[TheGhostWhoWalks]

PC: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
DAC: Esoteric K-01 Asynchronous USB
 
I'm a PC Audio newbie and this is my first try at using an external DAC. The K-01 comes with three USB modes: normal (up to 96kHz), High Speed 1 (up to 192kHz), High Speed 2 (Asynchronous up to 192kHz). Obviously, my desire is to use it HS2 mode to take advantage of the advanced clock inside the K-01 and to bypass any and all PC interference. I installed the High Speed drivers with no problem, and started using it with Foobar 2k and Wasapi. Playback is fine most of the time, but every now and then I'll get a playback error that the device is not ready and the DAC basically disappears as a usable audio device. I can press the "mode" button on the K-01 to cycle back around to USB and it will show up again. I even got a couple of blue screen crashes. I've tried decreasing/increasing the buffering size, but that seems to have no effect. I tried using Kernel Streaming, but encountered the same problem. I tried using Wasapi Event Mode but just got noise. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling everything and updating F2K to the latest, and while that seemed to help some, I'm still encountering the problem. I even downloaded a trial version of JRiver MC and tried it with that, but on my first playback I got a blue screen crash (which happened only once with F2K).
 
I'm really at my wit's end trying to figure out what the problem is... is it possibly a hardware problem? Or maybe some problem between Windows 7 64 and the drivers? The drivers I installed were for Windows 7 64-bit. Should I try switching to ASIO? Would trying some kind of player with smaller buffering sizes help? I've read that some people with USB DACs have better results with sub-50ms buffering, but I don't even know of any players that have that. Any suggestions/advice would be appreciated...

 

[belisk]

Hmm try AIMP?
JRiver should work great as foobar is known to have problems with USB DAC's
 
Also try right clicking speaker icon bottom right > playback devices > right click your default device(disable the others) > properties > advanced > set to highest option(192kHz?) in dropdown menu > make sure both boxes are checked > Ok > ok > ok.

 

[Roseval]

[size=medium]ASIO – only possible if the DAC supports it.[/size]
[size=medium]Buffer size, JRiver allows you to change it.[/size]
[size=medium]If possible try it on a PC running Win 32.[/size]
[size=medium]I suspect it is a USB driver issue not an audio driver problem.[/size]
 
[size=medium]Esoteric supplies a driver for the Mac as well. This indicates it is not using USB Audio Class 2 but some proprietary driver. Maybe M2Tech. Try to find out what they are using for the USB receiver.[/size]
[size=medium]If it is a OEM solution it might be easier to find a solution as there are few Esoteric users but many e.g. M2Tech users. [/size]

 

[TheGhostWhoWalks]

Thanks for all the suggestions. So far I have:
 
-Switched to JRiver MC (I like the interface better anyway)
-Tried Wasapi, Wasapi Event, and KS with low and high buffering (ASIO isn't supported)
-Disabled other audio devices and set default device to 24-bit/192kHz
 
None of this has worked, so I'm starting to think it's a driver issue as well. I have an old 32-bit PC around somewhere running Vista (I think), so I will try that later. Is there any easy way to find out what drivers Esoteric is using? When it was installing, I think it said something about Galaxy Far East or something like that...

 

[Roseval]

Then it is the Tenor chip, can't help you more: http://www.gfec.com.tw/tenor

 

[TheGhostWhoWalks]

Just doing a quick search on Google it does seem like others have had problems with Tenor chips, though it mostly seems like a problem for Linux users; I didn't see anything from W7 users. I've still yet to try setting it up with 32-bit. Is there any chance that Esoteric would know how to fix the problem? I'd be willing to send either unit in if they could, but that would be a real pain to pack and ship if not...