[Copyright]

I guess I never got much into the ASIO and WASAPI stuff.  I honestly don't know how my sound card should be setup.. heck I didnt even know ASIO was installed until I got into it by accident.  So right now its set to 16bit Asio and 192 sampling rate.  I listen to FLAC files and a couple others that are supposed to be lossless.  Right now winamp is my player without any plugins etc.  I read to use Foobar with ASIO but noticed Foobar mentions it makes no difference.  How should I set my card up for the best sound?  I mostly do Gaming, Music and movies.  My card is the Asus Essense ST with the Asus opamp upgrade.  I am using Denon D2000 headphones that have had a recable and dynamt job done to them.  My speakers are currently a set of Klipsch V2-400 (used as a 2.1) but have had the midrange drivers replaced with Tang Bands, 15 awg Speaker wire recable directly to the speakers (no 3.5mm 24awg wire), Clay, Raamat and Black Hole have been added to the satalite enclosures.  This has truly helped turn these into a nice set of speakers but curious now what sotware player to use and how it and my sound card settings should be setup.  Thx for any help!

 

[Copyright]

Just to add.. I am readign now there are Unified drivers offered that are better?

 

[anwaypasible]

i havent heard a difference with those pax drivers.. but i use 'em because windows 7 wont install the thx console for the distance delays for each speaker.
the distance delays are really nice.. and they help the sound enough to want it.
but
for anything else to get the most from the soundcard, you would need a calibrated microphone and use it to set the sliders on the equalizer for a flat frequency response ... that would get you some more audio quality (unless the frequency response is already flat, which is rare.. but you would probably want to use the microphone again in the future, so it's not really money wasted).
 
anything beyond that would be modifying the soundcard with new pieces to make it sound better.
 
you could probably still benefit from the microphone and using it to record an impulse response file to use in a convolution reverb.
 
i would recommend the impulse response file, even for near-field monitors without much (or any) reflections from the walls.. because the air itself has a character thanks to temperature and pressure, and whatever elasticity it has.
using the impulse response file to take the character out of the situation can make subtle things heard that weren't heard before.
 
then with virtual audio cable and vsthost, you can send all of the computer audio (youtube, movies, music, pandora, etc) through the vsthost and get the audio corrections applied.
 
and from there..
if you want to mess around a little bit,
there are quite a few 'audio enhancers' to try.. just be certain to setup the microphone to adjust the frequency response back to flat with the audio enhancer plugin running.
and if you are using the vsthost.. you dont need the modified drivers, because there are vst plugins that will do the distance delay for each speaker.