I need a DAC for my PC

[john61ct]

Great, but personally I would pay extra to buy direct, their commitment to excellent and personal CS is rare, they often go above and beyond, sacrificing profits for good will.

 

[anonyless]

My motherboard is a very high performance piece of hardware. But unfortunately, they ruined the Audio by using Realtek ALC 4082 and some extra ESS chips. The ASUS impedance sensing is broken… so much so I had to create a .bat file to reset the driver after each headphone usage. Also, all the extra ESS chips are for headphones only, so the Realtek chip is my DAC for speakers.
I’ve tried a SMSL D1, but it was choppy with the windows start up sound. I did all the settings to avoid these issues, but didn’t help it. I believe the XMOS driver is the cause, but I’m not 100% sure.
Suggestions are welcome… but it does seem the Schiit Modi 5 might a decent choice because it doesn’t need a driver to function.

for troubleshooting sake, have you tried connecting the D1 the any other phone / PC , just to rule out it's not something with the DAC itself?

 

[staticV3]

My understanding is XMOS is natively supported in Apple devices. But Windows needs a driver. I believe the issue lies with the driver not loading completely before sound is played causing the audio hiccups.

Windows doesn't need a driver, no.

XMOS DACs usually work plug-and-play on modern Windows, as it defaults to the generic UAC2 audio driver then.

The audio hiccups when starting playback are not caused by the driver not loading completely, but by a power saving feature of the XMOS bridge.

Setting Streaming to Always On disables that.

 

[TonyJZX]

one thing i would note is that if your install of the audio system on win10 is already messed up then adding an external dac can also be messed up...the whole audio stack + OEM + aftermarket drivers + ASIO... nah man

i spent a lot of time on workstations that are based on servers and audio is very much an afterthought and typically we play with a lot of dacs here and so you swap 'em in and out and then yeah its a mess

its very hard to diagnose remotely because you just have to FUC around with it until it works... and once its try to leave it alone

that's the nature of microsoft who just half assed certain 'stacks' in windows... eg. switching video card brands a similar pain

 

[john61ct]

But Windows needs a driver.

Not at all, UAC2 obviates that. There may be (rare to none?) software setups downstream that want pure ASIO, but it is preferable for longevity with future Windows to go without.

 

[Jeff W]

No, it's just a crude question more than anything, not my response.

I just joined this group the other day. I bought something from a member here and he was very polite and quite friendly. I even had another member contact me outside the thread to support our uniting with regards to the sale in a very friendly complementize manner. I am 72 years old. My deeper music interests began with quadraphonic 8track playback as my advanced listening source.

On doing the transaction here recently, purchasing a DAC to run my Tung-Sol 5998, I was thinking to myself, finally... a "super friendly" group focused on helping each other with a love for the things I cherish - cleanly delivered music. I literally opened Audio Science Review page up again just now to see if there was something I could learn about my son's potential experience working with either his laptop or an external DAC. That search led me to this exchange.

I guess sadly, where ever you go you have to put up with this kind of crap.

The original poster here presented his experience along with a request for support. It was done in what I will assume was his best descriptive manner and word choice he had at the moment. It was a topic I was genuinely interested in following. I believe choppy is the word he used to describe what occurred. A word i might use. And with that, I have witnessed your numerous unyielding critical remarks that to an outsider testing the water here, seem dismissive and a bit smug. It has me worried that if I were to engage further in the group that my choice of adjectives and descriptive analysis might be judged for "crudeness" as you put it, or some other subjectivity having nothing to do with my request for help presented to the larger group.

I belong to a number of special interest groups. Music and electronics are my top interests. But it is such a turn-off when the sweetness of the topic gets Krispy by a few who are rude.

Sorry to be a downer here, but just calling it like I see it.

Jeff

 

[Kremmen]

I would love to be helpful if you had a valid situation for comment. You have nothing constructive in the first place as far as I can see.

Knickers in twist? I thought so.

 

[john61ct]

Of course some members are impolite and maybe even cruel, but have tremendous expertise to offer in other threads. Maybe they were just having a bad day.

In any case, one of our top senior members dished out a rebuke already at post #5, so no need to pile on.

Turns out lots of very valuable advice followed, so all in all I think a good result.

My advice to you is, just ignore posts you don't like, over time you will recognize who the real experts are even if they might seem brutal sometimes

The community here is always trying to educate noobs on the importance of striving for objectivity, to counter all the hideous and fraudulent faff allowed out there in other audiophile related communities.

EDIT: example here, escalated after offender has been repeatedly advised

Alsozone /3e Audio GaN Monoblocks | New Comer

I turned off my PC and room fan now I'm hearing a little speaker hiss/hum :/. I'll try making my psu and interconnect cables less messy to see if it helps My guess : The ACM8816 chip is a Class D amplifier chip with exclusively digital inputs at its core. The Alsozone design induces a double...

www.audiosciencereview.com

You can always use the Ignore function to filter out those whose contributions are more chaff than wheat.

Finally, see our community guidelines, and please use the Report button to flag clear violations so the mod team can look into it.

it is such a turn-off when the sweetness of the topic gets Krispy by a few who are rude.

 

[HHH03]

The original poster here presented his experience along with a request for support. It was done in what I will assume was his best descriptive manner and word choice he had at the moment.

It’s been some time since I posted the original thread… it had to do with my frustration with Windows and onboard Audio.

After all the different devices I tried for a successful Windows Audio experience, I discovered Windows 11 itself is faulty and it’s impossible to get “rock solid” audio performance with any USB audio device. Every DAC (I tried 3 different devices) failed to provide smooth audio during the Windows Startup Sound. The simple answer is Windows and USB audio doesn’t work well… there’s too much interference in the USB system.
My experience with Windows PCs and HDA audio has been much better experience. Not one of the many desktop computers I’ve owned since the early 2000’s with HDA audio has ever had any audio issues… even a recent Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Master with an Realtek ALC1220 had rock solid audio performance. It did have other issues not related to audio and is the reason I no longer own it.

