[Tasty]

I've just gotten my hands on the Silverstone EB01. My main concern is whether I'm getting the sound quality I should be getting.

Using foobar2000, I've got the newest KS as well as ASIO components installed, but as far as I can tell:

- KS doesn't work on the EB01.
- DS works fine... but am I still using the kmixer even if I use it?

- ASIO doesn't work.

Kinda confused at the whole deal. Should I just stick with DS? Should KS/ASIO be working? Any advice would be must appreciated.

 

[Bones13]

Which "ASIO" are you using? I don't have the Silverstone, but did not think it came with a custom ASIO.

You might give ASIO4all a try. Do a search for it, there was a recent new release.

When you plug in most of the USB dacs, you enable the standard windows USB Audio Codec. This will take over as primary audio device unless you change it. I am not sure if KS works directly with the USB Audio Codec. If you install ASIO4all, and the ASIO plugin for Foobar, then the sound is supposed to bypass the windows kmixer, and be put directly out.

I have been investigating USB audio for a few weeks now, as it should make the most sense if you are using a computer, but the whole mess seems to be in its infancy still. I don't know what happens with ASIO and the USB Codec before the data stream is offloaded to the DAC.

1) try using just KS first - perhaps playing with some of the buffers, and USB Codec settings.

2) If you are going to try ASIO, its a different set of drivers than the KS route. Get ASIO4all installed, set the Foobar plugin, be sure to play something generic like an MP3 file (in case its your file format that is not working) and then play with the USB Codec settings a few time.

One thing of note. I find it useful to close Foobar and reopen it every time I make changes in the settings.

Another thing of note, I played with foobar 0.9.1 and went back to 0.8.4, it seems to be more stable, and all the plugins I had gotten all set up work well. There is no sound improvement in 0.9.1 that I could tell. In 6 months I will probably give it another look, perhaps the plugin situation will have matured.

One last note (after rereading your post) Using DS is not a terrible option till you figure other things out. If you go to the large windows volume settings screen, you can turn the settings down to 0 and at least not hear your beeps, clicks etc in your music. I can't comment on what kmixer is doing to your music, but at least you just hear the music.

One of the things I am experimenting with is trying to keep the sound card as the "default" audio device, and just use the USB codec in foobar. First time I tried it, my daughter could not get the speakers to work... After that crying session, I unplugged the USB and am using SPDIF again.

 

[Tasty]

I'm using the official ASIO components from http://www.foobar2000.org/components/index.html. I suppose that there's simply no compatible ASIO components... that's one thing out of the way.

I'm not too keen on using ASIO4ALL at the moment, mainly because I hear there's really no real difference using it or not. I shall be furthering research on that, that's for sure. If it's one way to bypass the kmixer, it's surely something worth trying out.

Hmm, KS just doesn't seem to want to play ball. I suppose for now I'm sticking with direct sound then. I DO seem to feel that I'm experiencing a tighter, more controlled bass after changing from soundcard (Audigy 2ZS) to the EB01, but I'm wondering if that's merely a placebo effect.

Wrt foobar... 0.9.1 seems considerably stable for me at least for now, so no real problem using that now I guess. I'll try out the previous versions of course, just to see if KS components could actually work. Yeah, it does seem that once in a while foobar needs an actual restart from time to time to get it to work properly... doing that every now and then when I'm tinkering with the settings.

For the EB01, the sound device changes to "USB Speakers", and like an excellent comparison written on this same forum stated, the volume really has to be cranked up really high to achieve line out volume. Result of course is that the sound is considerably softer than I'd like... but the G-Lite in my setup pretty much takes good care of that.

In any case, I shall be playing around with ASIO4ALL for now, as soon as time permits. Thanks very much for your insights. ^^

[EDIT]

Installed ASIO4ALL. Can't get ASIO to work without this horrible buzzing noise in mp3s. Tried wavs, mp3s, mpc... the lot. Is there something I'm doing wrong here? Anyone can get ASIO4ALL to work with the EB01?

[EDIT OF THE EDIT]

Rebooted, set everything to defaults, redid everything step by step... and ASIO4ALL's working this time. To be honest I can't really tell if there's anything more than the satisfaction of getting the damn thing working that's having me smiling yet though. ^__^ I suppose this is probably the "best" it gets for now.