PCI soundcards

[Telstar]

Hi,
Is there anything better than Cantatis Overture available?

Seems not

[Marcin_gps]

There is also Onkyo Wavio SE-200PCI Limited Edition

http://www.onkyowavio.com/11-onkyo-wavio-se-200pci-ltd.html

But I read that it uses VLSC that kind of degrades SQ
http://www.intl.onkyo.com/technology/glossary/vlsc.html

What do you think?
It looks like a good ground for mods

[JohanZ]

There is also : Audiotrak HD2 with 2xLT1364 ans 1x LT1361

[ed linssen]

There is also : Audiotrak HD2 with 2xLT1364 ans 1x LT1361
[/quote


Hi Johan,

I have worked for about a year with this fine card. On Vista. With the early Beta driver .978.
But after switching to W7 64bits ult. and the latest HD2driver 1.08 the fun is over. After the first restart I get beautiful BSOD's. Problem is only gone after un-installing of the driver and installing my second card, Asus Essence ST, with its drivers and I am back in business.
But NO Quad Arc Prediction, just two times works(with ticks)! Using SPDIF out. This is because of the restriction of the missing sample freq. as 88.2 and  176.4.on the Asus card.
When using the built-in dac of the card with the anal. outs I can do all the tricks because the card itselves resamples in that case.
But that is not what I always want. I want to use my seperate dacs as well! That means dig. out!
So, problems should be gone when using the HD2-dig out, because this cards does everything between 44.1 and 192-16/24bits!
Can you tell me how you get your card working on w7 ult. 64bits(or is it 32bits?). What driver do you use?
Hope you can help ,

Ed

[ed linssen]

Hi All!

I know some of you out there have Audiotrak HD2 or Asus essence st in their system.
I mentioned in an other thread some problems I have using those cards.
Working with analog out, is reasonable satisfying. Playing a litlle with different opamps etc. However when trying to feed some extern DAC through SPDIF-out of the cards, the following problems occur both with engine 3 and 4 on W7/64bits:

A.P. Quad gives no sound, though the pointer moves. So NO playback sound! Double is fine.
The Essence ST gives ticks every now and then. Not through the analog rca-outputs.

Maybe one of you deals with the same problems?
Please let me know

Ed

[mark235]

Thanks guys, it's clear now.
I'll pick up an ex demo overture soon and let you know how it compares against my Xonar D2

I got tired of waiting for an ex demo overture to appear on ebay, so I ordered a new one from hifiheadphones.co.uk
it's on it's way to Holland now :-).
Can't wait to compare it against my Xonar D2.
Will let you know how it sounds on my system, which is made up of a Marantz SR7400 and Wharfedale 9 speakers (9.5, 9.1, 9.CM)

[mark235]

OK, well thanks to the ash cloud the shipping to a bit longer than expected but it's now finally arrived.
I've been running the card for about 10 hours now and here are my thoughts on how it performs compared to an Asus Xonar D2:
The sound is slightly smoother, slightly more detailed, and definitely less agressive.
I can now listen to music for more than an hour without listening fatigue.
It's not just the highs that are more forgiving, the whole sound is more relaxed.
Stereo seperation on the Cantatis is a bit better than the Xonar, but the difference is small.
Perhaps if I get better speakers, the differences between the cards will be more noticable.

Whether the Cantatis is worth the extra €100 over the Xonar mostly depends on your listening preferences.
If you're looking for the best card in stereo, get the cantatis.
If you can live with the more "upfront" sound of the Xonar, or actually prefer this, then the Xonar is the better choice.
I use the Xonar and the Cantatis side by side in my pc now, and prefer the Xonar's analogue outs for movie watching.
This is not because the cantatis lacks 5.1 analogue outputs, but because the aggresiveness of the xonar actually works out well when watching movies.
It makes movies sound a bit more dynamic.
I drove both cards in 2 channel and watched a movie to compare them properly this way.

If you are looking for a decent step up in stereo sound from your pc, then the cantatis is a fine choice.

[stoneman]

All this talk of Cantatis/Xonar/HD2SE, any views on whether they (or any other card for that matter) would make a significant improvement in SQ vs my current L22 please?

regards
Andy

[Marcin_gps]

I just got Cantatis Overture sound card and I'm pretty shocked that I can't achieve decent buffer sizes with it. Actually, M-Audio  Transit (USB) that I've used so far could play at 64 samples without any glitches (24/44, Q1=1, Adaptive Mode) while Cantatis' lowest buffer size that I managed to squeeze is 512 samples (24/44, Q1=1, Adaptive Mode). I thought that it's a matter of performance, so I overclocked my CPU to 3.8GHz (4 cores, 4GB of DDRIII 2000MHz modules) and guess what - nothing has changed! That leads me to conclusion: drivers' "performance" is more important than overall performance of a PC But there is one thing that astonishes me - Leo reported that he could play at 4 samples (special mode) with the same sound card and slower PC - what the hell?

It's worth mentioning that with ASIO4ALL I can play at 64 samples with absolutely no cracks.

[PietPara]

Hi,

I have the Xonar Essence ST and recently installed the latest beta drivers which now support 88.2 and 176.4 kHz.
However, from the Xonar Control Center you cannot select these sampling rates and it is said in the forum at Asus that the sample rates get automatically selected now, and from what I understand only when using ASIO.
I am unfamiliar with ASIO. I'd like to know if XXHighEnd can now be used at these rates and how I can check this.
I have tried them and hear the music but does this mean it is actually playing at these rates without upsampling to 192 or 96 kHz?

Any help is appreciated.
PietPara

[Telstar]

Try it, it should work. If not, pester asus support.

[Marcin_gps]

I think it plays at those rates Could you give me a link to these beta drivers?

EDIT
Ok, got it

[PeterSt]

The only thing I can think of, is walk into a Feedback shop or anything, and connect the digital output to a Pro device which will show the sample rate. But hmm ... this still won't tell a thing about the internal sample rate at using the analog outs.

[PietPara]

Try it, it should work. If not, pester asus support.

I have tried it and all I can say is that I heard the music just fine, but I don't know if this means it is actually processing he 88.2 or 176.4 signals or not, or just upsampling.
The only reason I think it just may work is that before I had these drivers I never tried at these sampling rates without the XXHighEnd option to upsample to 96 or 192 in the settings because I thought I had read somewhere in the XXHighEnd tooltips or forum that you would hear an awful sound if the DAC would not support 88.2 or 176.4 kHz. Not sure where I read it.

In any case, my questions are then:
1) Can someone confirm that the Double or Quad wouldn't work if the DAC wouldn't support it?
2) How would one use ASIO with XXHighEnd?

thanks a lot guys
PietPara

[PeterSt]

1) Can someone confirm that the Double or Quad wouldn't work if the DAC wouldn't support it?

Nobody can. This is because before the DAC you have the soundcard (no matter the DAC is *on* the soundcard, as it is in your case), and when the soundcard resamples to what the DAC wants, you can't see it. "DAC wants" is strangely expressed though, because the DAC (generally) can do anything. It is the selection of the modes/samplerates in front of the DAC which could be more work for the developer, than letting an SRC do the job again in front of that.

Talking about SRCs ... when this is an oversampling DAC (and of course it is) you can wonder whether you should bother. Either that or an SRC solution (to attack jitter) will vaguen so much that you probably won't hear the difference anyway. I mean, in such a case your 176.4 will be turned into something else anyway.

Peter