[akwok]

Quote:

The ticks and pauses occur during this transition from "enabled" to "disabled" and vice versa.  I'm not using ASIO, at least I don't think so -- it happens even when I just load up Firefox to play a Youtube video.

So it ended up being the headphone amp of the 0204 USB causing these pops and clicks with the HD800s.  I guess there might be circuitry inside that cuts power to the headphone jack when there isn't anything playing -- maybe to conserve energy.  In any case, the 0204 USB is awesome when acting as a DAC-only.

 

[Reticuli2]

[size=10pt]Looking at the specs, it appears as if for high impedance headphones the 0204 has the same amount of max output as the Fiio E6 and E7. 16mW into 300ohms. The difference is the 0204 is 22ohms and the Fiios are less than 1ohm, so the latter is far better for low impedance headphones. At 100ohms with the ER4S, I still prefer the 0204 over the E7 and have to give the E6 a slight nod over the 0204. The E6 has a definitely different sound to the class A amp in the Emu, though, not to mention the inferior damping at 22ohms into 100ohms. On some stuff the Emu is hard not to prefer.  Over 175ohms, I doubt I would use the Fiios.[/size]
 
 
[size=10pt]Even with the Beyerdynamic DT880 600 you're looking at 105dB max output with a choice of the 0204 or the E6 driving it. That's still pretty loud for most people if we assume a -6dB average recording level/dynamic range RMS. 99dB for normal masters is pretty darn loud. And anything over 80dB is going to make your ear/brain's THD worse than the dac/amp/headphone synergy. That still gives you over 19dB further bellow Full Scale for quiet recordings.  How loud do we really need it?[/size]
 
[size=10pt]I have further tested the Emu ASIO asynchronous drivers to the standard ASIO on my DJ controller/interfaces and the Emu is absolutely not ready for primetime and live use. The controllers are rock solid in comparison. This is even after uninstalling a dozen things on the computer, adding 2GB of ram, and switching from a single core to a dual-core CPU. It helps, but not quite enough to have "high confidence" in live stability.[/size]
 
[size=10pt]Still, for the combined price of the 0204 and an E6 for lower impedance cans (E7's a little better in the 50-70ohm range) fed the rear 2V mini with the E6 in mode 3, is there anything that comes close to this performance if we ignore the stability of bit-perfect and low-latency support right now?  Just as an MME or directsound device like every other "hifi" headphone amp/dac around, is there anything with this level of performance or better?  I assume it's easy to out-do its max voltage, but with the calliber of design quality at work here it might still be a good buy.[/size]
 
[size=10pt]Anyone?[/size]
 

 

[ph0rk]

Quote:

You are listening in the "silver-plated copper" class, maybe even lesser. But as longas you are happy...
 

 
 
Translation: You no longer want to spend as much as I do, and therefore must not know what you're talking about.
 
 
Seriously, the "well you haven't heard the right top end components" argument is pretty weak, especially given 3X0's claimed experience.
 
 

 

[njekin]

Hey I had the same problem on my three year old laptop. But when I use my core i5 2400 desktop running both mac and windows 7 64bit, it's very stable. I can use very coreaudio in mac lower to around 8ms without buzz. In windows, I tried 3ms it worked simply playing without much VST computing.   Seems like they designed this product in a good computer......

 

[Dixie Flatline]

Quote:

Ugh. I love the 0202 hardware, but the drivers are a nightmare, and if their official position is that they're not going to support Lion I'm not going to be buying any more E-MU hardware. Such a shame.

Everybody may know this already, but E-MU released Lion drivers on Friday, downloadable here.  They support the 0202, 0204, and 0404 USB.
 
I don't have Lion, but they seem a little more solid on Snow Leopard than the release drivers for the 0204 did.

 

[Reticuli2]

[size=10pt]Maybe that means there's hope for the Windows 7 drivers and that they're working on them. No offense, but I think it's ridiculous to expect people to have the latest quad cores to run a USB sound card, even with the asynchronous stuff.  Vestax I believe is about to come out with a 4 fader/channel-pair DJ controller that will also use that type of ASIO over USB, and I’d be very surprised if they don’t in fact achieve stable low-latency with ease on the first release.  I’ve never heard of any of the uber-expensive asynchronous pro interfaces that use asynchronous ASIO requiring i5 or i7 CPUs just to run.  They’ve been around since before the “I” series Intels came out.[/size]

 

[Reticuli2]

Anyone else ever get buzzing sound from the 0204 when starting or after reboot.  Fixes with unplugging the usb, waiting, then plugging back in.  But it's been happening quite frequently after I re-installed the drivers.

