E-MU 0204 USB: Damn, They've Done it Again! And for $129!!!

[evanft]

So I just got the 0204. It works great and I set up the ASIO output in Foobar so now the E-MU gets the correct sample rate. I have a couple questions, though:
 
1. Do I have to switch between 24 bit and 16 bit in the output devices menu any time I switch bit depth?
 
2. The windows volume still changes the volume coming out of the 0204. Is that supposed to happen with ASIO?
 
EDIT: Now it gives me this error:
 
"Unrecoverable playback error: The ASIO device does not support specified sample rate (44100Hz); please configure resampler appropriately"
 
It won't play anything at 16 bit/44.1 khz anymore. When I try, it selects 88.2 khz and gives me an error. It won't let me select 16 bit/44.1 in the sound devices section of the control panel, either. I can get 44.1 khz material to play if I change the ASIO settings to 24 bit. What?

 

[evanft]

I'm bumping this thread in case anyone else needed help.
 
I tried reinstalling the device driver and software, but that did not fix my problem. So after sending Creative an email, I decided to give ASIO4ALL a try.
 
It may be placebo, but I think using ASIO4ALL gives me better sound than using the included ASIO driver when playing back 16/44.1 material. Everything sounds less congested and more open. But again, that could be placebo, so take it with a massive grain of salt. 
 
What certainly isn't caused by placebo is the fact that my laptop runs a full 15°C cooler when using ASIO4ALL instead of the E-MU's included ASIO driver. Yeah, I know. I think what's happening is that the Foobar is converting 16 bit to 24 bit when I use the E-MU driver, which obviously requires processing power. Since ASIO4ALL isn't doing that, it doesn't require the extra processing power.
 
So there ya go. Anyone who has this problem should give ASIO4ALL a shot.

 

[xnor]

Quote:

It may be placebo, but I think using ASIO4ALL gives me better sound than using the included ASIO driver when playing back 16/44.1 material. Everything sounds less congested and more open. But again, that could be placebo, so take it with a massive grain of salt. 

Many people don't seem to know that ASIO4ALL is a wrapper. Right, it wraps an ASIO interface around the windows driver that is installed for your soundcard.

 

[evanft]

Quote:

Many people don't seem to know that ASIO4ALL is a wrapper. Right, it wraps an ASIO interface around the windows driver that is installed for your soundcard.

THEN WHAT THE HELL KIND OF SORCERY IS GOING ON HERE?!?!
 
Is the A4A wrapper interacting with the driver for the 0204 and simply correcting the fact that it doesn't recognize that 0204 can do 16/44.1, or is it interacting with the driver for the built-in sound. I would guess it's the former, since I'm pretty sure the E-MU needs its own driver to function.
 
So, assuming I'm not just fooling myself, any difference in sound would be due to the lack of 16 bit to 24 bit conversion?

 

[windcar]

Quote:

I'm bumping this thread in case anyone else needed help.
 
I tried reinstalling the device driver and software, but that did not fix my problem. So after sending Creative an email, I decided to give ASIO4ALL a try.
 
It may be placebo, but I think using ASIO4ALL gives me better sound than using the included ASIO driver when playing back 16/44.1 material. Everything sounds less congested and more open. But again, that could be placebo, so take it with a massive grain of salt. 
 
What certainly isn't caused by placebo is the fact that my laptop runs a full 15°C cooler when using ASIO4ALL instead of the E-MU's included ASIO driver. Yeah, I know. I think what's happening is that the Foobar is converting 16 bit to 24 bit when I use the E-MU driver, which obviously requires processing power. Since ASIO4ALL isn't doing that, it doesn't require the extra processing power.
 
So there ya go. Anyone who has this problem should give ASIO4ALL a shot.

 
Amazing how do you check it is 15C cooler?????????? running the default ASIO driver feels pretty cool on my hand.
You can go to preference->ASIO->remove the ASIO and then re-add EMU's ASIO. I find that I need to do that everytime i start foobar. But yeah if you are using ASIO4ALL there is no need to do that.

 

[xnor]

Windows provides a default usb sound driver that works with literally any usb audio interface, but it's limited to 16 bit and I think up to 48 kHz only.
 
If you don't have installed the manufacturer's drivers then asio4all uses this default driver that comes with Windows.

 

[thuantran]

No the limit of Windows USB audio driver is 24bit/96KHz.

 

[xnor]

You're right, with some chips (that require programming / custom firmware) the Windows driver supports higher bit and sample rates out of the box.
 
What usb streaming controllers are used in the e-mu products?

 

[evanft]

Quote:

Windows provides a default usb sound driver that works with literally any usb audio interface, but it's limited to 16 bit and I think up to 48 kHz only.
 
If you don't have installed the manufacturer's drivers then asio4all uses this default driver that comes with Windows.

So, if I have the E-MU's driver installed, does ASIO4ALL interact with that?
 

 

[xnor]

It wraps whatever Windows device driver it can find. Dunno if the e-mu drivers are just wrappers too, but I doubt it. So yes, I think so.
 
Fyi, the sample size (16/24/32 bit) conversion should not be noticeable in terms of cpu temperature. A drop of 15°C sounds like something was bugged and used up a lot of cpu time. Have you looked at the cpu usage (in task manager) during playback and also which process caused it?

 

[evanft]

Quote:

It wraps whatever Windows device driver it can find. Dunno if the e-mu drivers are just wrappers too, but I doubt it. So yes, I think so.
 
Fyi, the sample size (16/24/32 bit) conversion should not be noticeable in terms of cpu temperature. A drop of 15°C sounds like something was bugged and used up a lot of cpu time. Have you looked at the cpu usage (in task manager) during playback and also which process caused it?

I actually can't get it to replicate the result now. It probably was just a bug.

 

[Roller]

E-MU drivers are overall rather solid, and with true ASIO support, no wrappers there.
 
Comparatively, sample rate has more weight on CPU usage than bit depth. But like xnor said, that temp drop was too significant to be related with sample rate changes.

 

[Insighter]

I have read in one of the documents on E-MU site (good approach to design): "E-MU USB products have become highly regarded in the music listening community for their accurate and uncolored audio reproduction. We went a little crazy on this product and used premium-quality, digital-to-analog converters normally reserved for thousand dollar systems. Then we went even further and completely redesigned the signal path to wring every last bit of performance from the A-D and D-A converters. The results are simply stunning. The sound and speci- fications of this little interface literally “blows the doors off” many audiophile interfaces and headphone preamps costing many times more."
 
Duplicate. Sorry, didn't see it on first page  

 

[Insighter]

It's about 0204

 

[konoyaro]

The spec lists this as only supporting Intel Macs. Does anyone know if it's possible to use the 0204 with a PPC Mac?