[rumatt]

I find that to get good sound with USB DAC's (and to get bit-perfect output) I need to disable the Windows kmixer. An example discussion of how to do this is in this thread.

However, if I disable the kmixer for a DAC that is using the generic USB driver (like the Corda Move) then Windows also changes the setting for the laptop internal sound card settings, and the mixer is disabled there as well! This doesn't happen when the DAC/sound card has its own drivers installed (like the SB3 discussed in the above thread). Then you can adjust them independently.

That means that I can't get good sound from my laptop + Corda Move unless I'm happy having no sound from the laptop at all.

Has anyone seen this before, or know how I can force windows to disable the kmixer for the generic USB device, but not the built-in sound card?

.

 

[TheVinylRipper]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rumatt /img/forum/go_quote.gif That means that I can't get good sound from my laptop + Corda Move unless I'm happy having no sound from the laptop at all.

A backasswards suggestion:

Get a cheap, small USB sound card and use that with your laptop when on the go..

I have one that came with an Altec AHS 302 I purchased for VOIP and I liked the sound so much that I now use it for casual listening or when I'm working on a box other than my own..

http://cgi.ebay.com/Altec-Lansing-AH...QQcmdZViewItem

 

[Wavelength]

Rumatt,

You don't want to ever disable the kmixer. What you want to do is go around it. The easiest way to do this is by using ASIO. There are two generic ASIO's that would proabably work for your DAC. ASIO4ALL and ASIO2KS, you can do a google search and download them from their site.

These will work many players like Foobar, J River and others.

If you want to use Media Player or iTunes as your player then best bet would be to move to Vista. There is some convetuded way of running iTunes via Foobar but I never could get it too work.

Thanks
Gordon

 

[warrior05]

I provided detailed instructions on how to bypass Windows' Kmixer using ASIO4all and Foobar. Maybe that will help some.

 

[rumatt]

I am using foobar and ASIO4ALL. I am not getting system sounds through the USB DAC or any of those problems.

But in the past I have not been entirely convinced that ASIO4ALL was not sufficient to achieve bit-perfect output. Maybe I'm wrong. I will do some more experiments tonight.

Side note: Here's some audio circle discussion of people preferring not to use ASIO http://www.audiocircle.com/circles/i...?topic=40068.0

 

[TheVinylRipper]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wavelength /img/forum/go_quote.gif Rumatt, You don't want to ever disable the kmixer.

Just out of curiosity, why not?

 

[carlosgp]

As far as I know, kmixer bad sound is a myth, at least unless multiple audio streams are being played simultaneously. Benchmark engineers have proved that kmixer will not affect the audio if only one audio stream is being played simultaneously. Take a look at the thread Benchmark DAC1 now available with USB, specially this post by Elias Gwinn

 

[rumatt]

Quote:

Originally Posted by carlosgp /img/forum/go_quote.gif As far as I know, kmixer bad sound is a myth, at least unless multiple audio streams are being played simultaneously. Benchmark engineers have proved that kmixer will not affect the audio if only one audio stream is being played simultaneously. Take a look at the thread Benchmark DAC1 now available with USB, specially this post by Elias Gwinn

That's interesting and I'll take a look.

But regardless of what they concluded with their particular hardware and version of windows, I would certainly not conclude that it holds in all cases.