Small portable dongle/dac with low latency/ASIO support?

[BeerBear]

@goldenears: I tried the Realtek ASIO driver on my mobo and indeed, for me too, it does not work along with non-ASIO streams. So it's possible that the Centrance one doesn't either. It might be worth it to contact the manufacturer about this anyway, maybe it can be enabled.

But I assure you, this is not the norm. The typical popular devices with ASIO do support this functionality. And I would be very surprised if any of those with an XMOS USB interface don't. XMOS USB chip with a Thesycon Windows driver is a very common setup, used in many products nowadays. It's not amazing, but it works.
I can't give you any hard guarantees, but that's just my experience. Let us know how it goes, if you find out anything new.

(Side note: 16bit in audio settings is not recommended, use at least 24bit. I don't think this is causing the ASIO issues, though.)

 

[goldenears]

But I assure you, this is not the norm. The typical popular devices with ASIO do support this functionality. And I would be very surprised if any of those with an XMOS USB interface don't. XMOS USB chip with a Thesycon Windows driver is a very common setup, used in many products nowadays. It's not amazing, but it works.

Have you tried starting the ASIO before playing in your other app?

Yes, there is no sound from Firefox in that case.

I just contacted Centrance:

This is all supposed to happen exactly this way. The ASIO driver is an "exclusive" driver, which means that it is assigned to one application only. This is done for speed (low latency).

If you use a more standard windows driver called WASAPI, then windows will be able to mix multiple sources and send them to the same device. But you will be experiencing higher latency due to the mixing. If latency is not an issue, then you don't need to use ASIO. Route everything via WASAPI and windows will mix all apps for you.

Seriously?? On such an expensive DAC?

This is ridiculous. It's just audio. It's 2023!

I've seen lots of cheap dongles on aliexpress that list the DAC chip they use, anyone know what chip I should be looking for?

I don't care so much about super duper high quality, I just need fairly low latency ASIO with the ability to simultaneously play from other Windows apps, and as small as possible because I'm pissed that my laptop audio can't do this so I have to carry something extra... I thought dongles were only an Apple thing.

Does nobody know a dongle that can actually do this?? Which small dongles are XMOS?

 

[goldenears]

Regarding steady and nice small ASIO driver support try with Tempotec/Hidizs CS43131 based dongles like Sonata HD Pro. A tip keep sample rate at basic and additional processing at minimum if low latency ASIO is what you are after. Keep in mind such dongles can usually output up to 2V and that CS43131 use plug impedance sensing (which can be broken on mentioned one's by flashing firmware that's not exactly their's so that it can output full power that it can disreging of impedance of plugged headphones). This is important to reed as you didn't mention which headphones you are intending to use.
Best regards and have a nice time.

There's lots of fairly cheap CS43131 dongles on aliexpress, eg this one

Worth a try?

 

[ZolaIII]

There's lots of fairly cheap CS43131 dongles on aliexpress, eg this one

Worth a try?

I honestly don't know. If it makes any comfort I only know for one CS43131 implementation ever which whose broken (one of many IBasso dongles with it which they never patched firmware). What I do know is that Tempotec delivers clean and deacent small and simple driver's (including ASIO) and that switchable USB cable makes a difference regarding longevity on the long run. Where you don't need windows driver's (will use OS or player build in driver's) there are and better implementation of given DAC/Amp.

 

[goldenears]

Where you don't need windows driver's (will use OS or player build in driver's) there are and better implementation of given DAC/Amp.

Sorry, I'm not sure what this means. Would you mind please explaining this again?

Do you mean that the simultaneous playing is more likely to work if you don't need special drivers?

 

[ZolaIII]

Sorry, I'm not sure what this means. Would you mind please explaining this again?

Do you mean that the simultaneous playing is more likely to work if you don't need special drivers?

If you intend to use use it with a phone or tablet and such.
ASIO whose primary ment for ADC capture in a low latency (on Windows of course) not for playback nor very low latency when it comes to that. Tho it's widely used for DSD reproduction (and bit perfect) on Windows and that's about it. I think you showed try non exclusive Wasapi on Windows and don't know about Linux but I believe it has less of the latency related problems anyway. Don't even have a clue when it comes to OSX.

 

[goldenears]

I don't intend to use it with a phone or tablet.

Only on a laptop, using Ableton to play VST instruments with ASIO driver for low latency, and I want to be able to play music or youtube videos in Windows at the same time.

 

[BeerBear]

I just contacted Centrance:
...
Seriously?? On such an expensive DAC?

Yeah it's BS. I'd return it, if you still can.

Does nobody know a dongle that can actually do this?? Which small dongles are XMOS?

The ones I mentioned on the first page use XMOS, I think. Look for teardown pics, inspect the manuals and the driver downloads. "TUSBAudio" in the driver files means Thesycon... and once you see the familiar ASIO driver setting interface, you'll recognize it everywhere.
Note that manufacturers still have some freedom in how to configure the Thesycon driver, but as I said, I'd be very surprised if any of them don't allow ASIO+Windows sounds.

There's lots of fairly cheap CS43131 dongles on aliexpress, eg this one
Worth a try?

