[Mad Lust Envy]

It's hot in Canada? :eek:

Ah, ok, I didn't know you already had the STX. Yeah, no sense in selling it if you're not gonna get much for it. I don't know why you'd wanna attach a dac to it. I hear it has a pretty good dac and amp already. Though I suppose if you can't pass dolby headphone through an analog line out, a dac would make sense, instead of attaching an amp to it's headphone jack to not get caught by the internal amp's high output impedance...

 

[Sarith]

I live in a weird part of Canada. Weather constantly changes, can go from warm to snow to warm again in the span of an hour. We get a weather phenomenon that as far as I know doesn't occur any where else in the world (called a Chinook Wind). It has snowed in every month of the year and temperatures can go from -40 to +40 Celsius (-31 to 104 in Fahrenheit i guess)

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

That is...scary.

 

[Seamless Sounds]

Just listened to some virtual "binaural" surround sound in games on youtube. Wasn't impressed at all. Then again, I don't know any games that focuses on actual sound perception and physics.
 
1. The sound doesn't seem to interact with the environment at all. They're mostly area triggers. There ought to be an API that makes it easier for the developers to implement this.
2. The panning is unnatural. It pans left and right too hard as if one of my ear furthest away from the source goes deaf.
 
More research needs to be poured into psycho-acoustics and acoustical physics in games for headphones!

 

[Jd007]

I notice that in the guide for getting DSP features out of sound cards' digital out, the guide said to set Listen to "What U Hear" device in Windows recording device settings. However I noticed that in the new Creative cards' control center, you can check a box that says "Play stereo mix through S/PDIF", which is the Creative's official way to get DSP features through digital out. I was wondering if anybody knows the difference between the two? Right now I have both settings on just in case.

 

[NamelessPFG]

Quote:

I notice that in the guide for getting DSP features out of sound cards' digital out, the guide said to set Listen to "What U Hear" device in Windows recording device settings. However I noticed that in the new Creative cards' control center, you can check a box that says "Play stereo mix through S/PDIF", which is the Creative's official way to get DSP features through digital out. I was wondering if anybody knows the difference between the two? Right now I have both settings on just in case.

 
I think you're mixing up the S/PDIF output instructions with the USB output instructions. Guess I better re-write the guide one of these days.
 
"Play Stereo Mix using Digital Output" is what you need for S/PDIF; all that kludgery with "What U Hear" and using Windows to listen in on it through another audio device is only needed for USB devices, and that tends to be a bit of a crapshoot quality-wise.

 

[SniperCzar]

Quote:

 
I think you're mixing up the S/PDIF output instructions with the USB output instructions. Guess I better re-write the guide one of these days.
 
"Play Stereo Mix using Digital Output" is what you need for S/PDIF; all that kludgery with "What U Hear" and using Windows to listen in on it through another audio device is only needed for USB devices, and that tends to be a bit of a crapshoot quality-wise.

^This.

Most amps have some sort of digital in, I only ever kludged together a method for USB out when I was stuck without a proper optical-to-mini cable or when I was trying to output to two audio devices simultaneously (can't remember which honestly). Still a useful method every so often but yeah... just use an optical cable.

 

[Jd007]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NamelessPFG /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
"Play Stereo Mix using Digital Output" is what you need for S/PDIF; all that kludgery with "What U Hear" and using Windows to listen in on it through another audio device is only needed for USB devices, and that tends to be a bit of a crapshoot quality-wise.

Thanks nameless. I removed the listen on what u hear.
 
in foobar i set the output to be my spdif directly through wasapi, but sometimes when i quit foobar and starts playing something through system sounds (like a youtube vid), the volume level would change after some seconds of playing. is there a cause for it?

 

[genclaymore]

Also What u hear  tend to stop working when you sending it to a usb device, causing you to mess around with it. Til it starts working again.

 

[fragurass]

Quote:

OK I've been having a strange problem with my setup, I don't know exactly how to describe it but when I am moving my mouse around on the desktop or just surfing the net its constantly making some kind of whirly/whistly static/interfence type of noise (sorry don't really know how to describe it). 
 
However I just tested and it only happens when I am running my headphones through my amplifier, I don't hear it when I'm connected directly to my sound card. What would be causing the amp to make this noise?
 
Sound Card: X-Fi Titanium HD
Amp: Schiit Asgard 2
Headphones: AKG K702 65th Anniversary Edition
 
I'd like to figure out how to fix this as its extremely annoying to hear this noise almost constantly on the desktop. Also, when gaming if its quiet I can hear a humming type of noise as well with the amp, but its not there when just plugged directly into the soundcard.
 
I'm connecting the amp through RCA to RCA cables, although they are pretty crappy old cables, I have ordered some premium monoprice cables to see if that makes any difference or not.

 
Quote:

plugging it into the headphone jack using my monoprice 3.5mm to rca cables i still get the same noise.
 
I switched the amp to another power strip and the noise has been dramatically reduced but its still audible, both with RCA to RCA, and 3.5mm to RCA. (At the same volume settings as before)
 
I haven't tried the asgard 2 yet with my mixamp and consoles so I dont know if there would be any hum noise there yet.
 
