[drk]

i have onboard AC97/ALC850 sound at the moment and also a tv-tuner which is connected internally into a "aux-in" on my motherboard's onboard sound.

i was planning to buy a 0404 USB, and was wondering whether i could use optical S/PDIF out on my motherboard to output that internally connected tv-tuner's sound to S/PDIF in on the 0404 USB, WHILE primarily using 0404 USB for music output to my active monitors (not at the same time, of course - it seems like 0404USB has the hardware control via that "direct monitor" button to switch between "main out" and S/PDIF, right?)

now, the real question i have in mind is - can i have the onboard audio and 0404 USB installed/turned on at the same time without one interfering with the other? i know that in some cases you have to turn OFF the onboard audio in BIOS for the soundcard to work properly, in which case i couldn't do the above. so, i'm wondering if i can have onboard and 0404USB turned on simultaneously with no problems.

 

[Ahriman4891]

1) Yes.

2) Yes. USB audio should not interfere with onboard in any way. I guess you plan to leave onboard as default audio device in Windows, but the monitors will be fed by EMU?

 

[drk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ahriman4891 /img/forum/go_quote.gif 1) Yes. 2) Yes. USB audio should not interfere with onboard in any way. I guess you plan to leave onboard as default audio device in Windows, but the monitors will be fed by EMU?

we, no, i plan to use 0404USB + monitors as default audio device in windows. i'd use that by having the "direct monitor" option set to "main" all the time except when i watch tv on my tv-tuner when i'd set direct monitoring to S/PDIF. would that work like that or in some other way?

OR

if i would put out sound from my onboard audio through optical S/PDIF to 0404 USB optical S/PDIF in and then through main output to monitors, then i guess i wouldn't lose any quality either, since 0404USB would get optical signal?

i'm still trying to understand how these things would work before i buy 0404USB to be certain everything would function properly. but i'd want to use 0404 USB as my real source for all the PC-sound - audio CDs on the CD-rom, mp3's and all.

is there a problem with what i suggested, would that work?

 

[Ahriman4891]

Quote:

no, i plan to use 0404USB + monitors as default audio device in windows. i'd use that by having the "direct monitor" option set to "main" all the time except when i watch tv on my tv-tuner when i'd set direct monitoring to S/PDIF. would that work like that or in some other way?

You'll have to toggle between "main" and "off" for direct monitoring. "main" and "s/pdif" indicate not the inputs you monitor, but the outputs through which the monitored stuff goes. Basically, S/PDIF input is always active--it's just your choice whether to monitor it or not. If you do monitor it, and you want just to listen to audio, you select "main" and the sound goes through the main output (speakers+headphones). If you want to just pass the digital signal further, you choose S/PDIF and it gets looped out. Finally, if you don't want to monitor it, select "off". Same is true for mic/guitar inputs.

Quote:

OR if i would put out sound from my onboard audio through optical S/PDIF to 0404 USB optical S/PDIF in and then through main output to monitors, then i guess i wouldn't lose any quality either, since 0404USB would get optical signal?

Well, you have 2 choices for your default audio device. That's the thing that windows sounds, browser, windows media player, etc. send their sound to.

1) You set it to Emu.
- all of your audio goes through USB, which eats CPU cycles (10-15%).
- Also, it causes lag when certain tasks are performed at the same time with sound playback. I can't play either CD-audio or DVD movies with 0404usb as default sound device, there is considerable stuttering. It seems like a driver problem, because I heard of the same problem from other people.
+ ehh... you can disable your onboard sound?
+ tv-tuner software will probably send its output to default audio device. In that case, you won't have to bother with S/PDIF monitoring at all, it will just go through USB with everything else.

2) You set default audio device to onboard, and monitor it on E-MU through S/PDIF.
+ low CPU utilization for most of the time (games, movies, browsing)
+ no stuttering
- sometimes s/pdif signal desynchronizes and you get a 1/4 second or so 'zap' sound. Happens maybe once an hour or so when I monitor my x-fi through S/PDIF. It's possible that you won't have the problem at all.


