Problem with Chaintech AV-710...
Jun 11, 2004 at 2:39 AM Post #16 of 33
This just keeps getting worse. Now the sound in the left ear is louder than the sound in the right ear. Now granted, my 580's have intermittancy problems with the right ear, but the left is very noticably louder than the right. I need to punch something.
 
Jun 11, 2004 at 6:50 AM Post #19 of 33
I've had it. The volume control bug is unacceptable. I didn't have a problem with it when I first installed the card and the drivers. Now I do. That's complete crap. Also, unless I've gone blind (which may be a possibility since I've been up for the last 30+ hours trying to get this to work) I saw option for the "hi-rez" mode in the drivers that aren't affected by the bug. And at no point was I able to get kernel streaming to work with this card. I'm shipping this horrid piece of crap back and I'm saving my money for an Emu, which hopefully won't be a waste of money like the Chaintech card. Until then, I'm putting the Audigy 2 ZS back in, unless Via and Chaintech can get their s**t together and convince me to do otherwise.
 
Jun 11, 2004 at 6:58 PM Post #20 of 33
Do the older drivers that aren't buggy have the option to enable the hi-rez mode? I ask because, though the volume is all messed up with the most recent drivers, the sound is absolutely amazing. I found it to be much better than the regular 2-channel mode.
 
Jun 12, 2004 at 11:32 PM Post #21 of 33
Piccolo, try going into foobar's playback options and turning on strong ATH noise shaping and set the output data format to 24 bit padded to 32. I have foobar's resampling plugin turned off, but Hi-rez (resampled) mode on in the "Audio Deck".

I was having the same problems as you, but this cleared it up. However, there is still a bug using KS where it seems to only be able to play audio from one program at a time, e.g. Foobar will be playing, and a random Windows noise will silence playback, and I'll have to restart playback. Foobar will continue normally, but it will make no noise. This was remedied easily though, by just turning off all of those annyoing dings and clicks.
 
Jun 12, 2004 at 11:41 PM Post #22 of 33
Despite sounding good for the price, the Chaintech is a cheap card and it looks as though the drivers suck... that's why you're having problems. No problems at all getting KS working in Win2k with my Audiophile 2496 (altho I don't use Win2k all that often at this point, it's nice to have music available when I do).

You might consider using DirectSound... IME music didn't sound a whole lot worse with it. It should still be better than the Audigy.
 
Jun 13, 2004 at 12:04 AM Post #23 of 33
I haven't had a issue with the volume bug since I found an easy work-around.
First put the card in ordinary 2-channel mode, then adjust the Master Volume slider all the way to the top (no volume bug in plain 2 channel mode), now switch back to 2-channel hi-res mode. Now, don't ever touch the master volume again! Instead, use the "back stereo" slider on the playback tab or use foobar/winamp/whatever to control the volume instead.
 
Jun 13, 2004 at 12:11 AM Post #24 of 33
Quote:

Originally Posted by Piccolo Daimaou
The actualy error reads as follows: "KS output error: error opening device"

Like I said, I installed the latest drivers. I'm running in "hi-rez" mode, with 24-bit padded to 32-bit, strong ATH noise shaping, and kernel streaming as my output. I really don't know what could be wrong. Kernel streaming works flawlessly on my 3 year old laptop, so I don't see how it wouldn't work now.


That should work, as long as you also enable foobar's resampler and resample to 96khz.

BTW, to confuse matters with another option, I usually run with output set to waveout, no resampling in foobar, hi-res 2chan set in the via control panel. 24-bit padded to 32 and no dithering. Using foobar resampling may sound slightly better (I'm not sure if the difference is real or in my head), but on this old, slow PC the difference certainly isn't worth the cycles that software resampling takes.
 
Jun 13, 2004 at 3:12 AM Post #25 of 33
Quote:

Originally Posted by Earwax
That should work, as long as you also enable foobar's resampler and resample to 96khz.

BTW, to confuse matters with another option, I usually run with output set to waveout, no resampling in foobar, hi-res 2chan set in the via control panel. 24-bit padded to 32 and no dithering. Using foobar resampling may sound slightly better (I'm not sure if the difference is real or in my head), but on this old, slow PC the difference certainly isn't worth the cycles that software resampling takes.