Ctrl+F: ASIO - not found. And where's the manual? Where's the driver download? That should be the first thing to look for.

I'm pissed that my laptop audio can't do this so I have to carry something extra... I thought dongles were only an Apple thing.

It's the opposite in this case. Macs are the ones where this works out of the box. That's why they're so popular with musicians.

 

[phofman]

Only on a laptop, using Ableton to play VST instruments with ASIO driver for low latency, and I want to be able to play music or youtube videos in Windows at the same time.

IMO it's important to analyze the details of what goes on in your computer when playing audio.

I find Etienne's https://github.com/dechamps/FlexASIO/blob/master/BACKENDS.md#flexasio-backends one of the best writeups on windows audio internals.

First very few audio devices support hardware mixing, i.e. simulatenous playback of multiple audio streams. E.g. Creative SBs/XFis can do that, maybe some RMEs, but that's about all, AFAIK. I do not know a USB soundcard with hardware mixing (eventhough the UAC/UAC2 protocol is capable of that, in theory).

That means mixing various streams must be done in software.

For mixing there are several alternatives. The most common is the Windows Audio Service (see that Etienne's chart ). But for ASIO-only streams e.g. ASIO multiclient can be used https://forums.steinberg.net/t/pc-windows-asio-multiclient-driver-by-charlie-steinberg/20479 . This is only for ASIO streams which precludes your browser (typically not ASIO-capable).

So if you want to mix your streams for a USB soundcard you need to use the windows audio service. That means you will loose your direct low-latency ASIO path as Ableton will output using the ASIO protocol, but the ASIO driver (the receiver of Ableton ASIO stream) will send the stream through the windows audio service for mixing (e.g. using FlexASIO).

IF Ableton outputs directly to ASIO driver which talks directly to your audio device driver (the low-latency path), the Ableton stream will be the stream consumed by the soundcard and the windows audio service will not be able to send its stream (e.g. from the browser) to the soundcard.

OSX is designed a bit differently, its mixing audio service offers setting buffer size which allows to keep the latency low if required.

 

[ZolaIII]

In short use WASAPI non exclusive under Windows and it will play multiple inputs simultaneously with more than acceptable latencies.

 

[phofman]

In short use WASAPI non exclusive under Windows and it will play multiple inputs simultaneously with more than acceptable latencies.

Well, we do not know what the acceptable latencies are in this particular case. IIUC Ableton does not support wasapi, that means FlexASIO between Ableton (ASIO) and the windows audio subsystem (wasapi shared). That means extra buffers (= latency) in FlexASIO + what is latency of the windows audio subsystem processing plus the audio device driver buffer?

 

[BeerBear]

So if you want to mix your streams for a USB soundcard you need to use the windows audio service. That means you will loose your direct low-latency ASIO path as Ableton will output using the ASIO protocol, but the ASIO driver (the receiver of Ableton ASIO stream) will send the stream through the windows audio service for mixing (e.g. using FlexASIO).

IF Ableton outputs directly to ASIO driver which talks directly to your audio device driver (the low-latency path), the Ableton stream will be the stream consumed by the soundcard and the windows audio service will not be able to send its stream (e.g. from the browser) to the soundcard.

That's not how typical ASIO drivers work. By typical I mean from popular brands such as Focusrite, Audient, Behringer, M-Audio, NI, RME, MOTU, Roland...
They support playing ASIO and Windows streams simultaneously, with low latency on ASIO. The caveat is that they need to run at the same sample rate.

Playing several ASIO streams simultaneously (aka multi-client ASIO) used to be a rare feature, though. But it's quite common nowadays.

 

[ZolaIII]

Well, we do not know what the acceptable latencies are in this particular case. IIUC Ableton does not support wasapi, that means FlexASIO between Ableton (ASIO) and the windows audio subsystem (wasapi shared). That means extra buffers (= latency) in FlexASIO + what is latency of the windows audio subsystem processing plus the audio device driver buffer?

And how exactly you intend to avoid OS latency in micro ops and bus related problems?

Resplendence Software - LatencyMon: suitability checker for real-time audio and other tasks

LatencyMon: suitability checker for real-time audio and other tasks

www.resplendence.com

Server boards tend to be better (for lot's of reasons especially with lot's of ECC RAM).
It's a pretty long reed:

ASIO, WASAPI, Direct Sound... is there any difference in sound quality?

Hi, Some people say that ASIO gives the best sound, some WASAPI, some say Direct Sound is as good as it can get. What's the truth? I'm on Windows 10 and can't hear any difference, if I use my Topping D10 with Direct Sound or with its ASIO driver. Are there any measurements out there? Cheers.

www.audiosciencereview.com

I did a lot work regarding schedulers and scheduling, clock's, interrupts, acces methods and so on. It's a mith how ASIO is very low latency for reproduction in fact you need healthy buffer and safe level acces not to end with clicks, pops and other artifacts and it's not that hard even to get overflow if you set too small buffer.
But back to simple explanation how latency is small enough as long as it doesn't need re sync or simply as long as we aren't aware it exists, no need to drag this to how expensive (in clock cycles) is merge or migration on CPU level.