Help with foobar and issue with browser

[xuub]

Hi,

I recently got my (first) DAC/AMP AudioGD R2R-11 and tried to install it properly. I downloaded two drivers (not sure if this is correct) here and here.

This is how my drivers appear :

Now I have been following a guide on how to configure foobar. In particular selecting the output :

So I guess the best in my case is the COmbo384 ASIO. How do I know if this is working fine ? I have been switching between them but could not notice a difference.

Also, I have issues with my browser : if i listen to a video or to deezer in chrome, I get this error when I try to play in foobar with ASIO output (working fine with DS) :

On the opposite, if i start listening to foobar with ASIO output, I won't get any sound in chrome. I guess there is a compatibility issue ?

Any insight appreciated.

 

[MindsMirror]

You can't use sound from any other applications while using ASIO. Use DS unless you're only listening to music.

 

[tomb]

ASIO is old school, anyway. You need to be using WASAPI, instead. I'm not sure, but you may be able to use Windows sound at the same time.

As for DS, that's Windows Direct Sound. It goes through the PC's OS and degrades the music stream to a certain extent. ASIO or WASAPI sounds much better, but as you found out, there are drawbacks.

P.S. Go to the Amanero website. There are plenty of drivers there for WASAPI. WASAPI "event" seems to work better than "push."

 

[xuub]

I see, I have updated to WASAPI and it is way more convenient as it stops my browser sound when I hit play instead of giving me an error.
However I did not find any WASAPI driver on the anamero website ; I downloaded the WASAPI component and it works just fine.

Thanks a lot, I am all set I guess now and it is a real enjoyment.

 

[tomb]

I see, I have updated to WASAPI and it is way more convenient as it stops my browser sound when I hit play instead of giving me an error.
However I did not find any WASAPI driver on the anamero website ; I downloaded the WASAPI component and it works just fine.

Thanks a lot, I am all set I guess now and it is a real enjoyment.

The drivers are in zip files according to your OS, located on the Amanero site:
https://amanero.com/drivers.htm

AFAIK and can remember, the WASAPI drivers get loaded automatically by running the EXE file in the Amanero zip files.

 

[xuub]

The drivers are in zip files according to your OS, located on the Amanero site:
https://amanero.com/drivers.htm

AFAIK and can remember, the WASAPI drivers get loaded automatically by running the EXE file in the Amanero zip files.

That is the very driver (there is only one in the zip file) I downloaded and it seems to only provide ASIO, unless I am missing something (I am on Win10).

 

[tomb]

That is the very driver (there is only one in the zip file) I downloaded and it seems to only provide ASIO, unless I am missing something (I am on Win10).

Sorry - WASAPI is imbedded in the Windows 10 OS. Your media player is the key. With Foobar2000, for instance, you need to load the plug-in. The WASAPI drivers for Amanero will show up as long as you loaded the Amanero drivers and you connect the Amanero board to the USB buss. In my experience, you don't need to have the DAC turned on for the PC to recognize the Amanero board and show the drivers in Foobar or other players. Music Bee already has the WASAPI enabled, but there are only two to pick from on my version (there are several in Foobar) - 1) WASAPI (Shared) and 2) WASAPI (Exclusive). Exclusive means you cannot use any other music playing device, which goes against what you're interested in, but it can optimize the PC against dropouts in the streaming. Exclusivity is controlled elsewhere in Foobar.

If you use a different media player than those two, I have no experience on how they implement WASAPI.

 

[xuub]

Sorry - WASAPI is imbedded in the Windows 10 OS. Your media player is the key. With Foobar2000, for instance, you need to load the plug-in. The WASAPI drivers for Amanero will show up as long as you loaded the Amanero drivers and you connect the Amanero board to the USB buss. In my experience, you don't need to have the DAC turned on for the PC to recognize the Amanero board and show the drivers in Foobar or other players. Music Bee already has the WASAPI enabled, but there are only two to pick from on my version (there are several in Foobar) - 1) WASAPI (Shared) and 2) WASAPI (Exclusive). Exclusive means you cannot use any other music playing device, which goes against what you're interested in, but it can optimize the PC against dropouts in the streaming. Exclusivity is controlled elsewhere in Foobar.

If you use a different media player than those two, I have no experience on how they implement WASAPI.

Sorry if I was not clear enough. I downloaded the WASAPI component and used it in foobar :

I cannot run any other sound while playing it but at least it is not as buggy as ASIO. Not sure if there is a Shared version in foobar though ?
Thanks for the tips !

 

[tomb]

I'm pretty sure exclusivity is controlled with a separate setting in Foobar. If not, you could try Music Bee and use the "Shared" WASAPI driver.

 

[xuub]

I'm pretty sure exclusivity is controlled with a separate setting in Foobar. If not, you could try Music Bee and use the "Shared" WASAPI driver.

Thanks, I'll see If I switch, I have been tweaking foobar a lot.
May I please request your help on a few more settings ?

How many bits should I pick ?

Not sure what is supported by my DAC.

Also, should I uncheck (supported formats) the top boxes in the Windows configuration ?

Also, should I resample some frequencies since most seem to be supported by my DAC ? If yes, what are the best settings ?

Thanks.

