using optical trough a soundcard to dac

[thebirdman9999]

i have been having a hard time with the usb noise coming from my pc , after looking everywhere , i tried some things without success , wanted to try using the optical but i found out i dont have the optical output on my motherboard . was thinking about buying a soundcard just to have the optical output but can i take every soundcard ? i wanted to buy a cheaper one with optical only to use it for that . will it do something to the quality of the sound if i use a cheap one ? the sound is just going straight to my dac without any changes right ? ? do i need other infos if i use optical instead of usb >? * i have a tube amp without xlr connections so no i cant use xlr* unless ...... i could use xlr out connected in the dac to rca ? will it do the same job of killing the noise if only one side is xlr? thx

 

[Vasr]

As long as you have competent DAC (not something off of Alibaba), any sound card with optical will work fine.

If you are doing just 2.0 stereo out, then there is nothing else you need to do other than point your players to the optical out and/or make that device the default audio device. Select the right bit depth and sample rate for that optical out in Windows Sound Panel if you are not doing direct access to the card with ASIO drivers to avoid resampling in the Windows engine. These settings should be the same as you did for the USB.

If you were doing more than 2.0 on your USB, then it gets more difficult to reproduce equivalent on the optical out.

But I would be concerned about the noise you are getting on USB. Typically ground loop issues don't manifest themselves in digital out. Even video-card induced noise inside the PC, don't make it to the digital out at a transport level. So, there may be something else going on that may affect the optical out as well if the issue is upstream.

Try different USB ports and see if the issue persists (both front panel and back panel ones).

Can you attach a USB headphone to that same port and see if you hear the same noise? If you don't then that will tell you something. And you can try plugging in a headphone/earbuds to the line out from the motherboard to see if you hear the same noise as in the USB. You may hear some other noise with the onbaord conversion to analog but if you hear the same noise as in the USB, then there is some issue upstream of the sound chip and optical may not help.

Also make sure that your PC is properly grounded and test that the outer metal of the USB connector is grounded to the chassis.

These noises are hard to debug.

 

[thebirdman9999]

As long as you have competent DAC (not something off of Alibaba), any sound card with optical will work fine.

If you are doing just 2.0 stereo out, then there is nothing else you need to do other than point your players to the optical out and/or make that device the default audio device. Select the right bit depth and sample rate for that optical out in Windows Sound Panel if you are not doing direct access to the card with ASIO drivers to avoid resampling in the Windows engine. These settings should be the same as you did for the USB.

If you were doing more than 2.0 on your USB, then it gets more difficult to reproduce equivalent on the optical out.

But I would be concerned about the noise you are getting on USB. Typically ground loop issues don't manifest themselves in digital out. Even video-card induced noise inside the PC, don't make it to the digital out at a transport level. So, there may be something else going on that may affect the optical out as well if the issue is upstream.

Try different USB ports and see if the issue persists (both front panel and back panel ones).

Can you attach a USB headphone to that same port and see if you hear the same noise? If you don't then that will tell you something. And you can try plugging in a headphone/earbuds to the line out from the motherboard to see if you hear the same noise as in the USB. You may hear some other noise with the onbaord conversion to analog but if you hear the same noise as in the USB, then there is some issue upstream of the sound chip and optical may not help.

Also make sure that your PC is properly grounded and test that the outer metal of the USB connector is grounded to the chassis.

These noises are hard to debug.

i hear only on usb , not from the line out , thx

 

[Vasr]

That means that it is not a likely a grounding problem.

Try the other troubleshooting methods in my post and see what you see/hear to narrow the problem down. Try replacing USB cable also. Until you eliminate most of them, no guarantees you won't be able to hear the same noise through optical depending on where the problem is. But to your original question, even the cheapest optical card out will work.

The USB issue may indicate other problems in your PC though so you may as well try to isolate it.