I do have the resampler enabled, with it resampling to 96 kHz. I have a pretty beefy processor, so I don't need to worry about a processor hit. But still, I really don't understand why it wouldn't work. I have it set to waveout right now. I tried ASIO, but everytime I tried to run it with resampling to 96 kHz, I kept getting an "error: unsupported sampling rate." Strange.
 
Jun 13, 2004 at 3:52 AM Post #26 of 33
Guess what? The VIA Envy24 series of DSPs don't support any sampling rates lower than 32kHz natively in hardware. The only supported sampling rates are: 32000, 44100, 48000, 64000, 88200, 96000, 128000, 176400 and 192000 Hz. Some of your audio files were recorded at only a 22050 Hz sampling rate. Thus, any audio file with a sampling rate that low can only be output through DirectSound or waveOut (both of which must send audio to the Windows kmixer, which resamples audio anyway).
 
Jun 13, 2004 at 4:25 AM Post #27 of 33
Quote:

Originally Posted by Piccolo Daimaou
I do have the resampler enabled, with it resampling to 96 kHz. I have a pretty beefy processor, so I don't need to worry about a processor hit. But still, I really don't understand why it wouldn't work. I have it set to waveout right now. I tried ASIO, but everytime I tried to run it with resampling to 96 kHz, I kept getting an "error: unsupported sampling rate." Strange.


Forgive me for belaboring the point, but are you sure you have the resampler loaded in the DSP manager? (that is, it shows up on the left hand side, under the active DSPs column?) That "unsupported sampling rate" message from ASIO makes me think that this is where the problem lays. ASIO demands "24bit padded to 32" output format and 96khz resampling, nothing else at all will work on this card.
 
Jun 13, 2004 at 4:27 AM Post #28 of 33
Quote:

Originally Posted by Earwax
That "unsupported sampling rate" message from ASIO makes me think that this is where the problem lays. ASIO demands "24bit padded to 32" output format and 96khz resampling, nothing else at all will work on this card.


ASIO actually demands "24bit padded to 32" output format and no resampling at all whatsoever when used with any Envy24-series-based soundcard, nothing else at all will work (in fact, ASIO output resampled to 96kHz will stutter badly on most systems equipped with Envy24-series-based soundcards). If you want to intentionally upsample to 96kHz with an Envy24-based soundcard, use Kernel Streaming instead. (I've tried ASIO with "24bit padded to 32" output format and 96kHz sampling, only to have the sound stutter badly on my system.)

As for the "unsupported sampling rate" error message from ASIO, it's not the resampling that's to blame; it's the originally recorded sampling rate in your original music files that is to balme. As I said earlier, your original music files might have been recorded with a sampling rate that's lower than 32kHz (e.g. your WAV and MP3 files were originally recorded using a sampling rate of only 22.05kHz), which the ENTIRE Envy24 series of DSPs don't natively support in hardware.
 
Jun 13, 2004 at 5:15 AM Post #29 of 33
Quote:

Originally Posted by Eagle_Driver
As for the "unsupported sampling rate" error message from ASIO, it's not the resampling that's to blame; it's the originally recorded sampling rate in your original music files that is to balme. As I said earlier, your original music files might have been recorded with a sampling rate that's lower than 32kHz (e.g. your WAV and MP3 files were originally recorded using a sampling rate of only 22.05kHz), which the ENTIRE Envy24 series of DSPs don't natively support in hardware.


I don't understand how that's even possible. All of my mp3's and .ape files are taken from CD's, and it was my impression that all CD's are 44.1 kHz.

And to answer your question Earwax, the resampler is in the active DSP column.

Now here's the real kicker. Kernel streaming is working now for some reason. I'm so confused right now. The only thing that bothers me now is the fact that for whatever reason, I found the sound to be superior when I was using the newest drivers from Via (the ones with the volume control bug) as opposed to the ones Mr. Radar pointed me to (which I'm currently using). In any case, this card is going to give me a heart attack, and come hell or high water, I'm getting an Emu.
 
Jun 13, 2004 at 5:18 AM Post #30 of 33
Quote:

Originally Posted by Piccolo Daimaou
In any case, this card is going to give me a heart attack, and come hell or high water, I'm getting an Emu.


Don't be surprised if you have some issues with the Emu as well, lots of questions posted related to getting it up & running properly.
 
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