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[a9ennis]

Hello - i have been an avid reader and user of the interact forum and rarely had the need to put pen to paper. However i love a challenge so getting ASIO bit perfect driver to work well with the Essence ST was a challenge. If the stuttering and pops have been resolved before then apologies, but i have not seen it.

System Config
JRiver version 15
Asus Essence ST - using analogue out to 2 channel stereo
Asio Bit perfect driver Beta Beta Version 7.12.8.17731 and current release Version 7.12.8.1792
Windows 7 64bit
Media - CDs ripped in lossless formats 16bit 44khz ,other audio 24bit 48khz/96khz lossless

all system volumes set to 100% - incl speaker volumes in mixer panel

Volume control being done by JRiver internal digital volume

Issue
breakup and stuttering on play back.
Increasing buffer size in JRiver has no effect. Increasing sample, or bit rates make the problem worse. Scrolling rapidly through images or cover art significantly increases break up.

Solution – download the following tool to gain access to the ASIO settings.

http://www.djdecks.be/asioconfig.exe

It appears that by default Asus has set the Latency in the ESSENCE ST to 10ms. This cannot be adjusted by any control in JRiver or the Asus control Panel.
Reading one of the pro audio forums i found a Steinberg tool for adjusting the latency and setting bit depth of the ASIO sound system.
Looking through the registry I found the Keys that are altered depending on 2 audio parameters
1)   The settings in the downloaded ASIO control Paned
2)   The Sample rate adjusts according the signal being fed by the Audio application (eg JRiver)
Using this tool we can now increase the latency beyond 10ms which resolves the stuttering and breakup.

some interesting thoughts for those with more knowledge.
When I first opened the ASIO config tool, the ASIO bit depth was set to 16bit, this I confirmed by the entry in the registry. Even though I had just been playing a 24bit audio track. In JRiver it states that the output format bit depth will be set by the audio hardware. Where does JRiver get this information from ?
Surely it must be from the registry. It cannot send an audio signal see if the hardware senses it, the audio driver changes the registry setting, then JRiver reads this and adjusts accordingly. This does not seem possible?
So if Asus sets the bit depth in the registry, stating that the native bit depth is 16bit how can JRiver determine if the hardware supports 24 or 32 bit without the correct 24 or 32 bit reg entries?
Obviously one for the JRiver core support guys.
I am interested in folk thoughts

Here is the ASIO reg key locations
HKEY_CURRENT_USER/SOFTWARE/CMEDIA/xxxx.xxxx_ a long hex code/PARAMS/

[Matt]

Thanks for the post, and all the good details.

Even though I had just been playing a 24bit audio track. In JRiver it states that the output format bit depth will be set by the audio hardware. Where  does JRiver get this information from ?
Surely it must be from the registry.

The ASIO driver (ASUS in this case) requests a sample format for delivered data.  It is not configurable from our side.  I would be surprised if it requested different formats depending on a setting, because normally the hardware requests the native format of the card in ASIO.  I suppose it's possible that their ASIO driver is just a layer that talks to their regular driver, and the regular driver is designed to take all sorts of formats.

If you enable the diagnostic message-box in our ASIO settings, it will report the sample type requested when starting playback.  I can look up the sample type Monday if you like.

It appears that by default Asus has set the Latency in the ESSENCE ST to 10ms. This cannot be adjusted by any control in JRiver or the Asus control Panel

The ASIO buffer size should be configurable by a client like Media Center.  That's what our 'Use large hardware buffers' option does -- sets the hardware bufers to a larger size instead of using the card's default / current size.

Perhaps ASUS would consider improving their support for hardware buffer sizing in a future driver revision?  We would be happy to help them if they're interested.

[a9ennis]

Matt,
Thanks for the reply, its all very interesting, using regedit and refresh you can actually see the reg keys changing as you change audio sample rates and bit depths. I am going to look at the reg keys for buffer size and see if the JRiver panel is actually adjusting the buffers in the card.

Asus have got lots of criticism from the Pro Audio forums for making great hardware then implementing a poor driver.
If a tool like the lactency control allow more stable ASIO playback, any chance the Asio LAtency tool could be built into JRiver Asio Panel. Latency control is a standard freature on any pro audio ASIO application.

