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[devhead]

I have a Asus Xonar Essence STX card connected via coaxial into my Onkyo A/V receiver, driving a pair of Polk Monitor 40s. 

I just hooked up a subwoofer (PSW10) to the Subwoofer out on the receiver, and configured the receiver for the subwoofer, tweaked the settings on the unit until everything sounded good.  My only issue that I can't figure out is the subwoofer outputs nothing unless I have the DSP Output format set to Dolby Digital.  If it's turned off, the subwoofer never gets anything from the amp.  When it's on, it's great, but if I have only PCM output (from the sound card through the digital output) there is nothing coming from the subwoofer, only the 2 main speakers.  I've configured it every which way possible, but the subwoofer only fires if I have the DSP set to Dolby Digital output.  If  I play a CD from my Blu-ray player, no problem, the subwoofer works like it should.  But from MC, no go.  I have the output as WASAPI Event from the sound card.

Anyone have any ideas why this is so?  Thank you in advance!

[mwillems]

I have a Asus Xonar Essence STX card connected via coaxial into my Onkyo A/V receiver, driving a pair of Polk Monitor 40s. 

I just hooked up a subwoofer (PSW10) to the Subwoofer out on the receiver, and configured the receiver for the subwoofer, tweaked the settings on the unit until everything sounded good.  My only issue that I can't figure out is the subwoofer outputs nothing unless I have the DSP Output format set to Dolby Digital.  If it's turned off, the subwoofer never gets anything from the amp.  When it's on, it's great, but if I have only PCM output (from the sound card through the digital output) there is nothing coming from the subwoofer, only the 2 main speakers.  I've configured it every which way possible, but the subwoofer only fires if I have the DSP set to Dolby Digital output.  If  I play a CD from my Blu-ray player, no problem, the subwoofer works like it should.  But from MC, no go.  I have the output as WASAPI Event from the sound card.

Anyone have any ideas why this is so?  Thank you in advance!

My understanding is that the SPDIF format doesn't support lossless output with more than 2 channels.  The only way to get multichannel out of SPDIF is to encode it using compression like Dolby Digital. 

[devhead]

My understanding is that the SPDIF format doesn't support lossless output with more than 2 channels.  The only way to get multichannel out of SPDIF is to encode it using compression like Dolby Digital. 

Ah, is that what's happening; thank you for the quick reply!  So, what do you think, should I hook my sound card to my receiver with my analog cables like I originally had, and have the audio sent through that way?  I have to say, the audio quality using the Dolby Digital decoder from my receiver is very good, but I'm wondering if there's any advantage to having it sent without encoding from MC and decoded from my receiver. 

[mwillems]

Ah, is that what's happening; thank you for the quick reply!  So, what do you think, should I hook my sound card to my receiver with my analog cables like I originally had, and have the audio sent through that way?  I have to say, the audio quality using the Dolby Digital decoder from my receiver is very good, but I'm wondering if there's any advantage to having it sent without encoding from MC and decoded from my receiver. 

Dolby Digital is lossy compression (i.e. the original signal cannot be perfectly reconstituted from the compressed version), so if your goal is bit perfect output, Dolby Digital isn't a good choice.  I don't have much experience with Dolby Digital personally, so I don't know if it's a relatively benign lossy codec or what (some lossy codecs sound pretty similar to lossless ones, some really don't).  Maybe someone on here with more experience can weigh in on the "audibility" of using Dolby Digital compression (or the lack thereof).

I'm not sure about the analog method: on the one hand you have a soundcard with very nice analog outputs that you're currently bypassing; on the other hand, I think the STX only has two analog outputs, right?  So aren't you back to square one regarding the sub?

If you want bit-perfect digital playback for multi-channel, HDMI is the way to go if you have the ports.

[prerich]

I have a Asus Xonar Essence STX card connected via coaxial into my Onkyo A/V receiver, driving a pair of Polk Monitor 40s. 

I just hooked up a subwoofer (PSW10) to the Subwoofer out on the receiver, and configured the receiver for the subwoofer, tweaked the settings on the unit until everything sounded good.  My only issue that I can't figure out is the subwoofer outputs nothing unless I have the DSP Output format set to Dolby Digital.  If it's turned off, the subwoofer never gets anything from the amp.  When it's on, it's great, but if I have only PCM output (from the sound card through the digital output) there is nothing coming from the subwoofer, only the 2 main speakers.  I've configured it every which way possible, but the subwoofer only fires if I have the DSP set to Dolby Digital output.  If  I play a CD from my Blu-ray player, no problem, the subwoofer works like it should.  But from MC, no go.  I have the output as WASAPI Event from the sound card.