 

[Garage1217]

Interesting, I am not experiencing any of the issues noted and no pops or clicks. As reticuli2 said, maybe it has to do with me having a decent amount of processing power. All sounds fantastic out of the little box and measurements were stellar
 
The last drivers that were made available to my knowledge were 6.0.1.1 back on 11-12-2010 which is ancient. Are these the same drivers you windows guys are running?
 
Also what version of USB are you running your units on? 1, 2 or 3.0?

 

[Reticuli2]

2.0 USB.  I have no clue which version of the drivers I have and I don't see any options on the Emu website.  I've just re-installed them from the CD again.  4GB of ram and a Core2Duo with 2MB of cache should not be below the minimum requirements.  I've been moving around between the included Mixcraft, Virtual DJ and two different versions of Traktor Pro without consistent performance in any setting or latency... even with such high latency I can't actually DJ with it.  Eventually it either gets completely distorted, or it's clicking or has breaks or faint glitches or something.  I've tried 16, 24, 32bit, let the program control the latency, manually set the latency and turn that option off, safe mode in VDJ and on and on.  It works pretty well now with ASIO at any upsampling rate if I'm in Winamp or Foobar and doing NOTHING.  I can't get it to run well enough in any pro piece of software, though.  ASIO is supposed to be more consistent in performance than DirectSound, yet it seems to be exactly the opposite with the 0204.

 

[Reticuli2]

Checked.  My drivers are 6.0.1.1.
 
And I should mention with the pro software I've got no applications running at the same time.

 

[jiiteepee]

Quote:

Checked.  My drivers are 6.0.1.1.
 
And I should mention with the pro software I've got no applications running at the same time.

If you mean this happens when the device is in use by some software through ASIO/WASAPI (exclusive mode)/Kernel Streaming (WDM/KS) then it's normally related to the fact that driver isn't type of multiclient.
 
Quote:

2.0 USB.  I have no clue which version of the drivers I have and I don't see any options on the Emu website.  I've just re-installed them from the CD again.  4GB of ram and a Core2Duo with 2MB of cache should not be below the minimum requirements.  I've been moving around between the included Mixcraft, Virtual DJ and two different versions of Traktor Pro without consistent performance in any setting or latency... even with such high latency I can't actually DJ with it.  Eventually it either gets completely distorted, or it's clicking or has breaks or faint glitches or something.  I've tried 16, 24, 32bit, let the program control the latency, manually set the latency and turn that option off, safe mode in VDJ and on and on.  It works pretty well now with ASIO at any upsampling rate if I'm in Winamp or Foobar and doing NOTHING.  I can't get it to run well enough in any pro piece of software, though.  ASIO is supposed to be more consistent in performance than DirectSound, yet it seems to be exactly the opposite with the 0204.

 
I suppose the ASIO for 0204USB is 'bout the same as it's for 0404USB ... i.e. wrapper driver (you can check this through driver files properties).
IMO, if the ASIO driver is that bad as you describe, there should be plenty more bargains over it on several forums (I haven't noticed) --> I believe there's something wrong in your setup ... which maybe relates to low latency operations.
 
BTW, you can check the driver versions through device manager.
 
jiiteepee
 

 

[Reticuli2]

 
Quote:

Quote:
If you mean this happens when the device is in use by some software through ASIO/WASAPI (exclusive mode)/Kernel Streaming (WDM/KS) then it's normally related to the fact that driver isn't type of multiclient.
 
 
I suppose the ASIO for 0204USB is 'bout the same as it's for 0404USB ... i.e. wrapper driver (you can check this through driver files properties).
IMO, if the ASIO driver is that bad as you describe, there should be plenty more bargains over it on several forums (I haven't noticed) --> I believe there's something wrong in your setup ... which maybe relates to low latency operations.
 
BTW, you can check the driver versions through device manager.
 
jiiteepee
 

I meant I only have one program running at a time when I've got a pro app running, so it's not like I'm surfing the web and running a video in the background while trying to get Traktor and Mixcraft to work to work at the same time. I'm keeping other operations down to a minimum and only using one at a time to give the Emu the best chance to have consistent performance.  It's still not enough for the pro app.  It is for WinAmp ASIO if I don't do anything else and just listen, but a single pro app appears to be doing too much itself in the background.  Ditto if I'm surfing the web while running WinAmp ASIO.
 
What do you mean by a "wrapper"? I thought wrappers aren't actually exclusive-running. So I thought ASIO4All is a wrapper, but ASIO drivers for something like the Emu are not. It was my understanding that wrapper audio drivers were the inferior type. Is that wrong?  I've never gotten ASIO4All to actually even be bit-perfect, while I've never had a problem getting bit-perfect out of dj interfaces or prior Emu PCI interfaces I've had.  My hunch was that was related to ASIO4All being a wrapper around DirectSound in some way and the true ASIO drivers being the real deal.  ???
 