There is another important thing: before windows sends sound to default audio device, it goes through KMixer (windows software mixer), which degrades sound quality somewhat (not by much, but noticeable on good equipment). This is not important for youtube videos, 128K MP3s and such, but if you are hardcore enough to e.g. rip your music to FLAC or really high-bitrate MP3, you'll want to avoid it. So foobar/winamp will be set to output music to e-mu via USB through ASIO (ASIO bypasses Kmixer, so the signal that reaches your e-mu will be pure; it gets installed with the E-MU driver, and I believe foobar supports it out of the box, so you don't have to do anything, just select it in foobar output menu). You would want to do this whether you choose option 1 or 2 from above, since I assume you want your music as pure as possible. Given this, it may be optimal to just leave onboard sound as default and monitor it (since music will go through ASIO anyway).

Quote:

i'd want to use 0404 USB as my real source for all the PC-sound - audio CDs on the CD-rom, mp3's and all. is there a problem with what i suggested, would that work?

If you don't get the lag problem with optical drives, then option 1 is fine. If you do, you'll have to resort to option 2. BTW, don't you plan to rip your music anyway? Computer optical drives are not the best, plus changing CDs every so often is a huge pain.

EDIT: Damn that's a long post 8-|

 

[drk]

wow, thank you for the very informative reply

. but i have some further questions:

1) it seems then that i'll monitor always just the "main" output then, since i'm going to have my monitor speakers there, and nothing on S/PDIF OUTPUT. but i will have my S/PDIF optical output on onboard connected to S/PDIF optical input on 0404USB.

so, if i choose onboard to be my default sound device, will i lose QUALITY of sound as opposed to if i used E-MU as default sound device (if, hypothetically, it worked perfectly that way)? in other words, does option "2" in your last post sound worse than option "1" in your last post?

2) if i go to e-mu through ASIO on winamp or foobar, how come there's no stuttering then, as when you choose e-mu usb to be your default audio device? since it's ALSO sending sound through USB, according to what you've said...so how come there's a difference?

3) is KMixer that thing in windows where you change balance and ouput on separate "lines", like - "wave", "line in", "SW SYnth", "cd player" and so forth? and windows sends sound there BEFORE it gets to the default audio device? so, then this thing is not specific to 0404USB but you should output through asio on winamp/foobar no matter which (asio capable) soundcard you use, is that right?

4) if i have onboard audio to be default and run it through optical s/pdif to e-mu and then to main output on e-mu, in the end what the sound sounds like is actually all of the e-mu qualities, like it's DAC and everything else, right? could you say that in that case e-mu is your "source"? (since i suppose you don't lose quality from transfering sound from your onboard-set-as-default through optical to e-mu)


EDIT: one more thing - if i used onboard audio as default sound device, and connected 0404USB only through USB....without anything into s/pdif input - i wouldn't hear a thing? or would i? i just don't understand completely where the sound would be going...

How do you people run your 0404 USB sound cards with your computers?

thanks for help!

 

[Ahriman4891]

Quote:

Originally Posted by drk /img/forum/go_quote.gif wow, thank you for the very informative reply . but i have some further questions: 1) it seems then that i'll monitor always just the "main" output then, since i'm going to have my monitor speakers there, and nothing on S/PDIF OUTPUT. but i will have my S/PDIF optical output on onboard connected to S/PDIF optical input on 0404USB.

Yes.

Quote:

so, if i choose onboard to be my default sound device, will i lose QUALITY of sound as opposed to if i used E-MU as default sound device (if, hypothetically, it worked perfectly that way)? in other words, does option "2" in your last post sound worse than option "1" in your last post?

If your onboard does resampling to 48KHz (some do in hardware) then yes. That's in addition to KMixer

So if you play a music CD (44.1 KHz 16 bit signal), it will go through KMixer (becomes 48KHz) and then through hardware resampling (depending on the chipset, maybe it won't resample it again, since it's already 48KHz. Not sure). Resampling does hurt the signal, and since onboard solutions are cheap, it may degrade it way more even compared to Kmixer. So yes, you lose the quality. Maybe your onboard audio will have an option like "bit-perfect" or "direct passthrough", then it won't resample. You need to take a look at its driver settings.

Quote:

2) if i go to e-mu through ASIO on winamp or foobar, how come there's no stuttering then, as when you choose e-mu usb to be your default audio device? since it's ALSO sending sound through USB, according to what you've said...so how come there's a difference?

I should have been more clear. There IS stuttering when I try to play a music CD through foobar. However, if I just want to watch a DVD (through other software) or play the same CD in Windows Media Player, stuff gets sent to my X-fi. Since 0404USB is not default in my computer, the other software except for foobar ignores it. So there is no USB transfer involved in most cases.

