[hawkhead]

Please produce the figures to back up that statement
 
e.g. Number sold and number of issues
 
 
Quote:

 
 
 and only a small portion are having issues with the tenor chip. 

 

[tme110]

Judging by posts and the few people who have issues, I also believe to the people with issues to be very small.  I haven't seen any proof that many people at all have had issues, but the people who have have been very vocal. 
 

 

[elwappo99]

Quote:

Please produce the figures to back up that statement
 
e.g. Number sold and number of issues
 
 

 
I obviously don't have exact figures, but you read through the thread (like I did) you'll see most people are saying that it works for them just fine. There's a number of people having problems and they have a conversation so it appears like more. I'm personally not have any trouble with it, and have hooked it up to 4 different computers and had 0 issues. 

 

[grokit]

I thought the issues were with the Windows drivers, not the Tenor chip itself.

 

[elwappo99]

Quote:

I thought the issues were with the Windows drivers, not the Tenor chip itself.

 
It is with the drivers, and Tenor hasn't made a solution. For some reason some people can't get the drivers to work with their machines. 

 

[kLevkoff]

Quote:

How hard can it be to test 192 playback via WASAPI - does anyone have that working ?

 
To answer your FIRST question.....
 
Windows 7 (and WASAPI) are very.... variable.... in how well they work. I have several assorted DACs, and how well Windows 7 works at high sample rates varies widely between them.
 
Some DACs simply don't work well at high bit rates on certain machines. I'm NOT talking about under-powered machines here.
What I'm talking about is a quad core 2.5 gHz Dell with plenty of memory and Windows 7 - 64 (and nothing else interesting running, and CPU utilization about 15%).
With one DAC it has no problem at 192/24; with another DAC (different DAC, different driver) it won't run for ten seconds without a dropout.
On a different, but quite similar, machine the "problem DAC" works fine.
 
My point is that there are a lot of variables.... unless you want to spend your entire life trying to sort them out, find a mode that works well and use it.
Try the DAC on at least one different machine - in a different mode.
Unless it misbehaves consistently, then it's probably an O/S or compatibility issue.
 
 
[Even more annoying, Windows XP doesn't seem to have nearly as many problems.]

 

[kLevkoff]

Quote:

When was this? I don't recall him ever comparing it to XMOS. He would have to be deaf not to hear the superiority of even the reference design XMOS over the TE8802.

 
You really need to put the relative importance of the chip and the implementation into proper perspective. A good implementation of even a poor chip can often sound better than a poor implementation of a good chip. In something like a DAC, the chip used (whether the DAC or the S/PDIF transceiver) is about 10% of the sound, and the rest is the design of the circuitry around it.
In many cases, a chip that is really good (in terms of maximum capabilities) may be very difficult to design around, and so, even though the chip is excellent, the majority of designs taht use it turn out poor. In contrast, a chip whose top performance is mediocre, but which works well in a wider variety of implementations, and is "easier to design around", may end up sounding better more of the time. Endless discussions about "which chip sound better" serve no purpose.... and assuming that anything with a given chip will sound good is a dangerous thing. (Name a "wonderful chip" and, somewhere out there, there's a product that uses it and sounds like crap. I'll bet someone can find something with a TE8802 in it that sounds worlds better than something else with a XMOS chip in it )
 
It's much more productive to discuss how KingWa's implementation of one (the board you get to buy) compares to his implementation of another.

 

[kLevkoff]

Quote:

Don't get your hopes up. Kingwa told me a while ago to return mine for refund because the drivers would not be fixed.
 
TE8802 is far from the 'latest & greatest'; It is a budget solution. Even with the TCXO upgrade it is a jitter fest because of the way the chip tries to synthesize 44.1kHz and 48kHz clock multiples from a 12.000MHz crystal. Anything based on XMOS will destroy the DI-V2 in performance due to technical superiority -- largely because it uses discrete clocks for 44.1 and 48kHz multiples (22.050 and 24.576 MHz, respectively iirc) resulting in far less jitter.
 
Kingwa should skip the TE8802 and the USB-32 chip altogether and adopt XMOS for his higher end gear and the DI. One major bonus of using XMOS: the drivers have been updated over 50 times in 3 years with no end in sight (I just updated again a week ago).
 
They are. Based on the file timestamps the Audio-gd "v2" drivers were packed on August 8 while the Burson ones were done on June 7 and the contents of the .exe's are the same except the Audio-gd has larger icons by about 100KB.

 
One must be careful not to oversimplify....
 
ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL, a solution that uses separate clocks will have less jitter.... however, the quality of those clocks matters a great deal.
A single-clock setup (with a very good clock) COULD perform better than one with two poor quality clocks - one shouldn't assume.
 
Likewise, the DI uses a sample rate converter, which removes jitter from the signal.
(How well it does this depends on the DSP and its clocks and programming...)
Therefore, having moderate jitter on the INPUT probably really doesn't matter
since it will be removed along the way anyway. The jitter on the output clock, and the transmitter matter a lot.
The jitter on certain of the DSP clocks is also probably critical (which ones will depend on the DSP and its programming).
 
