Can't seem to get Kernel Streaming to work

[fran]

Hello, sorry for my username, it's my xbox live gamertag from high school so I figured I keep suit...

Well anyway I got this thing here it's a Lenovo 440s with a Processor   Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4600U CPU @ 2.10GHz, 2694 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s); Intel HD Graphics Family too.  It has 8 gigs of ram with a 256GB Toshiba thnsfj256gcsu and runs very very smoothly with anything.

I was just wondering if anyone has any suggestions, I bought the Hifimediy uae23 dac (its literally the most popular cheapest one they have) and I can't get KS to work. No errors, just Engine#4 didn't start in time.

Also, I read the article here: https://6moons.com/audioreviews/xxhighend/8.html

I mean on Engine#3 this xx sounds the best I mean it compared to foobar and media monkey. So I really "believeeee" but I really want to get KS to work and maybe buy a more expensive dac eventually.

Okay thanks guys.

[fran]

You know what dude? I'll delete my account or just start a new one anyway I think this should be deleted from the front page I don't want "imbeterthenyou" to be the first thing people see I'm sorry

[fran]

So it's amazing, I'm literally listening to Hotel California like I've never ever heard it before. The guitar sounds so real, and the drums are as if my speakers are doing magic tricks.  Their cheap 1996 altec lansing but holy cow it's like I have an amplifier and I can't waait to try this out in the morning. This is literally hearing it on low volume.

Plus it helps unattended + a higher SFS and setting the computer to maximum performance with the power plugged in it's HUGE NOTICABLE difference that I've FINNALLLLLLLLLLY been waiting for.

Dude...also, like I think a lot of the problems with some of the players, something I've been on to now (he he he) sometimes instead of someone raising their voice it just makes them sound like some big fat annoying democrat on TV and THIS PROGRAM (holy grail) FINALLLLLLLLLLLY fixes this issue and literally I knew this allll along but finally I knew it and now my music sounds real again, and a sweet treat is it now FINALLY sounds better than my classic rock station.  Dude thank you so much finally someone took the time to actually make something so real and personal and I just can't believe it I was finally about to give up and just try to play records but this buys me a lot of time since I can't just do that yet. Thank you so much

[fran]

And this is PBTHAL's rips (the magnets that still work)

[PeterSt]

Okayyy …

Well, warm welcome, also with your username. Maybe you also have a name to address you with. Of course we can't address you with that nick, right ? feels wrong.
hahaha

So, WASAPI normally works, right ?
(just to keep the conversation going)

Peter

[PeterSt]

From your DAC, this text can be read :

Works in USB Adaptive mode. For a asynchronous alternative, look here
(click that link).

So maybe yours is too cheap after all ?

N.b.: I don't think I recognize a situation that just nothing happens until that message appears (didn't start in time) so it has to be something really odd ?

Peter

[fran]

Hey Peter, I'm Frankie. I know that's my nickname but everyone still calls me by that.

WASAPI works absolutely.

It's no problem for me to order another DAC, and seriously yeah I think I do have to get one. Sometimes I can't even get the kernel streaming option to show.  If I do I'll hit play, it will light up, and then the little box on the right lights up and then goes off and "didn't start in time".

I'll keep reading around.

Okay thank you Peter.

[PeterSt]

All right Frankie, thanks.

I hope you realize that I did not claim that the ~59 one will work. It's only that the message about USB did not suite me in the first place.

Maybe add a zero somewhere ?


Kind regards,
Peter

PS: I really like your message about the SQ you could finally perceive. But I hope you know that officially, in  Demo Mode, nothing much happens or can happen. Not to talk you into spending 72 euros … but you should. If you are 100% satisfied already, you should do nothing, of course. It's then only that the player quits each 10-20 minutes or so.

[fran]

Peter that is so funny okay miss sassy I will con-sider- it

When I get more money I'm dead set on trying this.

Well for now I'm very happy I was just looking for that "sound" and I got it. Thanks very much man.

[PeterSt]

[numlog]

You should look outside HifiMe for a new one I think. Their DACs are fine as budget choices but based on my own experience with them , it was not really surprising to see that review on ASR of their 'flagship'. Building a dac and getting sound is easy, even ok sound, but for anyone interested in entry level hi-fi SQ you want to choose something where you know the engineers have at least some idea what their doing, measurements will be one sign of that.
Check ASR, basically any DAC they recommend will measure excellently so look for the cheapest one. Maybe look for subjective impressions of a few of the cheapest options.