Windows 11 is also doing something with WASAPI service and it’s causing issues of its own. With my computer, doing a Windows Left/Right channel test on the speaker/headphone output and I was hearing a truncated tone being played which almost sounds like a pop at the beginning of the tone.
I’ve done extensive testing and there’s errors happening in the WASAPI system. I wrote a PowerShell script to play silent zeroes constantly and it did fix the WASAPI issue.

There’s another fix that I’ve found that’s been around for a while, but didn’t work well with Windows 11 because using it prevented the computer to enter sleep state.
SoundKeeper has a new design where it can be configured to stop when the monitor turns off… thus your computer can enter sleep state normally with Windows 11.
I have mine setup as a Scheduled Task for it to start at user login with Arguments set to SleepD and Zero.
Using it stops all audio problems caused by driver low power states and whatever is going on with the WASAPI system… now my onboard audio is working well and I haven’t experienced any sound problems even during the Windows Start Up Sound.

Would it work well with an external DAC? Idk, as I no longer have any to test it.

 

[anonyless]

It’s been some time since I posted the original thread… it had to do with my frustration with Windows and onboard Audio.

After all the different devices I tried for a successful Windows Audio experience, I discovered Windows 11 itself is faulty and it’s impossible to get “rock solid” audio performance with any USB audio device. Every DAC (I tried 3 different devices) failed to provide smooth audio during the Windows Startup Sound. The simple answer is Windows and USB audio doesn’t work well… there’s too much interference in the USB system.
My experience with Windows PCs and HDA audio has been much better experience. Not one of the many desktop computers I’ve owned since the early 2000’s with HDA audio has ever had any audio issues… even a recent Gigabyte Z890 Aorus Master with an Realtek ALC1220 had rock solid audio performance. It did have other issues not related to audio and is the reason I no longer own it.

Windows 11 is also doing something with WASAPI service and it’s causing issues of its own. With my computer, doing a Windows Left/Right channel test on the speaker/headphone output and I was hearing a truncated tone being played which almost sounds like a pop at the beginning of the tone.
I’ve done extensive testing and there’s errors happening in the WASAPI system. I wrote a PowerShell script to play silent zeroes constantly and it did fix the WASAPI issue.

There’s another fix that I’ve found that’s been around for a while, but didn’t work well with Windows 11 because using it prevented the computer to enter sleep state.
SoundKeeper has a new design where it can be configured to stop when the monitor turns off… thus your computer can enter sleep state normally with Windows 11.
I have mine setup as a Scheduled Task for it to start at user login with Arguments set to SleepD and Zero.
Using it stops all audio problems caused by driver low power states and whatever is going on with the WASAPI system… now my onboard audio is working well and I haven’t experienced any sound problems even during the Windows Start Up Sound.

Would it work well with an external DAC? Idk, as I no longer have any to test it.

i'm using Windows 10 on a desktop PC with Asus Xonar (internal) PCIE card which has optical output, that i connect to WiiM Pro Plus optical input. works flawlessly

 

[HHH03]

i'm using Windows 10 on a desktop PC with Asus Xonar (internal) PCIE card which has optical output, that i connect to WiiM Pro Plus optical input. works flawlessly

I have an Asus Xonar SE card and tried an Asus AE. I never tried either with a Windows 10 install ever since Windows 11 was released.
I can tell you they don’t work well on a Windows 11 installation… (neither card is was designed for Windows 11). The only PCIe sound card which worked flawlessly with my Windows 11 install without some sort of popping was an old Creative Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Professional PCIe Sound Card SB1356 I had laying around. There’s no current drivers for it, but the Windows 11 driver for it worked very well.
Most newer sound cards are using some sort of usb audio interface in a PCIe slot… some use an “ASMedia” chip to convert it like the ASUS cards.
The old Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty is 100% HDA audio and doesn’t need a USB audio converter to function… probably why it ran flawlessly.
I also have a Sound Blaster Audigy Fx Pro that likes to pop loudly during Windows startup. It uses a ASMedia ASM3042 chip and explains why it pops during startup.
I believe USB Audio on Windows 11 can work well, but it just seems like a lot of things need to be working correctly for it to work properly; unlike HDA which seems to be a better solution… in my opinion.

 

[anonyless]

I have an Asus Xonar SE card and tried an Asus AE. I never tried either with a Windows 10 install ever since Windows 11 was released.
I can tell you they don’t work well on a Windows 11 installation… (neither card is was designed for Windows 11). The only PCIe sound card which worked flawlessly with my Windows 11 install without some sort of popping was an old Creative Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Professional PCIe Sound Card SB1356 I had laying around. There’s no current drivers for it, but the Windows 11 driver for it worked very well.
Most newer sound cards are using some sort of usb audio interface in a PCIe slot… some use an “ASMedia” chip to convert it like the ASUS cards.
The old Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty is 100% HDA audio and doesn’t need a USB audio converter to function… probably why it ran flawlessly.
I also have a Sound Blaster Audigy Fx Pro that likes to pop loudly during Windows startup. It uses a ASMedia ASM3042 chip and explains why it pops during startup.
I believe USB Audio on Windows 11 can work well, but it just seems like a lot of things need to be working correctly for it to work properly; unlike HDA which seems to be a better solution… in my opinion.

just checked, mine is Xonar DSX. it's old, there's only official driver for Windows 10.
I'm never upgrading to 11 anyhow - if Microcrap not going to extend "Extended Security Upgrade" program for another year in October 27, best hint ever to completely switch to Linux