XXHighEnd

Just purchased XXHighend and running under Vista with 2Gb Ram

- Engine 3 will work with the built in laptop speakers but just gives an error message when trying Benchmark Dac through USB.
- 'Test Dac' shows no smple rates supported

- Engine 2 works ok with the Benchmark Dac through USB

Grateful for any thoughts - Thanks

DJ

Eng#3 only works at this moment with the primary soundcard.

Maybe you can try to disable the build in soundcard of your laptop with device manager or in the BIOS.
USB sound device should be the first then.

Not sure, but you can try it.

Hi DJ, welcome here, and thank you.

Like hybride says. However, it should be as easy to appoint the sound device concerned as standard device (or default device it may say). See below; third option in that menu.

In the end, the one with the green mark is the one which will be used by Engine#3.

Peter

Hi,

thank you both for your responses

- will have a go later this week

DJ

Hi,

unfortunately still had no luck getting the Benchmark Dac working under Engine 3

It is set as the Primary Sound Driver but i get the following error messages:

Endpoint Create Failed -> The Dac does not accept this byte sequence

[followed by]

2/16/44100/176400/4


..grateful for any ideas

thnks

DJ

Now you're set the Primary Device properly (and assuming before this wasn't so !), what does this say now ?
Please copy the resuly in here !

Peter

Hi Peter - this is the results I get from 'Test Dac':

Start Audio Device Analysis Exclusive Mode support
040FFD24

Not supported : 2|16|44100|176400|4
Not supported : 2|24|44100|264600|6
Not supported : 2|32|44100|352800|8
Not supported : 2|16|48000|192000|4
Not supported : 2|24|48000|288000|6
Not supported : 2|32|48000|384000|8
Not supported : 2|16|88200|352800|4
Not supported : 2|24|88200|529200|6
Not supported : 2|32|88200|705600|8
Not supported : 2|16|96000|384000|4
Not supported : 2|24|96000|576000|6
Not supported : 2|32|96000|768000|8
Not supported : 2|16|176400|705600|4
Not supported : 2|24|176400|1058400|6
Not supported : 2|32|176400|1411200|8
Not supported : 2|16|192000|768000|4
Not supported : 2|24|192000|1152000|6
Not supported : 2|32|192000|1536000|8

DJ

Now what ...

I'll dive into the Benchmark specs and see what I can find there ...
Doesn't look good though.

First of all you will have seen this : Re: Benchmark DAC1 USB (http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=299.msg1988#msg1988);

Note that the 24 bit stuff is all in there by now, so that is not it.
The Benchmark is advertised to be compatible with Vista. I think : it is not, and I estimate it is caused by this :

AFAIK the Benchmark uses a special application of the legacy (MS) USB driver. It think it is even advertised that it can do 24/96 over USB without needing a special driver which normally is the case. Mind you, they say.

I think (!!) I read somewhere the other day that they applied a synchronous application, which is not the most usual. I won't say that by this means they avoided a difficult signed driver route (if that would go through at all), but anyway it doesn't work under Vista WASAPI Exclusive Mode, which IMHO is logic.

Besides that I can be off in my perception on matters, it is not up to me to decide (or know) whether indeed this is related to "not Vista compatibe" or Vista WASAPI not being compatible to MS itself. I think we all know how many problems I have with it myself and on which topics I can point out that Vista flaws on this matter. But then again, I think it is just logic that this won't work.

You can point a Benchmark technician to here if you want.
Sorry.

Peter

Thanks for looking into it

...i have e-mailed benchmark and pointed them to this thread

DJ

Peter did you mean a (one) synchronous or asynchronous application...?

Peter, the firmware Benchmark uses was actually programmed by a company called Centrance.
http://www.centrance.com/about/clients.shtml

Maybe you will have better luck getting answers from them (regarding Vista exclusive mode compatibility).

I'm not sure what your question is about ?
I meant synchronous to the sense of "no real buffer". Think a bit of how XX plays, looked from the HDD side. You could call this A-synchronous to the largest degree.

?

Peter

The Benchmark DAC1 worked with earlier versions of XXHighEnd. Is it just the 9u versions that are causing problems?

Frank

Hi Frank,

Where did you get that from ?
Wasn't this Engine#1 (or #2) only ?

And otherwise, wherever you found that, couldn't that have been the "will not be bit perfect" situation ? (hence Shared Mode only).
Note that Shared Mode (not bit perfect) is not supported anymore ...

Thanks,
Peter

Yes Peter, of course. I had remembered someone reviewing the performance of the Benchmartk with XXHighEnd, but now understand that was with one of the early engines. I just did a search and saw posts early December 07 from Elias at Benchmark and Soundcheck relating to this issue.

Frank

I sent an e-mail to Benchmark and Elias replied saying they would be doing an extensive test of XXHighEnd very soon !

Thank you DJ.

Peter

Perhaps the current discussion in head-fi forum will throw a little more light on XX's intereface with the DAC1?

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f7/benchmark-dac1-now-available-usb-223006/index139.html

Frank

It doesn't look like it so far. But thanks for pointing it out.

It is up to Elias (et al) to respond here (which I would do soon :)).