The ASUS ASIO driver bypasses everything on the card, nothing in the control panel or windows control works, which i believe is a good thing.

Interesting the analogue signal output is signficantly reduced, which raises more thoughts of, when everthing isn't bypassed is some sort of gain applied?

Fun and games. It sounds good too.

[Matt]

Asus have got lots of criticism from the Pro Audio forums for making great hardware then implementing a poor driver.

I've been there myself with ASUS:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=55607.msg381051#msg381051

With that said, I've heard from some users of their newer cards that seem really happy with them.

If a tool like the lactency control allow more stable ASIO playback, any chance the Asio LAtency tool could be built into JRiver Asio Panel. Latency control is a standard freature on any pro audio ASIO application.

My understanding is that latency setting is just setting the hardware buffer size.  And like I mentioned, we try to set the hardware buffer size if you enable 'Use large hardware buffers'.  It's possible there's only some special buffer sizes that the ASUS card will support.  I haven't seen this with other hardware though.

[mojave]

I have an ASUS Essence ST, too. I use the Unified Drivers 1.28 with low DPC latency. I still plan to test the ones that use the original C-Media Audio Panel, but have not installed them yet. I have also used the official ASUS beta drivers. I have not had a problem with either drivers with regard to stuttering or pops.

I'll have to check on the bit depth with ASIO. I haven't used ASIO in a while and am currently using WASAPI event style.

[chicostyle]

Hi, I have a similar problem. When the next song in playlist is a M4A purchased in iTunes (and current one is MP3, FLAC), the first seconds are played very badly (screeching noises).
Anyone had this problem? Solutions kwown?
I use MC15, Windows 7 64, ASIO, Essence ST.
Thanks!
(just to clarify, the problem only happens when a purchased M4A is in the playlist already being played. Starting a new playlist is not a problem, nor using non purchased M4A)

[Arindelle]

Hi everyone !

a couple of questions in looking at DACs ....

Has this newer driver resolved the config problems you had been referring to?? Version  7.12.8.1793 found here from Asus http://usa.asus.com/Multimedia/Audio_Cards/Xonar_Essence_STX/#download ?

It seems that the Asus' driver issues for Asio for Win7 were at fault?  What about Wasapi Event style? Why is no one using this instead of Asio any ways? ; and does anyone have any experience with the Xonar Essence ST(x) using Wasapi setup through JRiver?

thanks so much for any comments in advance

[mojave]

The Xonar Unified drivers I referenced above currently use Version 7.12.8.1793. I've use WASAPI, WASAPI - Event Style, and ASIO with the Essence ST with no problems. ASIO has the benefit of bit matching. The Asus drivers require you to set the bit rate. When using WASAPI, this bit rate will always be used (and the source resampled) unless you change it manually. I have 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, and 192 Khz bit rate material and prefer not to resample. With current Asus drivers (from Asus or modded), the drivers will automatically change the bit rate to match the source material.

[nwboater]

The Xonar Unified drivers I referenced above currently use Version 7.12.8.1793. I've use WASAPI, WASAPI - Event Style, and ASIO with the Essence ST with no problems. ASIO has the benefit of bit matching. The Asus drivers require you to set the bit rate. When using WASAPI, this bit rate will always be used (and the source resampled) unless you change it manually. I have 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, and 192 Khz bit rate material and prefer not to resample. With current Asus drivers (from Asus or modded), the drivers will automatically change the bit rate to match the source material.

Hi Michael,

I'm a little confused with what you are saying here. Is everything you are saying before "With current Asus drivers......" referring to the old drivers?

The current Unified (modded) drivers are at version 1.31. I take it these drivers automatically change bit rate? Does it matter at all what bit rate you set in their control panel?

Do you have a current preference for drivers and for Assio, WASAPI, etc on your Win 7 system?

Thanks,
Rod

[mojave]

I'm a little confused with what you are saying here. Is everything you are saying before "With current Asus drivers......" referring to the old drivers?

Everything I said was referring to the new drivers.

The current Unified (modded) drivers are at version 1.31. I take it these drivers automatically change bit rate? Does it matter at all what bit rate you set in their control panel?

