Background:
So, after 3 weeks of being without my DAC, I finally got it back yesterday. See, I recently ordered some wires to build a set of powercables for my rather new preamp. When I plugged it into my power distributor, my Audio Sector USB DAC sparked and ceased to function. I had mis-wired the powercable having the ground and cold crossed.
I sent it back to Peter Daniel. It was stuck in customs for some time, but, when it finally got to Peter, he turned it around in no time flat. Great customer service!
Problem:
I was very happy to finally get the DAC back into my system. However, when I got everything hooked up, my PC doesn't recognize the DAC. Peculiar, I thought. So, I moved the USB cable to different ports, then the "new" USB device is recognized. However, I couldn't play music via Foobar.
I checked the preference within Foobar's menu. The output device is ASIO4ALL V2, but, in the ASIO Virtual Device configure window, USB DAC outputs 1 and 2 were missing.
I then reinstalled both Foobar and ASIO4ALL. Rebooted. Now, the ASIO Virtual Device doesn't show up just as if I didn't install ASIO4ALL at all.
At first, I thought maybe there is a fault with the repaired DAC. So, I plugged it into my laptop which also has Foobar and ASIO4all installed. And, it works fine.
So, the problem, I think, is isolated to my PC. It could also be my USB cable as I use a 5m with my PC and a 3M with my laptop which are both Monoprice gold plated versions.
I got really annoyed and impatient, so I went ahead and downloaded USB-ASIO and paid for the license. This, I think, lets me play audio while bypassing kmixer. While using USB-ASIO, there is no midrange smear that I associate the audio going through kmixer. But, I can't say for sure that I am bypassing kmixer as the ASIO Virtual Device window is still missing.
USB-ASIO has two other drawbacks.
1) my pc doesn't produce audio except when I play music via Foobar. This means I can't stream internet radio. 2) I prefer ASIO4ALL's SQ. USB-ASIO has better bass and highs, mids are more clear. But, it leads to listener fatigue much sooner. ASIO4ALL sounds blander but leads to much longer listerner comfort.
Anyways, any suggestion or tip is appreciated. Pretty busy this weekend otheriwse I'd reformat my PC.
Thanks,
Ed