[fran]

Yeah this program is wicked. I don't know, just out of all the programs out there this one feels "true". With this dac the music still feels fake as if the sound coming from the speakers is never something that would come from real life, but hands down. (With my Cheap dac not because of XXHighEnd)

I will try outside of HifiMe and look on ASR.

[fran]

Hey!! So I got it to work. It turned out that I had to disable Bluetooth. I know that is weird but in foobar a weird KS device showed up, and I typed it in on google and found it was the bluetoooth driver. So just to let you know. 

[fran]

Okay! Well here's my review. 

So I have really figured some very nice things out.  I'm sorry, I take back my post about "the music still feels fake".

So here's what I have found. And I thought that maybe you might appreciate this.

This is before I got Kernel Streaming to work:

First of all, I liked the sound, and I was like yeah this is great. But I kept thinking there has to me more that I could do since I can't use Kernel Streaming right now.

I would keep playing with Q1 and then I would keep trying to adjust maybe if I have the speakers all the way up, or maybe the digital volume control up and the speakers half volume.  But I was still angry I guess, I was like I paid for a dac I know this should be better.

So after so hard of trying to figure stuff out, I had stopped desktop services but I mistakenly thought stopping the remaining services was only for the paid version of XX.  Well I hit that and was like there's only one way to see if it will work.

Well then I opened task manager and saw 80 processes go down to 4, and I was like.. WOAH! that really really worked! wow this is aMAZING. I could not really believe it.

But I still was like I still want better.

So then one day I accidentally played the music with the external hard drive unplugged.  And then I was like wait a second the sound sounds faster to it's normal speed, because it sounded kind of slow motion before. And all of a sudden everything was nice and fast.

Well anyway, I kept fooling around with things, and I was like "hmmmmmm" maybe if the hdd affects the music, would the screen and the power cord affect things? Well it seems like turning off the screen makes things feel more correct, as well as actually "Unplugging" the laptop. This was strange to me because you would think common sense duhhh more power the better, but when I unplugged the laptop the music all of sudden..

The music all of sudden became as if whoever was hiding all of the power behind the electric guitars and the electronic keyboards suddenly got caught and then... "BAM" I was like ahhhh the instruments finally sound like their not faded away and kind of if they were washed away by water.

...

Okay so then, I was listening to songs happily, but I was like, there STill has to be more. I just knew my speakers could output better I guess. But I was stuck because Kernel streaming still didn't work.

Okay so here's a little more detail on the Kernel Streaming issue.  I remembered in some of the other programs such as foobar and media monkey when I tried Kernel Streaming for the sound quality on those programs, there was this really really bizzare Kernel streaming device showing up as "KS: bthenum {0000110b xxx ...}". And I was always checking the log of XX and then I guess it hit me when I saw the log said "Found 2 KS streaming devices, Hifi Dac and bthenum {0001..}". So I was like okay I have to get rid of this thing, and then a quick search just turned it up as the Bluetooth driver for Lenovo laptops.  So maybe you can Ks over Bluetooth but I just disabled Bluetooth in device manager and all of a sudden the Kernel streaming to my dac in XX worked! I forgot to tell you that Kernel streaming in foobar and media monkey worked the entire time.

Well anyway, I turned the kernel streaming on and I was like "woah...this is awesome!!" and the speed got even FASTER and I put Q4 and Q5 on 1, with Q1 and Q1x on 1 too and then I found my device buffer using your method to be 256 and jeeze dude like the sound...

The sound was crisp and clear, with the treble being powerful. The entire time when the treble was powerful the base wouldn't be, but finally with Kernel streaming the base was also just as powerful as well. So I really thank you for this wonderful program Peter.  I have much to learn, but after so very much hard work over two years I finally have come to this and I am extremely happy.

The guitars sound full and 3 dimensional and detailed and so do all of the other instruments, I am just so impressed.  I know I have more but I can't think of it right now.  Well thanks

Okay, so this is what I remember that I wanted to say. All of the above details for the first time in this whole time of trying to get nice sound, has allowed every single detail in the music to become nice and full and heavy and intense, but a very clear intense, at all seconds of the music, without letting down for the entire time I play the music.

So thank you once again.

[PeterSt]

So Fran...  I don't use that smiley very often... What a great story.

And Yes, the number of settings in combination are quite infinite.
The stuff with disconnecting devices, we all have been through. And you will see that the better it gets the faster the improvements come

Have fun,
Peter