The drivers only change the bit rate when using ASIO. I would say that it does matter since there is a slight tick/click at the beginning of playback when it changes bitrate. For this reason I set the bitrate to 44.1 so that it won't have to change for most of my music listening. I don't mind the slight tick at the beginning of a movie. I sometimes listen to one song before deciding on the next one and the tick/click was a little annoying.

Do you have a current preference for drivers and for Assio, WASAPI, etc on your Win 7 system?

I use the Xonar Unified Drivers 1.31. I keep going back and forth between ASIO and WASAPI - event mode with MC resampling some content. Currently I am using ASIO. There have been times with WASAPI - event mode that something just didn't sound quite right. I would switch to ASIO and would "think" that it sounded better. With ASIO, however, sometimes the lip-sync is off a little in movies. I'm still messing with buffers, etc. and the lip-sync is right on for most things. I use internal volume for ASIO and system volume for WASAPI.

[nwboater]

Hi Michael,

Thanks for the very thorough response!

Looks like you and I are doing similar things with our Essence STs. I am also running the Unified 1.31 and using Assio all the time. To me it does sound the best. I haven't been doing much video with MC lately, but once Red October (love that title!) gets a little better I may just try some Blue Rays. I haven't yet because I just don't feel like all the struggle.

Rod

[mojave]

This was added in 16.0.107:
6. Changed: Improved lip-sync when using ASIO, especially with large hardware buffer sizes.

So far, the lip-sync has seemed better with ASIO.

[Gislon]

Hooray. I think you've just sorted out something I've been struggling with. I have the rather good Xonar Essence STX card and I upgraded to Win7 (32bit) a few days a go. Thought I'd give MC16 a try (had been using foobar/ASIO).

With WASAPI (event) mode, the sound is at least as good as foobar/ASIO. The treble seems a little smoother, and the bass more plentiful.

BUT the auto sample rate switch on the XONAR has stopped working - that's with latest 1793 driver. If I've read the post above correctly, that's becuase the auto sample rate switch only works with ASIO - is that right? 

I tried using MC in ASIO mode, but it seems to disable all volume controls and since I have no pre-amp, that's not practical. Am I missing a volume control, or is that also what's supposed to happen?

Seems a shame to have to go back to foobar, but if there's no fix for either of these, I think that's what I'll do.

[JimH]

I tried using MC in ASIO mode, but it seems to disable all volume controls and since I have no pre-amp, that's not practical. Am I missing a volume control, or is that also what's supposed to happen?

Click on the speaker icon in the upper left corner of MC to change among several options.

[mojave]

Gislon, I haven't been to head-fi.org for months, but just happend to see your post there and responded. I'll put the same thing here:

The Essence only bit-matches with ASIO, not with WASAPI. Also, it isn't MC16 that is bypassing the volume controls, it is the Essence driver that bypasses the volume control. This is a result of the bit-matched driver with Windows 7. This is noted in the driver'S notes at the Asus website:

5. To keep the ASIO stream bit-perfect, the following two rules apply:
(1) The ASIO stream has higher priority of using DMA buffer than other streams. That is, when the ASIO stream is played, other streams cannot be played.
(2) No volume control is available for the ASIO stream.

I keep my bit rate in the Essence drivers at 44.1 since I listen to music most of the time. It then only makes a noise and switches when watching movies or higher resolution audio files.

JRiver Media Center can control the volume itself with its 64-bit audio path. Go to Player > Volume and switch to internal volume. You can also use the speaker icon to the left of the volume control on Standard View. There is also a new Volume Protectino feature located at the same place. The Volume Protection option (with 16.0.108 or newer) does three things:

1) Makes it so that it isn't possible to increase the volume by more than 5% at a time (so accidentally clicking 100% on the slider will not go to 100%)

2) Makes it so that the volume can not be increased by more than 20% a second

3) Makes it so that starting playback if nothing has played for 30 minutes sets the volume to 10% (unless the volume is already lower)

[Gislon]

Thanks for patience. Found the internal volume control, and am now using ASIO mode with Win7, MC16 and Xonar stx.

