[keiron99]

Not sure I can make myself clear with this one. I have a cheap motherboard with built in sound, a Chaintech 710, and run Vista. Now, MS claim great things for the sound capabilities within Vista. Read here:

http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/wi...es/450038.aspx

There are a couple of issues though, and I wonder whether anyone can shed any light.

First, you can see on the link that there is a tab called "Enhancements" in the settings, giving access to settings for room correction ets. Many hours playing around, and searching the web, shows however that this tab is not always available. It's not available for my Chaintech, but is available for my onboard sound. This is apparently because Vista recognises my onboard sound as "High Definition Audio" (a £30 motherboard!) and/or uses Microsoft's own drivers. I haven't downloaded and drivers for my Chaintech, but it still works, yet doesn't give me the Enhancements tab. Can anyone explain what's going on here? How would I get that tab for my Chaintech?

Second - be patient I'm not a tecchie!- I don't understand why Vosta lets me choose between bit and sample rates. For example, I have just set my Chaintech sound to 24 bit, 192khz. Does this mean that the Apple Lossless file I'm currently listening to is being upsampled? Does this happen within Vista, or within the computer's hardware?

Whatever, I have to say, I find the sound from the motherbaord and Chaintech into my Stax phones stunning. Indeed, I have a Perpetual Technologies DAC and I have to hold my hands up and say I find the sound indistinguishable between my £30 motherboard, my Chaintech and my (expensive) DAC. I did turn 40 recently, so maybe I'm going deaf...or maybe the entry price into high end has plummeted!

 

[vulc4n]

Quote:

Originally Posted by keiron99 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Not sure I can make myself clear with this one. I have a cheap motherboard with built in sound, a Chaintech 710, and run Vista. Now, MS claim great things for the sound capabilities within Vista. Read here: http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/wi...es/450038.aspx There are a couple of issues though, and I wonder whether anyone can shed any light. First, you can see on the link that there is a tab called "Enhancements" in the settings, giving access to settings for room correction ets. Many hours playing around, and searching the web, shows however that this tab is not always available. It's not available for my Chaintech, but is available for my onboard sound. This is apparently because Vista recognises my onboard sound as "High Definition Audio" (a £30 motherboard!) and/or uses Microsoft's own drivers. I haven't downloaded and drivers for my Chaintech, but it still works, yet doesn't give me the Enhancements tab. Can anyone explain what's going on here? How would I get that tab for my Chaintech? Second - be patient I'm not a tecchie!- I don't understand why Vosta lets me choose between bit and sample rates. For example, I have just set my Chaintech sound to 24 bit, 192khz. Does this mean that the Apple Lossless file I'm currently listening to is being upsampled? Does this happen within Vista, or within the computer's hardware? Whatever, I have to say, I find the sound from the motherbaord and Chaintech into my Stax phones stunning. Indeed, I have a Perpetual Technologies DAC and I have to hold my hands up and say I find the sound indistinguishable between my £30 motherboard, my Chaintech and my (expensive) DAC. I did turn 40 recently, so maybe I'm going deaf...or maybe the entry price into high end has plummeted!

I've been quite happy with the digital out from my 965 boards with HD Audio. analog is as bad as onboard usually is though.

Most of the special features in vista for sound are going to be exclusive to HD Audio. IF your only using the digital out, I don't see much reason to keep the AV-710. [Real] Driver support is probably gonna be non exsitant for it in vista, but maybe I'm mistaken.

 

[lippyjka]

Apparently vista doesn't have hardware accelerated audio: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...1931917,00.asp Just a quick browse, haven't had time to research this more.

 

[keiron99]

Quote:

Originally Posted by vulc4n /img/forum/go_quote.gif analog is as bad as onboard usually is though.

What I'm saying though is the analogue out on my motherboard is, to my ears, every bit as good as my Perpetual Technologies DAC, or even my Rotel pre/pro!

Quote:

Originally Posted by vulc4n /img/forum/go_quote.gif I Most of the special features in vista for sound are going to be exclusive to HD Audio.

What is HD Audio? Is it a Microsoft label given to certified products?

 

[Pm@c]

Vista screws up everything. Creative has to completely redesign the way their new cards handles sounds in Vista because Vista completely re-designed the way they handle audio. Its pretty ridiculous...

 

[infinitesymphony]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pm@c /img/forum/go_quote.gif Vista screws up everything. Creative has to completely redesign the way their new cards handles sounds in Vista because Vista completely re-designed the way they handle audio. Its pretty ridiculous...

Well... It's not like WDM was the best method for handling audio, considering that one of the biggest topics of discussion is "how to circumvent Windows handling the audio," for example with ASIO or KS. They're just hacks meant as a temporary solution. Mac OS X solved the problem by implementing CoreAudio; maybe Microsoft has found a similar solution.

keiron99, "HD Audio" is a specification designed by Intel to differentiate the new onboard chipsets from the older AC'97 stuff. The likely reason for your onboard chipset having the ability for "Enhancements" is because it supports certain features that the AV-710 doesn't (sort of like how X-Fi cards have much better EAX support than many others). My guess is that these settings really won't make much difference and will more likely degrade sound quality by adding artificial psychoacoustical effects and EQ.

 

[EnOYiN]

I made a picture of the Vista audio-architecture in my ASIO post. It's linked in my signature for anyone who might be interested.