Anyone have any ideas why this is so?  Thank you in advance!

In JRiver DSP studio, go to output format and right under where you set the channel output, check "for stereo sources only mix to 2.1" that will route to your sub.

[devhead]

In JRiver DSP studio, go to output format and right under where you set the channel output, check "for stereo sources only mix to 2.1" that will route to your sub.

Yeah, that was one of the first things I did, but it didn't work; still no output from the subwoofer.  So, I've done something else entirely - since I have an HDMI cable going to my receiver also, I've routed the digital audio from Media Center through that (using WASAPI), and it works perfect. And the sound is excellent!  So, now my audio card is being used just for my PC.

[csimon]

I'm not sure about the analog method: on the one hand you have a soundcard with very nice analog outputs that you're currently bypassing; on the other hand, I think the STX only has two analog outputs, right?  So aren't you back to square one regarding the sub?

Analogue would be fine surely, the amp would then do the crossover itself and invoke the sub, depending on its settings. Otherwise sub would never work with anything that's coming in externally on analogue, and I'm sure that's not right.

[mwillems]

Analogue would be fine surely, the amp would then do the crossover itself and invoke the sub, depending on its settings. Otherwise sub would never work with anything that's coming in externally on analogue, and I'm sure that's not right.

I wasn't sure about the mixing capacity of his receiver as it already seemed to be failing to create a sub channel out of the two-channel SPDIF signal he was sending it; I wasn't sure if it would do any better with a two channel analog signal.  If the receiver is getting a stereo analog input, you're right, the vast majority of receivers can create a sub track out of the stereo downmix, but I wasn't sure what was up with his receiver.

And, all's well that ends well: HDMI is a much better solution anyway, as he can take advantage of JRiver's superior (and much more configurable) downmixing/channel mixing instead of just relying on whatever the receiver happens to be doing (or not doing).

[csimon]

I'm pretty sure my amp does sub OK even via SPDIF, it allows you to select whatever mode you want to process it with (Stereo, PLII, Neo 6, multichannel stereo, DSP modes etc and the subwoofer crossover settings take effect), but I know that when you feed it multichannel via Dolby Digital or via discrete 5.1 inputs it will only output the channels that you give it and you can't change the mode. But I've always found all this confusing!

[mwillems]

I'm pretty sure my amp does sub OK even via SPDIF, it allows you to select whatever mode you want to process it with (Stereo, PLII, Neo 6, multichannel stereo, DSP modes etc and the subwoofer crossover settings take effect), but I know that when you feed it multichannel via Dolby Digital or via discrete 5.1 inputs it will only output the channels that you give it and you can't change the mode. But I've always found all this confusing!

Yeah, I know what you mean, I always found receiver mixing options pretty confusing and/or limiting.  That's a big part of why I decided to give up on the receiver/integrated amp thing entirely.  It wasn't a cheap decision, but now (having spent the money), I can't imagine going back to a receiver again.

[csimon]

The thing for me is that I do use the amp for movies too so for simplicity alone it makes sense to use it for audio. Besides, I find some music sounds better in stereo, some sounds better in pseudo-surround (i.e. PLII Music), some sound better in all-channel stereo, and it's much much easier to switch between these modes with one button press via the amp, rather than doing it via audio settings/zones in MC and struggling with Theater View.

[mwillems]

The thing for me is that I do use the amp for movies too so for simplicity alone it makes sense to use it for audio. Besides, I find some music sounds better in stereo, some sounds better in pseudo-surround (i.e. PLII Music), some sound better in all-channel stereo, and it's much much easier to switch between these modes with one button press via the amp, rather than doing it via audio settings/zones in MC and struggling with Theater View.

That makes sense, and it's definitely easier to do things like that on the fly with a receiver.  I think our listening preferences are different in a few ways that make our use cases different.

I also use the same setup for video and for audio, but I usually don't like the way upmixed stereo audio sounds.  So my listening is basically source channels=output channels unless I'm watching something with 7.1 audio, and then it needs to be downmixed to 5.1.  When all stereo content is output as stereo (or 2.1), zoneswitch works a treat and can be "set and forgotten."  By contrast, I could never fully grasp (or disable) some of the processing my old receiver was doing, and couldn't (for example) get the kind of sub crossover that I wanted at all.  

Given my listening habits, I'm much happier being able to specify everything exactly and then forget about it forever, but if I liked different kinds of upmixing, you're right, there isn't really a good way to do that on the fly in JRiver.