It plays fine if I don't touch the computer. But if I try and do anything else (internet etc) it pops and stutters - exactly as described at the top of this post. Have upgraded to unified 1793 drivers, and have tried reinstalling, but same problem.

I'll try changing buffer options, but does anyone have info on mismatched drivers? I used to use ASIO with XP and foobar, and didn't get the pops and stutters.

[mojave]

When I first opened the ASIO config tool, the ASIO bit depth was set to 16bit, this I confirmed by the entry in the registry. Even though I had just been playing a 24bit audio track.

This was from the first post and I saw earlier this week that it was a Asus driver issue. It was fixed 2/14/11 with driver 7.12.8.1793. The bit depth actually was 24 bit, but was being reported incorrectly.

1. Fix: When first open ASIO Panel, the Bit info is not shown correctly issue.

[Thunderbolt]

hi, my first post  

have to ask, because its not 100% clear to me (I am using the latest uni drivers 1794):

does asio now only do automatic sample rate changing or also automatic bitdepth changing? those two terms got confused sometimes in this thread.

in my registry, there are two "params" directories (two hyroglyph directories with one "param" subdir each) in my case for the asio entry. one of them 3 entries (apart from 'default'), the other has two entries more than the other, "bitdepth" and "LatencySel". strangely, the samplingRate value only changes for that "param" directory with the 3 entries, but not in the other one (it always remains there at 96kHz). but the other one includes the bitdepth field, which never changes automatically at all, but only when I choose another bitdepth via die asio control panel.

so now I am wondering, why these 2 different "param" directories in the registry and why does the bitdepth not change in the registry automatically? automatic sample rate change seems to be pretty useless to me if bitdepth cannot change automatically as well, the output is not supposed to be 100% lossless then if input and output bitrate dont correspond to each other.

another thing, does wasapi generally do upsampling and not change samplerate or bitdepth automatically? or does this depend on the audio card drivers?
does anyone have the registry entry for wasapi to check this?

[jesseinsf]

Thanks for patience. Found the internal volume control, and am now using ASIO mode with Win7, MC16 and Xonar stx.

It plays fine if I don't touch the computer. But if I try and do anything else (internet etc) it pops and stutters - exactly as described at the top of this post. Have upgraded to unified 1793 drivers, and have tried reinstalling, but same problem.

I'll try changing buffer options, but does anyone have info on mismatched drivers? I used to use ASIO with XP and foobar, and didn't get the pops and stutters.

you should have 2 audio sources and set the system default to the Audio source that MC won't use. That happenes to me when in exclisive mode.

[stealth82]

Thanks for patience. Found the internal volume control, and am now using ASIO mode with Win7, MC16 and Xonar stx.

It plays fine if I don't touch the computer. But if I try and do anything else (internet etc) it pops and stutters - exactly as described at the top of this post. Have upgraded to unified 1793 drivers, and have tried reinstalling, but same problem.

Same problem here. Windows 7, latest Xonar Unified drivers low latency. The only reliable solution is to use WASAPI.
Anytime I navigate the interface or I use any other programs the playback is spoiled by intermittent cracks, pops, stutters you name it. Once I stop using the mouse they stop, I didn't check if they occur also when using the keyboard.

[nwboater]

I have long been having a problem with Theater View when listening to music. When the background images change I get an audible ticking sound. I have a thread on the problem here  http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=68361.0.  Not sure the problem is related to the difficulties others here are having but it may be.

I also sometimes get a lot of these ticks if I use the mouse when listening to music.

Another place I get a LOT of ticks is when watching Live TV. If I go to time shifting they mostly go away, but lately I still get a few when Time Shifted.

Have an Asus Essence ST soundcard with H6 Daughter card. Using Unified Drivers with ASIO. Analog outputs go straight to power amps.

It seems very interesting that many people are having  these particular sound problems with their Essence soundcards.

Rod

[Trond-Eirik]

hmmm.

I have Essence st. Using spdif out to my receiver. I tried to use both asio and wasapi. worked ok on cd's, but not on multichannel dvd's or blu rays.
MCs audio parh reported that it was outputting multichannel sound, but the receiver only got 2 channel PCM.
There was also a lot of playback stuttering.
Using latest asus drivers.