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[JonnyRedHed]

I'd like to ask for help and clarity on the optical out options I have in JRiver please.  I am extremely rusty with optical out having not used it in many a year now.
I've just moved to my first cheap headphone amp the SMSL SD 793II DAC Headphone amp (max optical spec 24bit/96Khz),  using a windows 7 x64 computer for audio playback (i5 2500k,ASRock Extreme4 Z67,16Gb Muskin redline ridgeback 2133 ram), using a Xonar DX sound cards optical out via a Toslink mini jack to the headphone amp (1.5m).

Volume = internal
Loudness - on
Bitsreaming: none (recommended)
Play silence at start up for hardware sync:  can be 1/4 or 1/2 (none is a bit odd sounding)
Do not play silence (leading and trailing): off, for now,  not sure really if it should be off or on.

System S/PDIF out set to 24bit/96Khz with both exclusive options checked and max volume set.

Xonar Uni drivers (latest)  low latency option no control panel and running through xonar Switch for settings.  System/card set to 24bit 96Khz.  Digital out on = PCM.    The headphone does not except Dolby Digital live etc.

ASIO option only shows 16bit,  and is set to default 10ms but shows as low as 2ms.   I'm not using ASIO at present.

Headphones new Philips X1 with replacement cable (3m)


I have a new zone set up for these headphones,  playback from ram set,  and in DSP volume levelling and adaptive volume and headphones options on.



The thing I I'm not too sure about is the next steps.

In playback options I see many audio device out choices, which I can narrow down for optical I think to:

ASUS Xonar ASIO Driver  - (with xonar dx chosen as volume device) all other settings default.
S/PDIF Pass-through Device (ASUS Xonar DX Audio Device) [WASAPI]
ASUS Xonar DX Digital [Kernel Streaming]

Other options for direct sound I've ignored.

Also there are options for:
ASUS Xonar DX Audio Device [WASAPI]  - which works for my 5.1 speakers (analogue),  and also the optical out works - which confused me.   I thought this was analogue out,  is it processing the sound via the analogue circuit and then doing an internal conversion again before optical out.

There is also kernel streaming and direct sound out.



I assume I would be focusing in on:

ASUS Xonar ASIO Driver  - (with xonar dx chosen as volume device) all other settings default.
S/PDIF Pass-through Device (ASUS Xonar DX Audio Device) [WASAPI] - default settings and max volume during playback.


and maybe what does this do, using the analogue:
ASUS Xonar DX Audio Device [WASAPI]

But I'm not sure what's occurring with this option.  Is it doing internal D/A conversion and then processing the signal via the xonar analogue circuit adding its own flavour and then back A/D to go optical out.   I don't know,  I'm very rusty with all this and could do with some clarity please.


They all work, they all work fine to my ears to honest.    I've like to know what I should be focusing in on and option suggestions.  I'm a bit confused by so many working options.  And what to be listening for to tell which should be the better option.

There is one small glitch,  using S/PDIF Pass-through Device (ASUS Xonar DX Audio Device) [WASAPI]  I notice refreshing IE11 pages gives a tiny pop/jump in the playing audio, that ASIO or kernel streaming or analogue out does not.  Odd. 

Thanks.

[Matt]

Personally I'd use the ASIO option.

[JonnyRedHed]

Personally I'd use the ASIO option.

Ok I can try this,   it works ok.    

The Uni Xonar drivers I just notice now offer 16/24/32 bit depth.   Which should I be using?    And then options for latency which is default set to 10ms.   Should I change this to something lower.   Can I also ask what are these bit depth options in the ASIO driver.   I'm not too sure how this relates to the music I play, to the xonars 24/96 output I have set, if at all related.  


Also in JRiver ASIO window I don't really know which options to set.  Could I have some advice on which to try please.

[JonnyRedHed]

Up to setting up the ASIO options,  are the steps I've documented in the OP been the right ones?  its all mostly best guesses so far.

I set:

ASUS Xonar ASIO Driver
changed the xonar uni drivers ASIO options to 32bitdepth and 4ms latency.  (should I set 32 or 24?) and I'm not sure what the latency does.
set jriver ASIO to xonar device for volume.
set device uses only most significant 24 bits:  on

Playing a good vinyl rip with good periods of silence The Staves 'Dead & Born & Grown' [24bit-96khz] FLAC.

The audio path output shows, 96khz 32bit 2ch (direct connection)

Sounds great through the SMSL SD-793II DAC Headphone amp - and Philips X1 headphones.


have I done this correctly for ASIO ?


and can someone please explain these other options, in regards to optical out:

S/PDIF Pass-through Device (ASUS Xonar DX Audio Device) [WASAPI]
ASUS Xonar DX Audio Device [WASAPI]

[JonnyRedHed]

Anyone have any thoughts on why I hear the odd click using web browsers whilst listening to jriver with ASIO output to DAC/headphone amp.

IE11 seems the worst, and Firefox mostly when opening new tabs or clicking a link url on a page.