If you have it set to up-sample everything to 96k, then only the output clock that clocks THAT rate matters
(it doesn't mater if the derived-clocks for the rates you aren't using are especially jitter free or not).
 
Presumably KingWa is pretty good at knowing what matters and what doesn't....
(if not, then we shouldn't be buying his stuff )
You shouldn't second-guess him without all the facts....

 

[kLevkoff]

Quote:

I have tried my motherboard USB ports, ports off of an NEC USB 3 chip, and off of another NEC USB 2 PCI add in card... it has nothing to do with the USB ports. It might have something to do with the motherboard, but I still cannot imagine why this is the only device of its kind with these issues. The latency is fine on my desktop (which BSODs) but is completely game-breaking on my laptop (which works) since it causes movies to skip, severe frame rate drop in games, etc..

I have to chime in here.....
 
This is FAR from "the only device with these issues". I have several DACs, and several computers, and each DAC works better or worse with certain drivers and in certain modes on certain computers. Certain DACs (and similar devices) working poorly with certain drivers on certain computers - especially at high sample rates - IS the norm and not the exception.
Windows simply was NOT designed to provide the priority necessary to guarantee good performance with audio at anything above 44.1k .
Priority jumps (which can cause dropouts) can be caused by all sorts of things from low memory to a conflict with a WiFi card....
(And I wouldn't bet on Macs being much better, expect that, since they have limited options in general, the possibilities are more limited.)
 
Drivers CAN slow down machines, and can obviously conflict with other drivers.... and it may not be possible to assign blame.
(I know plenty of laptops that have severe frame drop problems and DON'T run KingWa's drivers )
 
I've been in the computer biz a lot of years, and I can assure that there isn't a device or driver in the world that SOME folks somewhere
aren't having trouble with..... unfortunately, audio is far more critical, and so such problems become more obvious and critical to fix

 

[somestranger26]

Quote:

This is FAR from "the only device with these issues". I have several DACs, and several computers, and each DAC works better or worse with certain drivers and in certain modes on certain computers. Certain DACs (and similar devices) working poorly with certain drivers on certain computers - especially at high sample rates - IS the norm and not the exception.

Oh sorry I did not realize that blue screens of death were normal with USB audio, in every output format.
 
Quote:

Priority jumps (which can cause dropouts) can be caused by all sorts of things from low memory to a conflict with a WiFi card.... (And I wouldn't bet on Macs being much better, expect that, since they have limited options in general, the possibilities are more limited.)
 
Drivers CAN slow down machines, and can obviously conflict with other drivers.... and it may not be possible to assign blame.
(I know plenty of laptops that have severe frame drop problems and DON'T run KingWa's drivers )

The TE8802 drivers have static 3500us DPC latency. There's really no excuse, especially when it negatively affects performance in games and HD movies. XMOS does up to 24/192 without issue and an order of magnitude less DPC latency (300us).
 
Quote:

In many cases, a chip that is really good (in terms of maximum capabilities) may be very difficult to design around, and so, even though the chip is excellent, the majority of designs taht use it turn out poor. In contrast, a chip whose top performance is mediocre, but which works well in a wider variety of implementations, and is "easier to design around", may end up sounding better more of the time. Endless discussions about "which chip sound better" serve no purpose.... and assuming that anything with a given chip will sound good is a dangerous thing. (Name a "wonderful chip" and, somewhere out there, there's a product that uses it and sounds like crap. I'll bet someone can find something with a TE8802 in it that sounds worlds better than something else with a XMOS chip in it )  
It's much more productive to discuss how KingWa's implementation of one (the board you get to buy) compares to his implementation of another.

Digital chips are to analog chips as apples are to oranges. The 10% thing does not apply here. Besides, none of these USB chips are difficult to design around and their implementations differ very little except in the power supply and clocking.

 

[hawkhead]

The DIDSP is the only USB device that has ever caused trouble
 
Latency is very high
 
Static can be reproduced at will
 
It will not play 192 through WASAPI
 
I have had a Hiface, the original DI (which I have gone back to) and several USB DAC's without issues.

 

[fourwed]

I am very excited now.....there comes the SOUND!!!!
 
I hope you know what is Raspberry pi. For those don't know, it is a very inexpensive linux computer for $25.
 
http://www.raspberrypi.org/
 
I was very excited by its introduction and ordered one almost immediately. I thought it is a very cool piece of hardware and perhaps I might able to use it for a music player. I DID IT TODAY!!!
 
Since delivery, I have no time to play with it, especially Linux is not my language. After a few days of trying, I am finally able to play mp3 from it.The playback is not perfect, with a few crack sound, but I am surely it could be improved through time.
 
My next target is to install Music Player Daemon. It is known as one of the best CAS player and I will do some A-B test by then.

 

[kr0gg]

you mean that you could install te8802 drivers in Raspberry?

 

[fourwed]

I mean you don't have to install any driver!!

 

[FauDrei]

Perhaps openELEC can help you a little if linux is not your language... and you are willing to experiment.