Note: I listen mainly with headphones, and usually post on head-fi. The better copy of this guide and more discussion are at:
http://www4.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=113059Here's the results of my experimentation with the Chaintech AV710 with
JRiver Media Center. There are good guides out there for getting
good audio out of it with Foobar 2000, but I have not yet found one
for JRiver Media Center.
This card is a great buy at $27 shipped (newegg.com). There are
better threads discussing the pros/cons of this card, but in short,
its cheap, can do bit-perfect SPDIF out, and has a very good DAC on
the rear surround output that sounds almost as good as many of the
cards in the $100 range. The other 6 channels use a cheap DAC and are
not particularly good.
Now here's the guide!
Do not use the Chaintech AV710 drivers, instead, get the "VIA Vinyl
Envy24 controllers" driver from:
http://www.viaarena.com/ , click
Drivers. I used version 442a, dated 12 January 2005
Install ASIO4ALL -
http://www.asio4all.com. Versions 2.4 and 2.5 are verified to work according to this guide
After you have the VIA drivers and ASIO4ALL installed:
Open the "ASIO4ALL Offline Settings" control panel, select "Envy24
Family Audio Controller WDM"
- Click advanced
- Drag the "ASIO Buffer Size" bar to 256 samples
- On my setup, I can use the Hardware Buffer option without issues. If you have trouble such as no sound, pops, or clicks, try with and without the Hardware Buffer option.
Open the VIA Vinyl Audio Control Panel
For simultaneous output on rear surround output and SPDIF (recommended):
- Choose 2 channel from the buttons at the top
- Go to Advanced Controls tab
- Check Enable Digital Output, and choose PCM Only
- Make sure Sample Rate Select > Automatic is checked
In j.river Media Center, go to Tools > Options
Go to Playback options
- Choose Output mode: ASIO
- Click Output Mode settings
- Choose ASIO4ALL v2 as the device
- Set channel offset to 0
- Click DSP & Output Format
- For bitdepth, choose "Source Bitdepth"
- For channels, choose "source number of channels"
- For Sample rate, choose "Source sample rate"
- Close Options, and enjoy the music
Alternate for Wolfson DAC without SPDIF:
In VIA Vinyl Control Panel:
- Choose 8 (7.1) channel from the buttons at the top
- Go to Advanced Controls tab, make sure Sample Rate Select > Automatic is checked.
In Media Center:
- Use channel offset 6 instead of 0
Caveats:
- If the Chaintech is set as your default windows audio device (Start > Control Panel > Sounds and Audio Devices, Audio tab), ASIO playback will stop if a windows sound or other application makes some sound. You will have to pause and resume playback in Media Center to get the music back.
- You will need to change settings in VIA Vinyl Control Panel to allow AC3 passthru for movies, then change them back before using Media Center again. The SPDIF output must be locked to 48khz for AC3 passthru.
ChangeList
29 Mar 05 - Changed recommended settings to 2 channel instead of 7.1, verified that SPDIF output works to my minidisc (thanks Saulous for the tip ). Added caveats. (copied changes from head-fi)
Author
Topic: Chaintech AV710, ASIO, and Media Center (Read 8718 times)