OP
- Thread Starter
- #861
Hello @etc6849,
Although I am still out of home on business travel, today I could find and spare my time responding to your inquiries as follows based on my limited experiences and implementations which have been sharing on this project thread.
Yes, RME's sound cards and DAC-ADC devices are having very nice master-slave clock-sync functionalities for which I have been already well aware of.
I would like to suggest you to try paid-up (USD 149.00) DSP software "EKIO", if you are using Windows 10 or 11 PC. The paid-up EKIO can have unlimited numbers of I/O channels, and where the audio handling/processing capabilities are only dependent on the bit rate (up to 192 kHz) and your CPU power.
I presently use JRiver MC and EKIO (as well as web browsers, Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge) for 12-CH I/O into EKIO and 8-CH multichannel DAC (OKTO DAC8PRO) plus stereo DAC KORG DS-DAC-10 up to 192 kHz processing on rather outdated completely silent Windows 11 Pro PCs (ref. here) with no PC processing power issue at all.
EKIO uses IIR filters, not FIR filters, but its internal XO/EQ/Group-Delay/Relative-Gain processing are in 64 bit biquad (cascade 2nd order direct form II biquad in 64 bit floating point); very fast stable and low workload to CPU; essentially no post- and pre-ringing at all.
The nicely beautifully designed GUI of EKIO would be also very much suitable for your tests/evaluations where you can configure almost all of the parameters on-the-fly, I mean while listening to music tracks. EKIO also has ABX comparator features for any pair of your saved many EKIO configurations.
Just same as I described above, I highly recommend you to test EKIO as system-wide DSP Center under VB Matrix VASIO/VAIO I/O routing. Using VB Matrix, you can simultaneously (mixing) or selectively use Windows WDM audio routing (by setting VB Matrix's VAIO as Windows default audio playback device) to be fed by e.g. web browsers listening to YouTube clips and pure ASIO routing (by setting VB Matrix's VASIO channels) to be fed by JRiver MC, Roon and/or other ASIO-Out capable audio players (ref. here).
Yes, it is really important issue, especially in fully active multichannel audio setup where the SP drivers are directly and dedicatedly driven by multiple amplifiers, and I have been carefully implementing several hardware and software (including my hand-operation) safety features.
First, the "all-in-ASIO Routing" would be highly recommended as I wrote my (historical) stance and policy shared here. Now, using VB Matrix, you can quite easily establish all-in-ASIO routing even all of the Windows WDM (WASAPI) audio playback devices are fully disabled! Also as I recently (today) briefly wrote here, in case if you would dare to use VB Marix VAIO too as Windows default audio playback device, you need to carefully digitally attenuate their gains (I presently set -16 dB) in the VB Matrix Grid so that it would be level-matched with your main VASIO (Virtual ASIO) routing. We should be careful enough about some (many?) poorly QC-ed Youtube video clips have unusually high gain audio tracks; e.g. even a very quiet smooth jazz Youtube video clip sometimes uses full of 24 bit dynamic range (or even above 0 dB clipping level) which would be really odd and unacceptable in CD release.
Second, even with all the other safety measures, you (we) need to have protection capacitors for our treasure midrange-drivers (I use 68 microF film caps), tweeters (I use 10 microF film caps) and super-tweeters (I use 10 microF film caps); ref. here and here. Of course, I carefully measured the SPL curves before and after the protection caps confirming their transparences in audible sound (ref. here and here).
Third, you should not exclude utilization/incorporation of HiFi "integrated amplifiers" (or HiFi pre-amplifiers) in your multichannel active audio setup where you can completely volume down (to minus infinity) the gain into your SP drivers during system start-up (ignition) and shutdown (and also during intensive DSP parameter tuning/change processes; you can carefully/gradually gain-up after the tuning). This is also one of the main reasons for that I use four HiFi "integrated" amplifiers in my setup on the policy of "right-person-in-right-place" amplifier selection (ref. here and here). Furthermore, these integrated amps and/or preamps would enable very safe and flexible relative gain control for SP drivers (i.e. tone control) in analog domain on-the-fly while listening to music in our preferred total sound volume (ref. here and here).
Fourth, the digital numeric keyboard value input/change of gains on-the-fly (while listening to music) should be always avoided since we may easily have mis-typing the value, e.g. we may type as dangerous "+35 dB" instead of actually intending "+3.5 dB". In this context, I highly recommend you using mouse-wheel-rotation up-and-down on gain controllers in EKIO for on-the-fly gain/volume control; in EKIO the granularity of mouse-wheel rotation is 0.1 dB, which is really nice. (I myself actually requested the mouse wheel operation, and Guillaume of LUPISOFT very quickly incorporated it into updated EKIO.) Furthermore, EKIO's "Mute" and "Solo" buttons in each of the output chanel panels are really nice and useful for specific-channel(SP-driver)-only listening and/or any combination of all the SP drivers, even L-only, R-only, L+R, etc., during your precise DSP-parameter tuning procedures.
Fifth, in any of multichannel audio systems, we need to carefully perform our "startup/ignition sequences" and "shutdown sequences" eliminating/avoiding any of pop and other possible harmful sound intrusions into our SP drivers (ref. here for my such sequences). In this context, I do not like and never used the triggered simultaneous startup/wakeup of my audio gears.
I assume my further experiences and implementations under this spoiler cover would be also of your interest and reference:
Although I am still out of home on business travel, today I could find and spare my time responding to your inquiries as follows based on my limited experiences and implementations which have been sharing on this project thread.
Yes, RME's sound cards and DAC-ADC devices are having very nice master-slave clock-sync functionalities for which I have been already well aware of.
