[freakydrew]

Normally I pester poor Robsix with this stuff, but his mailbox is full (or he blocked me from sending him more!)

I recently (and finally) bought the Asus Xonar HDav deluxe and when it arrived I realized I needed a 4 pin female molex adapter plus a SATA Y connector to power this sucker up New egg.ca was the only option that worked but it took 10 days for that to arrive.

so a long time ago my pod for the logitech z5500 stopped working properly (flame on you logitech haters lol). If I wanted sound I had to sometimes reboot system and do a whole bunch of things and then only sometimes was there sound.
many months later Logitech finally agrees that I need a replacement BUT I had to send them my pod first. So it takes three weeks for them to send me shipping label and 3 calls a day. anyway, they are cross shipping so once they receive verification my pod has shipped they will expedite the replacement, in theory, my faith in logitech customer service is waning

Then yesterday I get a warning that my RAID 0 volume is failing and I am not able to back up because of the error. 17 dvds in the back up stops...ARG this was 11:00 last night. I was on the phone until 2:00 am with DELL and thankfully my 3-year old is sick so I got to stay home....I paid the extra money for extended warranty and Dell will be coming tomorrow to replace the hard drive and hopefully save the data.

long story, sorry.

So I managed to finally hook up power adapter that came in mail and listen to xonar through headphones. very nice, but it was after 2:00 and I was punch drunk by this time.

Backstory complete, onto the Questions!

Do I need to keep my existing DAC in the system? Xonar to DAC to Amplifier to headphones, or is the DAC solid enough to work? I think it should be enough...

Another issue is the total media theatre. As soon as I try to install it, it asks for user name and license key, of which I have neither. recieved email from Arcsoft saying that I need to go to help menu, but they don't understand I can't get past initial EULA to even get that far. So they want me to access the help feature in the Menu but I can't get any menu.

Is it worth spending the $80 for the Total Media Theatre platinum and forget about getting this version to work?

thanks and sorry for the long windedness...very tired today

 

[ROBSCIX]

Mailbox is full. I get many PM's from lots of memebers and my box fills quickly.

I would say try both, use your external and compre it withthe DAC on the HDAV 1.3 which is a very high quality DAC chip iteself. Use your ears to decide.

You should have a license key on the envelope of the software IIRC.
Also that version is not the one you need. You need to download a beta from ASUS that has full support for everything you need. When I was testing this card that was the way it was done.

 

[freakydrew]

for Xonar software or the TotalMedia?
up to 2 bottles of scotch I owe you now