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[skifastbadly]

Hi

First an introduction.  I have just recently loaded and configured MC on my three year old HP PC running Windows 7.  I have the following hardware:
PC sound out through a Realtek audio card, digital S/PDIF to an Adcom GDA 700 DAC, which feeds an Adcom pre-amp, Adcom amp, and out to Klipsch KLF 20 speakers.   I have had this system in place for several years, running Windows Media Center.  However, because I'm a moron and did not properly research the topic (despite years in the software business myself) my original rips were to WAV because I thought that would preserve the highest audio quality.  Because of the known tagging shortcomings of WAV files I moved to WMP lossless but as time went on, I realized FLAC was probably a better format, and when my hard disc crashed and WMP had to be re-educated on the WAV files I decided to bite the bullet, find the best possible media player, convert to FLAC and move on.     A week later, here I am.  I have about 1700 CDs on the system.

So that's who I am.  Now the question:
Obviously with the DAC I'm shooting for the best possible sound, and so it was with some interest and confusion that I read through the documentation on output path, and how you'd prefer if possible to write directly to the hardware without a software layer.   The audio card I have in the server apparently doesn't support that because the only path that works is the (Not Direct) path....and this made me very sad because I thought I was settling, and I thought maybe I need to go out and buy another audio card.  But then it occurred to me:  if I'm going out digitally to the DAC, why would any of that matter.  Wouldn't that really only be an issue if the D-A was occurring in the computer itself?

I don't know if this tells me anything, but when I play my HDCD files, the HDCD light on the DAC illuminates, which would indicate to me some quality of signal.  But hey, I'm not a hardware guy and since I'm really just getting started, and thought an introduction was in order anyway, I'd ask here.

Thoughts?

[JimH]

Maybe I missed it, but what is your audio output set to?  The wiki has a topic on Audio Setup.

[skifastbadly]

Maybe I missed it, but what is your audio output set to?  The wiki has a topic on Audio Setup.

Thanks for the quick response.   The audio output (device) is set to Default Audio Device [Direct Sound].  The other options are HDMI (which is, in this case for video) and Realtek Digital Output (Realtek High Definition Audio) [WASAPI]  but on that setting I can't get files to play.  So it appears that MC sees the card but I'm perhaps missing a configuration step?

[skifastbadly]

OK I figured it out.  At least in my configuration I had to go into the Windows audio config section and check "Exclusive Control".  Now it appears to be working as I was hoping.

Thanks