[Earwax]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MD1032 Would this be an upgrade over my TBSC or not? Also, would it pair well with my Grado SR-80's? I read that you detected a bit of harshness in the highs. Would this combined with my SR-80's weild a knife scraping at my eardrums?

I don't know if was because of something (drivers or PC setup) I changed or just burn-in, but my card has definetely smoothed out compared to the way it was a couple of weeks ago. Still not super silky smooth, but the worst of the treble harshness has been tamed and it's much easier to listen to. Many people consider the V6 harsh (I don't) and the V6 pairs pretty well with this card.

BTW, there's a new driver posted on the Via web site -- 3.10d
http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=327

 

[Stephonovich]

Welp, got the new drivers, and I heartily recommend them. The Control Panel has been vastly improved. Although it took me awhile to find the High Sample Rate... it's now one of the main buttons near the top, select 'High Sample Rate 2 Channel'. Of course, it doesn't matter for me, as I'm using ASIO4All, and no resampling. 10% CPU usage vs. 40%... no contest there.

As for sound quality, I don't really notice much difference. I don't think they changed anything with the sound, though. The changelog didn't note anything of the sort.

(-:Stephonovich

 

[sparc217]

Thanks a lot for the great review!

I plan on picking one up for my first music-server only project.

I googled around, but could not find any minimum system requirements. Will this card work with an old Pentium II at 230Mhz?

Thanks a lot!

 

[Stephonovich]

As long as you don't plan on resampling, yes, it ought to work fine. (Resampling to 96KHz takes about 20% of my AMD XP 2000+ (1.6GHz), and about 40% when in Slow Mode. I think it'd just slaughter your PII

Using ASIO4All, no resampling, and the latest drivers, I'm getting about a 3% CPU usage. waveOut would consume even less, I think, if it's an issue for you.

(-:Stephonovich

 

[some1x]

The card will work fine, but you won't be able to get the most out of it (for example, ASIO4ALL and Kernel streaming will probably not work).

 

[Stephonovich]

Why do you say that, some1x? Granted, KS needs a 2K-based OS, but why shouldn't ASIO4ALL work? It's written in Assembly, for crying out loud. As I said, I'm getting about 3% CPU usage with it running right now. I'm fairly certain most anything could handle that. 1666MHz / 100 * 3 = ~50MHz. Why shouldn't a PII work with that?

(-:Stephonovich

 

[eMpAtHy]

what is ASIO4All and what does it do.

if i am not using an amp would i want to switch the jumpers on j3/j4

 

[Stephonovich]

ASIO4ALL lets cards that don't natively support ASIO do so, using a technique known as DirectKS. ASIO lets you have bit-perfect output with low overhead and latency.

The amp jumpers, as have been pointed out multiple times, do absolutely nothing for the rear channels. You can switch them if you'd like, but they're only effecting the front outputs.

(-:Stephonovich

 

[eMpAtHy]

i never said i switched to the rear channels

but if im not amping my a900's should i switch the jumpers?

 

[Stephonovich]

First, if you're using the front channels, you're wasting the entire point of the card. The front DAC and amp sucks. That being said, if you are still going to do so, no, don't switch the jumpers, as that disables the amp, which will make it sound even worse.

Really, though, you should use the rear out. And an amp, preferably.

(-:Stephonovich

 

[eMpAtHy]

no money for an amp at the moment, but im going to switch it right now

 

[eMpAtHy]

umm, anyone else have the problem where when you change the volume, the sound from each side isn't balanced or any where near balanced?

with the master volume all the way down and the back stereo speaker volumes at max, i hear sound out of my left, but nothing out of the right

 

[Stephonovich]

I noted in your sig you have an AV-512, not the -710. The -512 uses the C-Media 8738 chip, not the Envy24. I have no idea how this chip sounds, so I can't comment on any settings or tweaks for it.

As for the volume issue, it's your drivers. Get the latest 3.10a drivers. Wait, that's for the -710. I don't think the -512 and -710 use the same drivers; they've got different chips.

(-:Stephonovich

 

[eMpAtHy]

i have the 710. i dont know why i put the 512..i must of had been really sleepy. time to change it right now.

 

[Earwax]

The volume bug is still there, even with the v.3.10a drivers. My workaround has been to put the card in regular 2 channel mode (since the bug only affects hi-res mode) then adjust the master volume slider to the top, switch back to 2 channel hi-res mode and from then on only use the rear-speaker volume slider or the application's volume adjustment and never touch the master volume again.