fixed samplerate?! you should allow to keep it on "auto", because a fixed samplerate is only useful for S/PDIF output! professional soundcard manufacturers(RME/M-Audio/AudioTrak/Echo/Creative) allow you to leave the samplerate unlocked, look at this on on the Echo soundcard : http://www.imagebam.com/image/a5615d33582146 so it will never resample! if you play a 16/44.1 file in foobar with ASIO then a 24/96, each time the drivers will set the right hardware samplerate...and NEVER resample! resampling always increases the THD/THD+N distorsion rates, no matter how well it's done. and who wants to constantly change the samplerate in the drivers whether he plays CDDA/DVD/DVD-A? your card is fantastic! but the software drivers would need this additional "auto" samplerate to turn it into a real audiophile tool. you even resample the ASIO/DirectKS drivers, this is not serious...this is not a gamers soundcard. hopefully you will get back to me, I'll be happy to betatest any true 100% bit-perfect beta drivers. Thank you in advance,

 

[ROBSCIX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sonci /img/forum/go_quote.gif @Leepery Thanks man, for saving me some money, I didnt read your posts on the essence thread (too long) Maybe Ill go for the Forte, it should be automatic bit matched playback, on the other hand many years of building soundcards should serve for something. @ROBSCIX So many reviews, not a word about this.. but I wanna be positive..

It has been discussed many times, the card requires you to set the sample rate for bit perfect playback. However, the card still provides bit perfect playback. We all would like a auto sample rate selection, this is nothing new. So until they add auto setting your required to set the sample rate by hand to the track sample rate. As for THD/THD+N Here is a quote from the manual " the Xonar Essence STX engine will do super high fidelity sample-rate-conversion with a double floating-point filter, which can reduce total harmonic distortion (THD+N) by -140dB"
If you don't bother setting the sample rate or let the card upsample.

That is the long and short of the story.

 

[leeperry]

sorry you're on my ignore list, please add me to your as well...you simply waste my time w/ your useless posts here and pointless reviews on that dutch website(ahmagad it sounds great, buy it you fools! I got mine for free from Asus, it's so awesome...I'm so cool!). tot ziens

 

[ROBSCIX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sonci /img/forum/go_quote.gif @Leepery Thanks man, for saving me some money, I didnt read your posts on the essence thread (too long) Maybe Ill go for the Forte, it should be automatic bit matched playback, on the other hand many years of building soundcards should serve for something. @ROBSCIX So many reviews, not a word about this.. but I wanna be positive..

About the Auzentech Forte 7.1, Great card. If your using headphones with this card, the Headphone amplifier is a JRC4580 prebuffer combined with discrete transistors for power. Many say it sounds very good and has power to spare. Both are great cards meant for different markets and applications.

 

[gurubhai]

@leeperry, I read your comments on STX thread and I think your comments about robscix are uncalled for. He did a hardware review and a pretty good one at that, he really does not have to discuss the software/driver coming with it.

ps, I don't see how one can play different bit depth sources using shuffle mode.
foobar(or any other media player I know) does not support multiple bit depths simultaneously.

 

[leeperry]

well I point out a major design flaw, he keeps calling me a dumb troll...yet he's the one in contact w/ Asus and he overlooked this major issue

nah, it seems that ASUS was just too darn lazy to set up automatic samplerate selection....they prefer to resample, hoping noone will notice.

or maybe they're just clueless, they've only been in the soundcard business for a few years I think...gamers and audiophiles don't have the same expectations you know

anyway, it's never too late! let them know that they need to fix it, and it should work itself out -hopefully-.

a forced samplerate if great if you use S/PDIF, but if you go analog if should offer an unlocked samplerate.

PS: I can play any kind of file in shuffle on my M-Audio, the ASIO drivers will force the soundcard to change its hardware samplerate whenever required(even Creative does that!)

 

[gurubhai]

I was talking about bit depth.