[Heaby]

About a week ago I bought this item: http://www.ebay.com/itm/32-192-DAC-CM6631-CS4398-USB-to-COAX-ANALOG-HEADPHONE-OUTPUT-/261240029700?pt=US_Amplifier_Parts_Components&hash=item3cd31e8204

I've only had it for about a day but it's already been a bit of a hassle trying to get it to work. At first the linked drivers weren't the correct ones so after searching for the correct ones I discovered this thread and found a driver that works, namely CM6631 Emotiva XDA-2 Unified Windows USB Driver.

After that it worked just fine, all the different resolutions were selectable all the way up to 24/192 (not 32 though. is that right?). In foobar however I could select 32bit in the asio control panel.

Anyway, at first I had only my headphones connected and the device was identifying the connected equipment as headphones. I then figured I should connect my speakers with rca and did so and the device then correctly identified them as speakers.

But after that, I can only choose 16/44 & 16/48, both in sound controlpanel and in foobar. Disconnecting the speakers and only using my headphones makes no difference and the device still says speakers are connected.

Why has this happened?
I find it hard to believe the unit could be faulty since it worked at first.

Regarding firmware, this is what it says:
USB\VID_0D8C&PID_0319&REV_0101&MI_00

Is it a firmware problem perhaps?
Could I have damaged the unit when I connected my speakers? I connected them through a receiver which was in standby if that has any bearing.

Any help is much appreciated.

 

[gunnerwholelife]

Any updates ?

 

[Heaby]

Ok here's whats happened so far:
 
All resolutions except 32 bit is selectable as long as I turn on the dac BEFORE I boot the computer. There are no problems with having my speakers connected anymore. Btw for anyone wondering, music plays through both outputs if both speakers and headphones are connected.
 
The only bad thing about this dac is that the background noise during directsound playback, like in the webbrowser, is pretty bad. Asio, wasapi and asio4all are all dead quiet though.
 
Is relatively loud background noise with directsound common with cheap dacs like this one? Or is my dac damaged somehow?
Are there any other dacs in the 50-100 $ range that are equal or better than this dac that does not have loud background noise with directsound?

 

[uncola]

Hi, I have the newer version of the dac you're talking about with CM6331A that adds support for a couple of sample rates, 88.2 and 176khz.  The headphone out on mine is really bad, if I change the volume in windows to 70% or higher I get real hissy staticky audio.  But the RCA outputs are pretty good, I've ran rca into a couple of amps, the aune t1 and the maverick a1 and it worked fine with both.  From what I've read you want to use WASAPI, the asio you can sometimes choose for this dac isn't real asio it's like.. an encapsultion layer for kernel streaming and may not support all the sample rates the dac can use.  I don't have any background hiss with audio using directsound with the RCA outs to my headphone amps..  it's only on the 3.5mm headphone out port that audio sucks.. this is really a dac device, not sure why he added the headphone out.. it's so low quality.. I guess the headphone out is a big value add for this type of device.. but I'd only use it as a DAC really.  oh yeah I saw you ask about 32 bit..  The usb receiver chip, the cm6631 supports 32 bit audio but the DAC chip the CS4398 only does up to 24 bit hehe.. so you won't get 32 bit audio from it.. it's silly that they quoted the 32 bit in the ebay auction.. btw this dac is designed by Weiliang, he does a bunch of different dacs.. this is his friends web store, I emailed once with a question but got no response.. but it has the most complete list of his designs https://diyhifishop.com/cm6631a-cs4398-opa2132-24bit-192k-dac-usb-to-coaxial-and-headpho-p-97.html

 

[Heaby]

I don't get that hissy staticky audio when I'm at 70% volume or higher using either headphones or speakers. However I can hear background noise with asio in my headphones but not with wasapi. Wasapi also seems to give me higher volume output in foobar.
 
I don't have a separate headphone amp so I can't test my headphones using the rca outs so I can't comment on the quality difference, if there is one etc.
 
To me the audio out from the 3.5mm headphone out is good but I'm not an audiophile so take my words with a grain of salt
 
Anyway, this device is sufficient for me right now. Thanks for sharing your findings and thoughts.

 

[sharexue]

is device is sufficient for me right now. Thanks for sharing your findings and thoughts .