I would like to suggest you to try paid-up (USD 149.00) DSP software "EKIO", if you are using Windows 10 or 11 PC. The paid-up EKIO can have unlimited numbers of I/O channels, and where the audio handling/processing capabilities are only dependent on the bit rate (up to 192 kHz) and your CPU power.
I presently use JRiver MC and EKIO (as well as web browsers, Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge) for 12-CH I/O into EKIO and 8-CH multichannel DAC (OKTO DAC8PRO) plus stereo DAC KORG DS-DAC-10 up to 192 kHz processing on rather outdated completely silent Windows 11 Pro PCs (ref. here) with no PC processing power issue at all.
EKIO uses IIR filters, not FIR filters, but its internal XO/EQ/Group-Delay/Relative-Gain processing are in 64 bit biquad (cascade 2nd order direct form II biquad in 64 bit floating point); very fast stable and low workload to CPU; essentially no post- and pre-ringing at all.
Just same as I described above, I highly recommend you to test EKIO as system-wide DSP Center under VB Matrix VASIO/VAIO I/O routing. Using VB Matrix, you can simultaneously (mixing) or selectively use Windows WDM audio routing (by setting VB Matrix's VAIO as Windows default audio playback device) to be fed by e.g. web browsers listening to YouTube clips and pure ASIO routing (by setting VB Matrix's VASIO channels) to be fed by JRiver MC, Roon and/or other ASIO-Out capable audio players (ref. here).
Yes, it is really important issue, especially in fully active multichannel audio setup where the SP drivers are directly and dedicatedly driven by multiple amplifiers, and I have been carefully implementing several hardware and software (including my hand-operation) safety features.
First, the "all-in-ASIO Routing" would be highly recommended as I wrote my (historical) stance and policy shared here. Now, using VB Matrix, you can quite easily establish all-in-ASIO routing even all of the Windows WDM (WASAPI) audio playback devices are fully disabled! Also as I recently (today) briefly wrote here, in case if you would dare to use VB Marix VAIO too as Windows default audio playback device, you need to carefully digitally attenuate their gains (I presently set -16 dB) in the VB Matrix Grid so that it would be level-matched with your main VASIO (Virtual ASIO) routing. We should be careful enough about some (many?) poorly QC-ed Youtube video clips have unusually high gain audio tracks; e.g. even a very quiet smooth jazz Youtube video clip sometimes uses full of 24 bit dynamic range (or even above 0 dB clipping level) which would be really odd and unacceptable in CD release.
Second, even with all the other safety measures, you (we) need to have protection capacitors for our treasure midrange-drivers (I use 68 microF film caps), tweeters (I use 10 microF film caps) and super-tweeters (I use 10 microF film caps); ref. here and here. Of course, I carefully measured the SPL curves before and after the protection caps confirming their transparences in audible sound (ref. here and here).
Third, you should not exclude utilization/incorporation of HiFi "integrated amplifiers" (or HiFi pre-amplifiers) in your multichannel active audio setup where you can completely volume down (to minus infinity) the gain into your SP drivers during system start-up (ignition) and shutdown (and also during intensive DSP parameter tuning/change processes; you can carefully/gradually gain-up after the tuning). This is also one of the main reasons for that I use four HiFi "integrated" amplifiers in my setup on the policy of "right-person-in-right-place" amplifier selection (ref. here and here). Furthermore, these integrated amps and/or preamps would enable very safe and flexible relative gain control for SP drivers (i.e. tone control) in analog domain on-the-fly while listening to music in our preferred total sound volume (ref. here and here).
Fourth, the digital numeric keyboard value input/change of gains on-the-fly (while listening to music) should be always avoided since we may easily have mis-typing the value, e.g. we may type as dangerous "+35 dB" instead of actually intending "+3.5 dB". In this context, I highly recommend you using mouse-wheel-rotation up-and-down on gain controllers in EKIO for on-the-fly gain/volume control; in EKIO the granularity of mouse-wheel rotation is 0.1 dB, which is really nice. (I myself actually requested the mouse wheel operation, and Guillaume of LUPISOFT very quickly incorporated it into updated EKIO.) Furthermore, EKIO's "Mute" and "Solo" buttons in each of the output chanel panels are really nice and useful for specific-channel(SP-driver)-only listening and/or any combination of all the SP drivers, even L-only, R-only, L+R, etc., during your precise DSP-parameter tuning procedures.
Fifth, in any of multichannel audio systems, we need to carefully perform our "startup/ignition sequences" and "shutdown sequences" eliminating/avoiding any of pop and other possible harmful sound intrusions into our SP drivers (ref. here for my such sequences). In this context, I do not like and never used the triggered simultaneous startup/wakeup of my audio gears.
I assume my further experiences and implementations under this spoiler cover would be also of your interest and reference:
- In depth insights on SP attenuators and their elimination in multichannel system: #248, #251, #99(remote thread), #100(remote thread), #101(remote thread)
- Elimination of magnetic susceptible metals in SP signal handling: #250, #013(remote thread)
- Perfect (0.1 msec precision) time alignment of all the SP drivers greatly contributes to amazing disappearance of SPs, tightness and cleanliness of the sound, and superior 3D sound stage: #520
- Not only the precision (0.1 msec level) time alignment over all the SP drivers but also SP facing directions and sound-deadening space behind the SPs plus behind our listening position would be critically important for effective (perfect?) disappearance of speakers: #687
- Elimination of magnetic susceptible metals in SP signal handling: #250, #013(remote thread)
- Perfect (0.1 msec precision) time alignment of all the SP drivers greatly contributes to amazing disappearance of SPs, tightness and cleanliness of the sound, and superior 3D sound stage: #520
- Not only the precision (0.1 msec level) time alignment over all the SP drivers but also SP facing directions and sound-deadening space behind the SPs plus behind our listening position would be critically important for effective (perfect?) disappearance of speakers: #687
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