[OniVerde]

Thanks to Head Fi, my wallet is now $23 lighter. I received and installed my Chaintech AV710 sound card today. It is ALOT quieter than the onboard audio. My question is, besides downloading the latest driver that you all recommened, there is also something called ASIO that is recommened. How much of a difference will it make? I'm using a pair of PortaPros with a CMOY amp.

 

[Iron_Dreamer]

Install the latest envy24 drivers from viaarena.com, version 3.1 I believe. Turn up the volume for th 7/8 channels all the way, turn the others all th way down, and the master all the way up. Switch the card to 2-channel high-res mode. In foobar use kernel streaming output with the resampler to 96KHz, output 24-bit padded to 32 bit, dither with strong ath noise shaping. This is how I got the best sound quality from this card for two-channel music listening, after a whole day of wrestlting with it.

 

[Mr.Radar]

Hmm... dang. Curse you Head-Fi! I was going to wait a while to get a new soundcard until I could afford the EMU 1212m but now I may just have to get the AV-710 now that I have a quiet computer (*hugs Sunbeam Rheobus*).

 

[Iron_Dreamer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr.Radar Hmm... dang. Curse you Head-Fi! I was going to wait a while to get a new soundcard until I could afford the EMU 1212m but now I may just have to get the AV-710 now that I have a quiet computer (*hugs Sunbeam Rheobus*).

Get it! For $23 from newegg it will stomp all over your onboard sound. It will be a great introduction to good sound, and make you appreciate the EMU that much more once you get it (plus make the wait much easier).

 

[Porksoda]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iron_Dreamer Install the latest envy24 drivers from viaarena.com, version 3.1 I believe. Turn up the volume for th 7/8 channels all the way, turn the others all th way down, and the master all the way up. Switch the card to 2-channel high-res mode. In foobar use kernel streaming output with the resampler to 96KHz, output 24-bit padded to 32 bit, dither with strong ath noise shaping. This is how I got the best sound quality from this card for two-channel music listening, after a whole day of wrestlting with it.

Just to play the devil's advocate, why resample at all? Is there anything to be gained from doing it?

 

[fewtch]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Porksoda Just to play the devil's advocate, why resample at all? Is there anything to be gained from doing it?

We need a sticky in this forum explaining upsampling, and its possible benefits and drawbacks. It's been discussed many times, try a search (looks like it's working again

).

 

[Iron_Dreamer]

To me upsampling makes the sound airier, and the treble more natural and realistic sounding. I like it.

 

[McRat]

Congrats on the new card!

It seems that Newegg doesn't ship to Europe

Anyone know a shop that ships, or a place to buy in Europe? I can't seem to find one...

 

[cosmopragma]

Quote:

Originally Posted by McRat Congrats on the new card! It seems that Newegg doesn't ship to Europe Anyone know a shop that ships, or a place to buy in Europe? I can't seem to find one...

Me too!
It's unlikely that Chaintech doesn't distribute it to Europe, there is a distribution channel already.Maybe for whatever reason it's sold differently named here.

 

[Mr.Radar]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iron_Dreamer Get it! For $23 from newegg it will stomp all over your onboard sound. It will be a great introduction to good sound, and make you appreciate the EMU that much more once you get it (plus make the wait much easier).

As soon as Newegg gets it back in stock I'm going to order. Then I'll post a how-to guide on setting up the AV-710 for maximum sound quality.

 

[some1x]

Its actually pretty simple:

ASIO4All:
Get asio4all http://michael.tippach.bei.t-online.de/asio4all/
---a. Install asio4all
---b. open the control panel, set buffers to max (2048/4) and disable input. (you can experiment with these later).

Foobar:
Get foobar http://foobar2000.blogsite.org/
1) Get asio plugin for foobar (same site) (extract to foobar2000\components folder)
2) Configure foobar:
---a. playback/output format: enable show all options, then choose 24-bit padded to 32-bit.
---b. output: ASIO, and also configure ASIO to use 0 buffers

And you're done

 

[Iron_Dreamer]

Or you can just skip ASIO4all and use kernel streaming, as I do

 

[bubbers214]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iron_Dreamer Or you can just skip ASIO4all and use kernel streaming, as I do

For some reason on this card...KS does not work in all situations. I just reformatted my machine and when I got into Foobar i tried running KS and i just got an output error, no matter what playback settings i had it plain wouldn't work. Then after a few subsequent reboots it started working even at 24/96 which is what I run it at now. Very strange.

 

[Kensai]

In high-res two channel mode, this card resamples to 96khz in hardware, regardless of what you feed it. So, it stands to reason, and has been borne out by my testing (and that of Iron Dreamer and others) that if you do the resample at a higher quality in software and send that stream the the Wolfsons DAC, that you will get higher sound quality.

Kensai

 

[Earwax]

Quote:

Originally Posted by McRat Congrats on the new card! It seems that Newegg doesn't ship to Europe Anyone know a shop that ships, or a place to buy in Europe? I can't seem to find one...

I beleive Computer Geeks http://compgeeks.com/ ships overseas.