 

[castleofargh]

the purpose of a bit perfect path is to keep the bit values identical until they reach the DAC. mixing 2 or more sound sources is a very effective way of not having bit perfect anything as you literally combine several signals into one. so it really comes down to what you want to achieve. if you want all sounds on the computer to be played, then the DS mixer exists for that very purpose.

about your ASIO troubles, they're possibly related to the sample rate of the sources you're trying to play VS the sample rate set for the DAC in Windozzz.

the bit depth can be set to the maximum that works without issue. it's a light and transparent process to turn a 16bit file into 24 or 32bit. and it provides you with headroom to use the digital volume control on the computer without much risk of discarding the lower bits of your song. but to go back to the bit perfect conversation, obviously if you change the volume level on the computer, the bits are not longer "bit perfect". I personally couldn't care less about "bit perfect" anything as a listener, but for those who do, it's worth knowing what alters the samples so that "bit perfect" doesn't turn out to be a placebo with a fancy name.

about resampling, you can find many cults on the forum, some don't care, some obsess about resampling and how it must be done(to the point of telling you to use a special player). your DAC says R2R in the name so there is always the possibility that it sucks bad at 44.1kHz if it has some NOS option(treble roll off, aliasing, both). if that happens to be the case, oversampling may effectively mitigate the limitation of R2R. but maybe there is some internal oversampling done in the DAC already and it's better to let it handle it? IDK. try and find out if you prefer one solution over another subjectively, or ask people who have the same device if they think there are things to avoid. out of context, I tend to go with "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" ^_^.
ASIO drivers often will be set by default to the highest sample rate the DAC can support, WASAPI doesn't care and will use whatever windows tell it to. but ultimately you do whatever you want so long as you can find where the settings are.

voila voila.

 

[xuub]

about your ASIO troubles, they're possibly related to the sample rate of the sources you're trying to play VS the sample rate set for the DAC in Windozzz.

Where can I set this in Windows ?

NOS option(treble roll off, aliasing, both)

Not sure if you are talking about this, but you can open the DAC for a warmer sound. But I'm too much of a dummie yet to take that risk.

Anyway I removed resampling since this dac handles up to 384kHz. I will continue looking around for some inputs about this DAC.

Thanks for your thorough answer that was very informative.

 

[tomb]

the purpose of a bit perfect path is to keep the bit values identical until they reach the DAC. mixing 2 or more sound sources is a very effective way of not having bit perfect anything as you literally combine several signals into one. so it really comes down to what you want to achieve. </snip>

If one runs the driver in Exclusive mode, then yes - you're not going to get sound in another app unless you kill the app running in exclusive mode, even if it's not playing at the time. However, there's no issue with running WASAPI in a shared mode on Music Bee.

I still reference Foobar when I want the most technically correct playback. However, I find myself more and more using Music Bee because of the overall experience. With Music Bee, you can listen to the real recording, then switch seamlessly to a youtube live version of the same artist, from within Music Bee. If you are running in exclusive mode with the WASAPI driver, this doesn't work - with the WASAPI (shared) driver, it does.

We're not talking about mixing the streams, but staying within the same environment without having to kill one app, use the other one, then go back and start the first app again. Music Bee lets you look at Last fm, articles on Wikipedia and then youtube - all at the same time you're listening through a WASAPI driver. Of course, you pause the sound in Music Bee if you want to listen to the browser that popped up when you selected youtube for that artist from within Music Bee. If you are running the WASAPI driver in exclusive mode, you get an error in the youtube browser when you attempt to run the video. You have to kill Music Bee to make it work. If you choose the WASAPI (shared) driver instead, this all works and you don't have to kill anything.

 

[castleofargh]

Where can I set this in Windows ?


Not sure if you are talking about this, but you can open the DAC for a warmer sound. But I'm too much of a dummie yet to take that risk.

Anyway I removed resampling since this dac handles up to 384kHz. I will continue looking around for some inputs about this DAC.

Thanks for your thorough answer that was very informative.

things will change depending on the driver provided by the manufacturer and maybe the app you're using for music playback. so it's probably faster to go ask the guys who own the same DAC, if and where you can fool around with such settings(or if they think it's hill advised for some reason).

If one runs the driver in Exclusive mode, then yes - you're not going to get sound in another app unless you kill the app running in exclusive mode, even if it's not playing at the time. However, there's no issue with running WASAPI in a shared mode on Music Bee.

I still reference Foobar when I want the most technically correct playback. However, I find myself more and more using Music Bee because of the overall experience. With Music Bee, you can listen to the real recording, then switch seamlessly to a youtube live version of the same artist, from within Music Bee. If you are running in exclusive mode with the WASAPI driver, this doesn't work - with the WASAPI (shared) driver, it does.

We're not talking about mixing the streams, but staying within the same environment without having to kill one app, use the other one, then go back and start the first app again. Music Bee lets you look at Last fm, articles on Wikipedia and then youtube - all at the same time you're listening through a WASAPI driver. Of course, you pause the sound in Music Bee if you want to listen to the browser that popped up when you selected youtube for that artist from within Music Bee. If you are running the WASAPI driver in exclusive mode, you get an error in the youtube browser when you attempt to run the video. You have to kill Music Bee to make it work. If you choose the WASAPI (shared) driver instead, this all works and you don't have to kill anything.

I was just saying that if several sound sources can be mixed and resampled(if needed), then the very concept of bit perfect is gone no matter the name of the signal path and how so called "bit perfect" it is. there was no intent to say that something is good and something else is bad. different tools serve different purposes. I admit that I don't know specifically how WASAPI shared works, but given the possibilities, it really looks A LOT like Direct Sound.

 

[tomb]

al

<snip>


I was just saying that if several sound sources can be mixed and resampled(if needed), then the very concept of bit perfect is gone no matter the name of the signal path and how so called "bit perfect" it is. there was no intent to say that something is good and something else is bad. different tools serve different purposes. I admit that I don't know specifically how WASAPI shared works, but given the possibilities, it really looks A LOT like Direct Sound.

WASAPI with Direct Sound is an oxymoron. However, I also said that I preferred Foobar if I was listening with a critical ear. Enjoying Music Bee because it allows you to switch to youtube videos implies a certain leniency with respect to quality.