[elbrickodaviso]

...in terms of sound quality? I don't have many USB ports to spare, so buying a DAC and connecting it to the optical on the Chaintech seems to be the most convenient way to get good PC audio. Anything I should know?

 

[sejarzo]

I sure wouldn't connect a USB DAC to an external hub, that's for sure.......so if you are short on USB ports, I'd bet that you are subject to more problems with USB versus TOSLINK out of an AV-710.

If I am running Foobar and my 0404 USB on my desktop PC, then attempt to transfer files from my desktop HD to my USB HD, as often as not, I get clicks/pops/dropouts. Thus, it seems to me that overloading the USB bus to the point where it has a very negative impact is not too hard. Personally, I tend to have only the 0404 and mouse active as USB devices when listening--my printer is turned off and the scanner is on standby.

Someone else might be able to lead you to a good combination of drivers/settings on the AV-710 to ensure that you get the best end result. I didn't go into detail in my response in an earlier thread of yours, but I would get strange "zip-zip-zip" noises from running the TOSLINK out of my AV-710 into my 0404 USB. Never got those when running TOSLINK from various CD or DVD players into it, so something was odd about the AV-710 configuration. I spent a couple of hours trying various fixes, nothing worked, so I just went back to using the USB connection and all is well.

 

[brendohall]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sejarzo /img/forum/go_quote.gif I sure wouldn't connect a USB DAC to an external hub, that's for sure.......so if you are short on USB ports, I'd bet that you are subject to more problems with USB versus TOSLINK out of an AV-710. If I am running Foobar and my 0404 USB on my desktop PC, then attempt to transfer files from my desktop HD to my USB HD, as often as not, I get clicks/pops/dropouts. Thus, it seems to me that overloading the USB bus to the point where it has a very negative impact is not too hard. Personally, I tend to have only the 0404 and mouse active as USB devices when listening--my printer is turned off and the scanner is on standby. Someone else might be able to lead you to a good combination of drivers/settings on the AV-710 to ensure that you get the best end result. I didn't go into detail in my response in an earlier thread of yours, but I would get strange "zip-zip-zip" noises from running the TOSLINK out of my AV-710 into my 0404 USB. Never got those when running TOSLINK from various CD or DVD players into it, so something was odd about the AV-710 configuration. I spent a couple of hours trying various fixes, nothing worked, so I just went back to using the USB connection and all is well.

The zip zip noises you wre getting would be electrical interference in your pc, some kind of Electro-magnetic shielding would most likely fix that up.

Got that with my old onboard soundcard, dont get it at all with my AV-710 tho.

 

[Ahriman4891]

Quote:

Originally Posted by brendohall /img/forum/go_quote.gif The zip zip noises you wre getting would be electrical interference in your pc, some kind of Electro-magnetic shielding would most likely fix that up. Got that with my old onboard soundcard, dont get it at all with my AV-710 tho.

EMI over TOSLINK? That's HIGHLY unlikely, although there are optical cables with a conductive strand. My 0404USB also did that occasionally when I tried running x-fi => coax S/PDIF => emu, it's most likely a desync issue since it did not depend on computer activity in any way.

 

[Zodduska]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ahriman4891 /img/forum/go_quote.gif EMI over TOSLINK? That's HIGHLY unlikely, although there are optical cables with a conductive strand. My 0404USB also did that occasionally when I tried running x-fi => coax S/PDIF => emu, it's most likely a desync issue since it did not depend on computer activity in any way.

could it be that even though the optical is electrically separated the interference is introduced into the signal before the optical conversion then manifests as these sounds?

I don't notice any flaws in mine but it is also in my quietest pci slot.

 

[Ahriman4891]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zodduska /img/forum/go_quote.gif could it be that even though the optical is electrically separated the interference is introduced into the signal before the optical conversion then manifests as these sounds?

Well, since the optical conversion is digital-to-digital, the interference has to be extreme enough to flip bits. That means the computer will not work... at all.

EDIT: great avatar btw.

 

[Zodduska]

oh, good point. thanks

 

[sejarzo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by brendohall /img/forum/go_quote.gif The zip zip noises you wre getting would be electrical interference in your pc, some kind of Electro-magnetic shielding would most likely fix that up. Got that with my old onboard soundcard, dont get it at all with my AV-710 tho.

Nope, they were due to a sync problem as others have suggested--I should have noted that the sync LED's on the 0404 would occasionally flicker along with the noise.

 

[bonjonno]

I'm getting the replacement 0404 tomorrow for the dud they sent me last week. Hopefully the optical input from my AV710 output will work fine; that's the main reason I purchased the thing. I've used that toslink connection to a Pioneer receiver for a year and it works great. But I'm only using the DAC in the receiver; there are no speakers hooked up; the preamp outs are connected to my main system. So its cooling fan goes on and off all the time and makes a racket. Pioneer techs say that's normal. The DAC in the 0404 has got to be a higher quality as well. I'll let you know tomorrow if it works. This is the first I've heard of a "sync" problem from an AV-710.

 

[sejarzo]

I think that you will be fine, Jon, if your receiver has been processing the TOSLINK output of the AV710 without issues.

My AV710's hi-rez right channel somehow went intermittent about the time I received my 0404 USB, so I removed it and just went back to using the onboard sound for everyday web surfing (through some 12+ year old Yamaha PC speakers.......as if a better DAC would help those! You can probably tell that for other than serious music listening, I'm actually quite a fan of silent computing.)

I stuck the AV710 back in last weekend to see how if I could determine if there was any audible benefit to using TOSLINK rather than USB (assuming that the right channel failure was in the DAC or analog chain downstream and wouldn't affect the TOSLINK out.)

I never was able to get it working well enough to tell, though, and because I couldn't be 100% sure that the digital side of the card was entirely functional, I pulled it out again. I'm definitely pleased with the peformance of the 0404 via USB; I have only noted a few clicks during heavy USB activity that I could easily avoid during music listening.

At one point before it cr&pped out, I had the AV710 working very well with kernel streaming in Foobar--I never heard any unusual pops/clicks/dropouts when it was my only PC sound device (having disabled the onboard sound in the BIOS set up.) So I was a bit surprised that there were sync issues in driving the 0404, but it just wasn't worth the work to root it all out.

 

[bonjonno]

Thanks Sejarzo. I've got my fingers crossed that the replacement emu works correctly. I'll post again Thursday night with an update.