Quote:

3) is KMixer that thing in windows where you change balance and ouput on separate "lines", like - "wave", "line in", "SW SYnth", "cd player" and so forth? and windows sends sound there BEFORE it gets to the default audio device?

Yes and yes.

Quote:

so, then this thing is not specific to 0404USB but you should output through asio on winamp/foobar no matter which (asio capable) soundcard you use, is that right?

Yep, the things you want to hear in quality (why else would you get 0404USB?

) are best played through ASIO-compatible software.

Quote:

4) if i have onboard audio to be default and run it through optical s/pdif to e-mu and then to main output on e-mu, in the end what the sound sounds like is actually all of the e-mu qualities, like it's DAC and everything else, right? could you say that in that case e-mu is your "source"? (since i suppose you don't lose quality from transfering sound from your onboard-set-as-default through optical to e-mu)

Yes, E-MU would be your "source" then and onboard would be a "transport" according to the terminology most folks here use. As for quality, depends whether your onboard does resampling of its own. E-MU will do quality digital-to-analog conversion, but it won't help much if the actual bits have already been screwed around with.

Quote:

EDIT: one more thing - if i used onboard audio as default sound device, and connected 0404USB only through USB....without anything into s/pdif input - i wouldn't hear a thing? or would i? i just don't understand completely where the sound would be going... How do you people run your 0404 USB sound cards with your computers? thanks for help!

You would not, unless you connected your monitors to onboard. For example, that's the way I run it:

X-fi fatality is default. All audio-capable software sends its output to X-fi. (except for foobar, which is specifically set up to use 0404USB). Both cards are connected to my receiver via separate cables, so I just switch between them using the receiver's remote. Signal paths:

Foobar: ASIO -> usb cable -> 0404usb -> receiver -> speakers.

Everything else: Kmixer -> X-fi -> receiver -> speakers.

Since you don't have multiple inputs on your monitors, you need to go through the extra step of monitoring the s/pdif out of your mobo via Emu. So it would be:

Kmixer -> onboard -> s/pdif cable -> emu in monitoring mode -> speakers.

BTW, I am pretty sure that USB is not disabled when EMU is set to monitoring mode. So you won't even have to switch between "main" and "off". Emu will e.g. play music that foobar sent it via USB, and if you happen to get an error message in windows or something, the 'bang' that normally goes with it will go to onboard, then to e-mu via s/pdif, then emu will mix it with your music. So you shouldn't miss anything important.

 

[drk]

well, now you have me completely confused. i wanted to buy 0404 usb to improve my music listening and dvd-watching on my comp, since i need better source than my onboard audio. does anyone use 0404 exclusively (without other sound cards in their system) for this purpose?

but from what you've said i can see absolutely NO reason for buying 0404 usb, since i would still degrade my sound so much through onboard, since 0404 USB could not be set to default audio device, therefore skipping onboard for all tasks, and function properly - without cracks, pops, slowdowns and massive usage of CPU.

if i bought a PCI card, like 1212m - would i then be able to set it as default sound source, without succumbing to all these nasty side-effects? because from what you've said i gather that the only thing that makes sense if you want quality source is to completely skip onboard...

 

[infinitesymphony]

I'm not sure about other high quality PCI cards, but the 1212M doesn't have any internal auxiliary inputs for connection of a CD drive, TV tuner card, etc.

What you're proposing seems like a lot of work to get higher quality audio from TV on the computer. I doubt you'll hear the difference with that kind of source anyway. If you still must have TV on the computer, consider buying an external TV tuner.

If you want improved computer audio, the 0404 USB is fine... What you've set up is a complicated routing scenario just to get sound from one device.

 

[Ahriman4891]

Quote:

Originally Posted by drk /img/forum/go_quote.gif but from what you've said i can see absolutely NO reason for buying 0404 usb

Well, if getting the best sound out of a TV tuner is your goal, then yeah, I suppose there is no reason to. As infinitesymphony said, it's probably not even worth it. 0404usb is targeted at a completely different market and wasn't meant to be used as a normal "home" soundcard. Some of us like it because it gives ASIO and good DAC capabilities for under $200, but that requires 1) quality music rips and 2) good downstream equipment (speakers, cans) to take full advantage of. The fact that the card is fairly new and the drivers are kinda raw doesn't help either. Maybe you should consider X-meridian or maybe one of the X-fi's, since you probably want surround sound for DVDs anyway and 0404 is purely stereo.