I am embarassed to say that my cabling/power strip situation right now is a mess, so maybe the new RCA cables will reduce the noise altogether, and possibly a new power strip as the ones I have now are pretty crappy.
 
any other suggestions to try?  I have the digital in muted right now as well

Dude I just got the Asgard 2 yesterday, with monoprice 3.5mm to rca cables and I have the X-Fi Titanium fatal1ty + HD600s.
 
I am having the exact same problem, I have the TX750 powersupply... my  mouse (Zowie EC1 eVo) is plugged into the rear of the case (HAF-X)
 
After seeing your setup, I would think we have other problems besides the asgard 2 being defective. 
 
Are you running it on High Gain mode?

 

[Kost]

Quote:

MadLustEnvy: I know people think the U3 is a bad device, but what they're not realizing, is that you can bypass both the amp AND dac and keep Dolby headphone. You just need a spdif dac (not sure if some of you use USB dacs or whatnot). The U3's 3.5mm audio jack is also an spdif jack, so once you attach a dac (something as great and cheap as the Fiio D03k), you are no longer dealing with the U3's imperfections, and using it solely for the software and Dolby Headphone.

My setup:

Gaming:

Alienware M17x R4 - USB - Xonar U3 - Spdif out - Fiio D03k - Analog in - Compass 2 - Headphones

 
I'm kind of confused by this. I thought that spdif didn't support more than 2 channels of PCM because of bandwidth and so it has to be encoded in dolby/dts, but that the receiving device has to be able to decode dolby/DTS, so unless its configured to do that a normal external plug and play dac wouldn't work.
 
I'm new to PC gaming (and audio enhanced gaming in general). I was thinking about buying one of these soundcards and outputting via USB to my dac, or perhaps RCA from the soundcard directly to my amp.
 
Also, how can the U3 soundcard process the audio to give dolby headphone but then bypass the DAC? I thought the DAC did the dsp/dolby/surroundsound conversion.
 
My external dac has BNC,  toslink, RCA, AES/EBU, XLR and USB inputs. Honestly I'm not even sure if BNC is a digital or analog connection. I found BNC to RCA adapters so I guess its probably analog.
 
Sorry for the confusion but I'm a bit lost.

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

What's there to be confused about?

The U3's audio out is a combination jack. It's an SPDIF out and an analog out.

The software has a setting for the out. It can do analog out. It can do SPDIF out in it's rawest form (untouched signal, like a pure Dolby Digital signal, or a 2 channel PCM signal), and it can also do SPDIF out with software settings kept intact (Dolby headphone, EQ, etc, still in effect).

How can it add Dolby headphone but bypass the DAC? There is software that does Dolby headphone, and keeps it digital, until you pass that signal through a DAC. So the logical assumption is that Dolby Digital gets converted to the Dolby headphone digitally. With other devices like the Mixamp, there was no digital out option (other than a pure passthorugh), so it HAD to go into the DAC at some point, but doesn't necessarily mean that Dolby headphone itself is directly tied to the DAC, as is evident with the Xonar U3.

That is, unless the U3 is doing something wonky like converting Dolby Digital to Dolby headphone through the DAC, and the analog signal is then converted back to digital so it can then be sent through the SPDIF out... which is highly doubtful.

All i know is that it WORKS, lol. So you get a digital Dolby headphone signal and you can use your own DAC (with spdif) that will convert it to analog for your amp.

I've sold my Compass 2 and have downgraded to a Fiio E12. So I'll be sending my U3's digital signal to my Fiio D03K and then to my E12.

 

[NamelessPFG]

To sum up what MLE's saying:
 
The Xonar U3's drivers are taking the source audio, probably eight PCM channels for a 7.1 setup, mixing them with Dolby Headphone, and then piping out the DH-mixed two-channel signal in pure PCM over S/PDIF to let the external DAC do the dirty work.
 
That's what I mean when I say that sound cards can still be viable as DSPs for gaming, even if you're bypassing the DAC.

 

[Kost]

Quote:

All i know is that it WORKS, lol. So you get a digital Dolby headphone signal and you can use your own DAC (with spdif) that will convert it to analog for your amp.

 
 
Quote:

To sum up what MLE's saying:
 
The Xonar U3's drivers are taking the source audio, probably eight PCM channels for a 7.1 setup, mixing them with Dolby Headphone, and then piping out the DH-mixed two-channel signal in pure PCM over S/PDIF to let the external DAC do the dirty work.
 
That's what I mean when I say that sound cards can still be viable as DSPs for gaming, even if you're bypassing the DAC.

 
Thanks a lot! That clarifies some things. So basically I just need a soundcard that has all the dsp and surround sound technologies, even if it's the lowest grade card since I'm just gonna bypass the internal amp/dac anyway. I suppose I don't even need all of that either though, since all the data would be converted to dolby or DTS through the headphones anyway, making the rest of that stuff useless unless I was gonna attempt to get sound directly from the card or set up speakers.

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

No, you need a soundcard that ALLOWS you bypass it. By chance these xonars do that. You can't just buy any soundcard and expect it to do that. Prior tk me pointing it out, I don't remember seeing anyone mentioning any soundcard doing that.