Cubilux Budget 7.1 USB Sound Card Review

[fordiebianco]

You’ll connect it to a PC via USB and the media player on the PC will handle decoding

Thank you.

As Dolby etc are proprietary, do Linux players decoding these exist?

 

[john61ct]

The older ones are now public domain.

Personally I hate all proprietary encoding, am only interested in upmixing algo's, from 2ch PCM sources only.

Possibly ending up with 24 or more output channels given active crossivers, per-driver DSP bi-amp tri-amp, lots of subs.

That all gets very expensive choosing the "normal pricey" gear, even for just 8ch per unit

so when someone like @amirm states

> why not save money on not eating lunch out a few days and getting a more premium solution?

my ears perk up, especially if there are better units with current drivers for windows and UAC2 for RPi/Linux

 

[john61ct]

Google suggests

ASUS Xonar Essence STX II 7.1

but discontinued.

...

As good as ASUS Xonar Essence STX II 7.1 ?

Looking for PCIe with 8 channels, not discontinued, either well accepted Linux software or UAC2 plus updated ASIO drivers for modern windoze

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[10PSPMemSticksForMiku2007]

Thanks for reviewing one of these. Good information.

 

[Watire]

Using a Windows PC is it possible to route the multi-channel audio signal from a streaming service native application to this kind of USB audio device ?
Or do we need some kind of Dolby decoding middle driver in order to get each and every channel assigned to the device output matrix ?

 

[kyuu]

Using a Windows PC is it possible to route the multi-channel audio signal from a streaming service native application to this kind of USB audio device ?
Or do we need some kind of Dolby decoding middle driver in order to get each and every channel assigned to the device output matrix ?

The streaming service will not decode the audio for you, that has to be taken care of downstream. I'm assuming you need multichannel PCM to get the individual channels out to the DAC(s) on this thing, and AFAIK no streaming service outputs multichannel PCM.

 

[10PSPMemSticksForMiku2007]

Using a Windows PC is it possible to route the multi-channel audio signal from a streaming service native application to this kind of USB audio device ?
Or do we need some kind of Dolby decoding middle driver in order to get each and every channel assigned to the device output matrix ?

Generally yes. Surround sound on PC is mostly PCM-based with 3.5mm jacks for the output, and software players are expected to decode any 7.1 codecs to PCM that goes to whatever - headphone virtualizer, sound card, usb, hdmi, etc. Even today, a huge portion of the multichannel users on PC are not using AVRs/AVPs or HDMI audio. That includes me currently.
If the streaming is FLAC or Opus-based you can be sure it will be decoded in software.

There are exceptions. Atmos currently has no software decoder on Windows that will work with streaming services. It's only for bitstreaming over HDMI. I believe Macs are the only computer with software Atmos support over PCM/Analog outputs. Also there are some streaming services that refuse to output any 5.1/7.1 in surround sound over PCM and only support bitstreaming. There were many complaints over this with Netflix but I haven't kept up with it.

 

[phofman]

As Dolby etc are proprietary, do Linux players decoding these exist?

Up to Dolby TrueHD, implemented e.g. in ffmpeg.

 

[phofman]

I searched alsa-db database of linux alsa-info outputs https://www.alsa-project.org/cardinfo-db/ (locally on my computer) for the Cubilux CA7 device (as called in the user guide). The card specs fit perfectly Cubilux CA7 found in that DB, e.g. https://www.alsa-project.org/db/?f=53280e59f687749e10b07fef91f2a44ebe084e29 . There the usb descriptor says

Device Descriptor:
  ....
  idVendor           0x0bda Realtek Semiconductor Corp.
  idProduct          0x4f25 CUBILUX CA7

So the device is most likely based on one of the Realtek USB audio codecs. E.g. ALC4080 is 8ch analog out/2ch in, but all 8ch out are 384kHz max, 2ch in are 192kHz max. Maybe the ranges can be limited in firmware. Maybe the chip is some custom unpublished Realtek.

Nevertheless that alsa-info dump shows the card has separate input gain for L and R. Maybe the driver/controls did not set the gains equally for both channels when measuring the device, making the Ch1 almost muted.

Card sysdefault:1 'CA7'/'Generic CUBILUX CA7 at usb-0000:01:00.0-9.1, high speed'
  Mixer name    : 'USB Mixer'
  Components    : 'USB0bda:4f25'
  Controls      : 20
  Simple ctrls  : 4
Simple mixer control 'PCM',0
  Capabilities: pvolume pswitch pswitch-joined
  Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right - Rear Left - Rear Right - Front Center - Woofer - Side Left - Side Right
  Limits: Playback 0 - 87
  Mono:
  Front Left: Playback 87 [100%] [0.00dB] [on]
  Front Right: Playback 87 [100%] [0.00dB] [on]
  Rear Left: Playback 87 [100%] [0.00dB] [on]
  Rear Right: Playback 87 [100%] [0.00dB] [on]
  Front Center: Playback 87 [100%] [0.00dB] [on]
  Woofer: Playback 87 [100%] [0.00dB] [on]
  Side Left: Playback 87 [100%] [0.00dB] [on]
  Side Right: Playback 87 [100%] [0.00dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'PCM',1
  Capabilities: pvolume pswitch pswitch-joined
  Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Playback 0 - 87
  Mono:
  Front Left: Playback 60 [69%] [-20.25dB] [on]
  Front Right: Playback 60 [69%] [-20.25dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Line',0
  Capabilities: cvolume cswitch cswitch-joined
  Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Capture 0 - 56
  Front Left: Capture 16 [29%] [0.00dB] [on]
  Front Right: Capture 16 [29%] [0.00dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Mic',0
  Capabilities: cvolume cswitch cswitch-joined
  Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Capture 0 - 56
  Front Left: Capture 16 [29%] [0.00dB] [on]
  Front Right: Capture 16 [29%] [0.00dB] [on]

 

[Cote Dazur]

This might no be the biggest bang available, but the ratio of bang for the buck is off the chart, at the end of the day does what it says it does for very little money,
That is great to me.

 

[john61ct]

Overall my impression is more positive than negative considering that you are getting 8 channels of output. Still, why not save money on not eating lunch out a few days and getting a more premium solution?

I hope my persistence on this is not perceived as anything but sincere

I am not trying to be annoying on purpose.

But I **really** would appreciate better SQ examples in this category

even if these lunches include a bit of caviar?