[Gislon]

I've just upgraded to Win7 (32bit), and thought I'd give J River Media Centre 16 a go. Very good sound and easier interface than Foobar. But I have a problem with the Xonar auto sample rate.
 
I used to run foobar on XP with ASIO, and the Xonar card would switch sample rates automatically (with the new official driver released last year).
 
But with Win7, MC16 set to WASAPI (events) and the latest 1793 driver for the Asus, I don't think it's switching sample rate. There's no click, and audio at 96khz plays back with a bad hiss until I manually switch the card to the right sample rate.
 
I thought about going back to ASIO in MC16, but unlike Foobar it bypasses ALL volume controls. I don't have a pre-amp, so that's not a happy option (my wife made me add that bit).
 
So two questions:
1) Should the auto sample rate feature of the Xonar work with WASAPI, or does it only work with ASIO?
2) Does ASIO mode in J River really disable ALL the PC volume controls or am I missing one?
 
Any thoughts gratefully received. The card is feeding a pair of LINN LK85 power amps with aktiv crossovers, feeding a pair of Linn KATANs. It sounds very smooth and detailed, for a bargain second hand price. I play FLACs, at 16or 24bit and sample rates of 44.1 up to 192khz. WASAPI sounds sweeter than ASIO to me, so I would like to keep using it if I can.
 
Thanks, Gilson

 

[mojave]

The Essence only bit-matches with ASIO, not with WASAPI. Also, it isn't MC16 that is bypassing the volume controls, it is the Essence driver that bypasses the volume control. This is a result of the bit-matched driver with Windows 7. This is noted in the driver'S notes at the Asus website:
 
Quote:

5. To keep the ASIO stream bit-perfect, the following two rules apply:
(1) The ASIO stream has higher priority of using DMA buffer than other streams. That is, when the ASIO stream is played, other streams cannot be played.
(2) No volume control is available for the ASIO stream.

 
I keep my bit rate in the Essence drivers at 44.1 since I listen to music most of the time. It then only makes a noise and switches when watching movies or higher resolution audio files.
 
J. River Media Center can control the volume itself with its 64-bit audio path. Go to Player > Volume and switch to internal volume. You can also use the speaker icon to the left of the volume control on Standard View. There is also a new Volume Protectino feature located at the same place. The Volume Protection option (with 16.0.108 or newer) does three things:
1) Makes it so that it isn't possible to increase the volume by more than 5% at a time (so accidentally clicking 100% on the slider will not go to 100%)
2) Makes it so that the volume can not be increased by more than 20% a second
3) Makes it so that starting playback if nothing has played for 30 minutes sets the volume to 10% (unless the volume is already lower)

 

 

[Gislon]

Thanks for detailed answer. Found the MC volume control for ASIO mode  - and it sounds like the update below will really help with folk like me who go straight in to a power amp.
 
So I'm now using ASIO mode - sounds great. Only problem are the crackles and pops when I first press play (even if it's not switching sample rate), or if I do anything else with the computer while it's playing.
 
I think that's a rogue driver problem  - sure I read a thread about it somewhere but can't find it - I'll try the Unified drivers tonight and see if that helps. But if anyone's found solution for that, it'd be great to know. I'm using the win7 1793 drivers downloaded from Asus official.

 

[mojave]

I am using the Xonar Unified Drivers and have no problems. 

 

[Broken Arrow]

i have a essence stx and it works perfectly with wasapi-eventstyle in MC16. it bit-matches every single file i've played
 
Quote:

The Essence only bit-matches with ASIO, not with WASAPI. Also, it isn't MC16 that is bypassing the volume controls, it is the Essence driver that bypasses the volume control. This is a result of the bit-matched driver with Windows 7. This is noted in the driver'S notes at the Asus website: