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

[windcar]

Also one more thing.
When i set this device as my default sound card, there always seems to be a slight jitter initially whenever the song begins to play.
Even when the windows generate the default tone whenever the folder in the window exploer is click, the sound has a jitter in it too.
Anyone experience this with thier Emu 0204?

 

[dsnyder]

Hello,
 
Quote:

I have just received 1 of these EMU 0204 and the SQ is superior to the X-Fi HD usb i owned. 
There is 1 problem though, the box says it comes with a ASIO driver but after installing the drivers from the CD provided on my Win 7, no ASIO device turned up on the playback device. I only see a directsound speaker Emu 0204 device available.
 
So how do i get ASIO to work with this device?

 
Well, you need a media player application with ASIO support.  There are optional ASIO plugins for both foobar2000 and Mediamonkey.  Probably J.River, XXHighend, and other commercial players come with ASIO support "out of the box."
 
You won't be able to use ASIO (AFAIK) with Windows Media Player, Quicktime Player, or even for default Windows Sound.  In fact, for best performance when listening to music, you probably don't want the E-MU to be your default Windows audio device.  Here's a link on the Computer Audiophile site with lots of tips on how to setup and tweak Windows 7 for best sound:
 
   http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/Windows-7-Audio-J-River-Media-Center-14-Configuration
 
Hope this helps!
 
-- David

 

 

[abhisheknath]

Quote:

Also one more thing.
When i set this device as my default sound card, there always seems to be a slight jitter initially whenever the song begins to play.
Even when the windows generate the default tone whenever the folder in the window exploer is click, the sound has a jitter in it too.
Anyone experience this with thier Emu 0204?

 
I actually experienced something similar with my Emu 0202. It turned out that the device was being affected by a high DPC latency. Just google the problem and you will see that many have suffered from this.
 

 

[windcar]

thank you for all your replies. Now i can select the ASIO under the foobar and no longer needs ASIO4ALL.
As for the initial jitter sound, i found that it has something to do with the internal crystal initialization. If you go to the EMU USB audio application and under sample rate: if the drop down list is not highlighted in grey, it means that the crystal is released from its operation. When you first play a sound, there is some initialization going in there which cause the jitter. However, if you do not release the crystal (e.g., pause music in windows media player and then play any sound), there will be no jitter at all, although it is unclear if doing this will heat up the crystal unnecessarily
 

 

[abhisheknath]

Quote:

thank you for all your replies. Now i can select the ASIO under the foobar and no longer needs ASIO4ALL.
As for the initial jitter sound, i found that it has something to do with the internal crystal initialization. If you go to the EMU USB audio application and under sample rate: if the drop down list is not highlighted in grey, it means that the crystal is released from its operation. When you first play a sound, there is some initialization going in there which cause the jitter. However, if you do not release the crystal (e.g., pause music in windows media player and then play any sound), there will be no jitter at all, although it is unclear if doing this will heat up the crystal unnecessarily
 

Ah interesting. I'll have to check what my 0202 is set at.

 

[infinitesymphony]

Just a note that if you do use ASIO with USB audio interfaces like these, sound will be limited to one program/stream. For example, listening with ASIO in Foobar means that you won't be able to hear DirectSound audio in your browser. If you need to hear audio from multiple programs while you're listening to music, set your music playback program's output to DirectSound.

 

[RonaldDumsfeld]

 
Quote:

Just a note that if you do use ASIO with USB audio interfaces like these, sound will be limited to one program/stream.

 
Not to start a row or anything but I don't think statement is correct. I don't have an EMU but do own a similar (MOTU Ultralite) device. It is listed as a single driver but you can map to any output you like (single or pair) in my implementation.
 
Anyway even if it is true it's not really a problem - more an advantage.
 
What i do is direct foobar to one output pair and stuff that isn't easily re assignable (like browser) to another. Repeat. So you could do this on the 0204 I think. If foobar is your primary high quality audio source then send the output from exclusively that to Main Outs 1 & 2. Direct everything else to the secondary outputs. That way you can use the device itself to either keep the different sources separate or mix them together. It's a major selling point - certainly not a problem. 