 

[carlosmante]

i have been having a hard time with the usb noise coming from my pc , after looking everywhere , i tried some things without success , wanted to try using the optical but i found out i dont have the optical output on my motherboard . was thinking about buying a soundcard just to have the optical output but can i take every soundcard ? i wanted to buy a cheaper one with optical only to use it for that . will it do something to the quality of the sound if i use a cheap one ? the sound is just going straight to my dac without any changes right ? ? do i need other infos if i use optical instead of usb >? * i have a tube amp without xlr connections so no i cant use xlr* unless ...... i could use xlr out connected in the dac to rca ? will it do the same job of killing the noise if only one side is xlr? thx

You can do an Optical output for your PC. Maybe for less than 10 dollars.

 

[raindance]

The little Behringer USB audio dongle will give you optical for very little money.

 

[Vasr]

The little Behringer USB audio dongle will give you optical for very little money.

If the problem isn't with the USB cable or the DAC USB port/interface, the noise will likely get into the optical conversion as well by attaching a USB dongle. Same thing with using an external USB soundcard.

The line out being free of that noise indicates the PCI lanes are likely clear of that noise and so an internal PCIe soundcard with optical card will likely work.

But better to eliminate the cable and the DAC side as the problem first.

 

[thebirdman9999]

i will order the
XONAR SE

one of the cheapest i found with optical out .

 

[zermak]

i have been having a hard time with the usb noise coming from my pc , after looking everywhere , i tried some things without success , wanted to try using the optical but i found out i dont have the optical output on my motherboard . was thinking about buying a soundcard just to have the optical output but can i take every soundcard ? i wanted to buy a cheaper one with optical only to use it for that . will it do something to the quality of the sound if i use a cheap one ? the sound is just going straight to my dac without any changes right ? ? do i need other infos if i use optical instead of usb >? * i have a tube amp without xlr connections so no i cant use xlr* unless ...... i could use xlr out connected in the dac to rca ? will it do the same job of killing the noise if only one side is xlr? thx

If your DAC with USB connection have noise problems than it has a bad filtering implementation, aka is a bad one.

A balance connection is immune to ground loops if all the chain is balanced (meaning from output to input). With a single ended to balanced connection you will likely add more problems.

Have you tried your DAC to a notebook or a different PC and see if it has the same noise problem using the USB connection?
Yes, Amir, for what I recall, usually connects the USB DAC in the (monitor?) hub (meaning it get the USB connection from his PC USB port to the monitor and then from the monitor USB ports to the DAC) with zero problems.

If you are gonna end up getting the Xonar, then use the UNi Xonar drivers and not the offical crap Asus gives you

 

[thebirdman9999]

If your DAC with USB connection have noise problems than it has a bad filtering implementation, aka is a bad one.

A balance connection is immune to ground loops if all the chain is balanced (meaning from output to input). With a single ended to balanced connection you will likely add more problems.

Have you tried your DAC to a notebook or a different PC and see if it has the same noise problem using the USB connection?
Yes, Amir, for what I recall, usually connects the USB DAC in the (monitor?) hub (meaning it get the USB connection from his PC USB port to the monitor and then from the monitor USB ports to the DAC) with zero problems.

If you are gonna end up getting the Xonar, then use the UNi Xonar drivers and not the offical crap Asus gives you

alright thx , no i did not tried on another pc . for the drivers ? will the D90 work correctly with soundcard driver installed ?? o.o

 

[zermak]

Ttry the DAC with another PC and chekc if the problem is not the DAC itself

I have an Asus Xonar DX (and a D1 getting dust somewhere which is the same but for the old PCI) on the PC I use as HTPC and I don't have any troubles with the UNi Xonar drivers (I use the 3,5mm jacks outputs tho but I am sure the optical will work just fine).
EDIT: the UNi Xonar drivers doesn't support the SE version so you are stuck with the standard Asus drivers.

 

[M00ndancer]

You can use any internal PC soundcard with an optical out. The Asus Xonar XD is a cheap and good one.