"there should be plenty more bargains over it on several forums (I haven't noticed)"
 
Well exactly. That's my whole point. What other models are out there for this price that sound this good but have more stable performance? You would think there would be, but no one has mentioned one. It should even be possible to make it for the same or lower cost while making higher profit, as I don't even need the microphone preamps.
 
Both my Numark and Hercules DJ controllers are 24bit ASIO and neither has ever glitched up, paused, frozen, or anything like that during use of dj or production mixing software. And neither is buzzing sometimes when I first boot up the computer. If there was a general problem with the set up of my laptop that universally relates to DPC latency, then I would assume those two interfaces would be having problems, as well... unless asynchronous ASIO is specifically highly intolerant of issues. As aside from the fact the 0204 is a newer unit, from Emu/Creative, and has had few revisions of its drivers, the only significant difference between it and the Numark and Hercules units is the asynchronous aspect. However, considering I've never heard of these problems mentioned with other asynchronous ASIO pro interfaces that cost a lot more, I'm led to assume it is likely more to do with Emu/Creative and their drivers needing improvement. That has become a common complaint with the company: their support and attention to issues is often said to be quite bad of late across many forums and review websites.
 
I would definitely consider ASIO drivers needing a quad core or "i" series CPU and Core2Duo being too slow as being a driver issue.  I've got more than double the minimum stated specs on the box.
 
I mean, they finally JUST released drivers for Apple Lion OS, right?  People have complained about that for a while without a peep from Emu/Creative.  Maybe they're working on better Windows drivers and the Creative bureaucracy prevents the sort of speed and good communication with customers that Emu used to have.  But there's really no way to know.

 

[Reticuli2]

Response from Emu
 
1, Make sure the 0204 USB is using a USB HOST that is on an IRQ alone.
This means no other device in the PC can be sharing its IRQ.
 
2, If you are running a hyper-threaded CPU, by turning hyperthreading off from the bios. You can set the latency at 20ms or lower and you will usually not have any latency issues.
 
3, Change Processor Scheduling to 'Background Services'
Navigate to the Advanced page of the System applet. Click on the Performance Settings button, select its Advanced tab and click on 'Background Services' for Processor Scheduling (see top pair of screens).

4, Switch Off Power Schemes
In the Power Options applet, choose the 'Always On' power scheme. Change the settings for monitor and hard disk turn off and System standby to 'Never', so that your PC doesn't unexpectedly conk out during song playback (see screens below).

5, Disable System Sounds
Select the 'No Sounds' scheme on the Sounds tab of the Sounds and Audio Devices applet.
 
6, Make sure legacy USB support is disabled in your BIOS.
Please remember the more information you provide, including previous correspondence in your mail, helps in troubleshooting and solving the problem you are experiencing.
Thank You
EMU Systems
Don't forget to check out http://www.EMU.com for your latest drivers, and updates, and EMU Products.
 
Response:
 
I'm not sure how to do #1.
 
I haven't had hyperthreading on the Celeron 900 or the Core2Duo.
 
Background services makes a small improvement, but not much.
 
Power schemes are already Always On.
 
System sounds are always off.
 
Not sure about legacy USB support in the BIOS.  I'll have to check that.

 

[jiiteepee]

Quote:

Response from Emu
 
1, Make sure the 0204 USB is using a USB HOST that is on an IRQ alone.
This means no other device in the PC can be sharing its IRQ.
 
...
 
 
Response:
 
I'm not sure how to do #1.
 
...
 

Probably not much you can do.
Disable everything you don't need through BIOS (serial ports/com ports/printer port/game port/floppy/WLan/etc.), and hope some USB 'host' gets an IRQ it's own. Use that port for 0204.
You can examine which USB port belongs into which controller through device manager by setting the View to "Resources by type".
 
jiitee
 

 

[Reticuli2]

Second response from Emu:
 
note that newest mainboards are having paired power saving utilities. If you are going to access the bios setting, locate for this option.

Do not set the utility to auto mode, use real time. The card mustn't go in power saving modes through usb.

If you still require assistance, please reply to this email and include any previous correspondence to ensure a quick response.

Regards,
 
---
 
I don't know what they're talking about with all these bios settings.  I got nothing like that in my bios.  No power savings.  No legacy USB settings.  It's like the fan option.  Whether the function keys need that extra button.  The clock.  And RAM and hard drive testing routines.  That's it.  Even after updating my bios there's nothing like that in there.
 
Is paired power saving utility something I need to access from Windows?  There were a couple of utilities from HP on the laptop and I uninstalled most of them.  The Windows powersaving settings seem to do the exact same thing that the one limited utility did that I remember.  In fact, its advanced settings required you to go to the normal Windows power scheme screen.