 

[windcar]

I correct my earlier statement. After much AB/X I did not find any SQ difference between X-fi HD and this unit. I also did not find any small hissing sound when playing a silent file from my X-Fi HD with volume turned up to maximum too. I use Sox Resample to 96khz when using the X-fi HD since it does not support the native 44.1Khz playback.
Any perceivable difference initally must be placebo.

 

[windcar]

I have found a problem with my unit, the right side seems to be louder than the left side by 10-20%.
Playing a pink noise file and slowly turning up the knob seems to reveal this problem. This problem is not present in all my other DACs.
sucks this might be a faulty product design afterall.

 

[windcar]

ok I found that the volume difference is only when the headphone amp is set to very low volume, <= 8.30oclock. At 9oclock, the sound volume is even out, even when using software player to lower the volume.
definitely a design problem going on in there somewhere.

 

[infinitesymphony]

Quote:

 
 
Not to start a row or anything but I don't think statement is correct. I don't have an EMU but do own a similar (MOTU Ultralite) device. It is listed as a single driver but you can map to any output you like (single or pair) in my implementation.
 
Anyway even if it is true it's not really a problem - more an advantage.
 
What i do is direct foobar to one output pair and stuff that isn't easily re assignable (like browser) to another. Repeat. So you could do this on the 0204 I think. If foobar is your primary high quality audio source then send the output from exclusively that to Main Outs 1 & 2. Direct everything else to the secondary outputs. That way you can use the device itself to either keep the different sources separate or mix them together. It's a major selling point - certainly not a problem. 

You're right, the way I phrased it was too general. Devices like your MOTU certainly have a lot of internal routing flexibility, but as far as I can tell, with the 0204, 0404, etc. the only listed output channels are the main channels (Analog OUT Left and Analog OUT Right) and the S/PDIF outputs. There are no secondary outputs to select; when ASIO is enabled it's more or less locked in. Contrast that with something like the 1212M, which has its own channels for ASIO and DirectSound and no problems with playing them both at the same time.
 
windcar, sure the problem isn't with your headphone amp's volume potentiometer? This is a common problem in pot design: channel imbalances in the lower range. Additionally, if you have to listen at such a low range, your headphone amp may be too powerful for your headphones.

 

[scompton]

Quote:

. Additionally, if you have to listen at such a low range, your headphone amp may be too powerful for your headphones.

That applies to almost every headphone amp I've tried.

 

[infinitesymphony]

Quote:

That applies to almost every headphone amp I've tried.

Time to build something or to have something custom-built, maybe? The last time I built a CMoy, I made it very low gain because I knew I'd be driving efficient headphones and wanted at least a 50% sweep of the volume knob. I'm sure the builders around here could whip up something with way better specs than that, or there might be commercial headphone amps out there with variable / multiple fixed gain settings.

 

[Pauli]

Quote:

thank you for all your replies. Now i can select the ASIO under the foobar and no longer needs ASIO4ALL.
As for the initial jitter sound, i found that it has something to do with the internal crystal initialization. If you go to the EMU USB audio application and under sample rate: if the drop down list is not highlighted in grey, it means that the crystal is released from its operation. When you first play a sound, there is some initialization going in there which cause the jitter. However, if you do not release the crystal (e.g., pause music in windows media player and then play any sound), there will be no jitter at all, although it is unclear if doing this will heat up the crystal unnecessarily
 

I have exactly the same "jitter"-problem with my unit (on both of my computers), which renders it quite useless at the moment. I tried to contact support but no reply

. If you find a solution it would be great if you could post it here! Otherwise I will return the thing...
And for the different volume levels on the headphone output at low settings, the same here, must be due to the cheap potentiometer.

 

[ccschua]

heard 0406 is out soon. any idea what is the price like ?