 

[drk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by infinitesymphony /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'm not sure about other high quality PCI cards, but the 1212M doesn't have any internal auxiliary inputs for connection of a CD drive, TV tuner card, etc. What you're proposing seems like a lot of work to get higher quality audio from TV on the computer. I doubt you'll hear the difference with that kind of source anyway. If you still must have TV on the computer, consider buying an external TV tuner. If you want improved computer audio, the 0404 USB is fine... What you've set up is a complicated routing scenario just to get sound from one device.

well, no dude, i don't care about the improved sound from TV - i don't care about that at all

. i just want to be able to HEAR sound from my tv-tuner while watching TV through this same setup, since i don't want to physically re-connect/disconnect/connect or whatever is needed everytime i'd watch tv on my comp. i care only about sound quality od music (CDs and mp3's).

and yes, i just want the improved computer audio

. so, do you suggest setting 0404 USB as my main audio source or going from onboard AC97 as default through optical S/PDIF to 0404 USB? i'd have my active monitors hooked up to 0404 USB either way. i'm interested in sound quality and it would be great not to use more CPU power on sound than when using just onboard sound.

if i understand correctly if i go to the option of going to 0404 USB through S/PDIF optical, i'd benefit from having another PCI sound card in my PC and using it's optical S/PDIF out which would presumably better than my onboard S/PDIF output, right? if so, is that only because of the possibility to set sample rate of optical output to 44.1kHz, so there's no resampling before the sound gets to 0404 USB?


EDIT: you both guys misunderstood me, i don't care about the QUALITY of sound of my tv, i just want to be able to use it with this e-mu usb sound setup. and since i was thinking of bypassing onboard completely, i didn't know how i'd get any sound at all from my tv-tuner with it's limited connection capabilities (actually only one possibility - outputting sound through the little 4-pin CD-rom connection cable)


@ Ahriman: and also, i need only stereo - i'll go to 2 active monitors, i don't want/need surround or anything like that. also, i'd listen to original CD's. so, this quality DAC thing is much more up my alley than x-fi and such

 

[infinitesymphony]

What we're both saying is that the only way to get any audio from the TV tuner is to use the complicated routing setup that you've mentioned.

It's not worthwhile to spend hundreds of dollars just to get sound from the TV tuner. Forget about it and get a regular TV with the time and money you'd spend troubleshooting this onboard S/PDIF -> USB DAC setup.

 

[drk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by infinitesymphony /img/forum/go_quote.gif What we're both saying is that the only way to get any audio from the TV tuner is to use the complicated routing setup that you've mentioned. It's not worthwhile to spend hundreds of dollars just to get sound from the TV tuner. Forget about it and get a regular TV with the time and money you'd spend troubleshooting this onboard S/PDIF -> USB DAC setup.

so, if i ditch the tv-tuner, which routing setup do you suggest?

 

[infinitesymphony]

A USB cable running to the 0404 USB.

 

[drk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by infinitesymphony /img/forum/go_quote.gif A USB cable running to the 0404 USB.

haha, and in that case i just set the 0404 usb to default audio device and disable onboard? because Ahriman was saying that that way he was getting cracks and pops, and his CPU usage was higher. i wouldn't like higher CPU usage than with my onboard audio.

 

[Ahriman4891]

Just to clarify:

*I am getting desync when optical drive and 0404USB are used simultaneously (as in audio CD playback). This could be a driver issue or an isolated issue with my system, but I heard at least 2 other people complain about it (one on this forum IIRC, and one on another board). I am too lazy to dig in and see exactly what's wrong (maybe USB and IDE controllers share an IRQ or something? could even be isolated to my motherboard model), since I rip CDs anyway and use X-fi for DVD movies.

*When I ran S/PDIF from x-fi to e-mu, I was getting occasional desync (about once per hour, there would be a short 'zap zap' sound). Could be x-fi, could be e-mu.

*CPU usage is about 10-15% (fluctuating) on Intel Core Duo 6300 1.8 GHz and 2GB ram, Windows XP Service Pack 2. That's with foobar and no fancy DSP plugins (no ultra quality resampling or anything).

Is it possible to run it as default? Sure. I don't cause it's a pain to change settings every time I want to play a game (EAX needed, plus in games low CPU utilization actually matters) or watch a DVD. SQ from X-fi is sufficient for those tasks. 10-15% CPU usage is not that terrible, I just mentioned it to give you the fullest info. If you don't get stuttering with optical drives, and if your tv tuner software works with e-mu w/o problems, sure you can run it as default.