[ricko01]

I have been mucking around with playing my ripped music DVD's via a PC into the BDA-1 USB port.

All works well but as this is my first time using USB audio in any form, do I have to care about ASIO/WASAPI/Directsound "stuff" when using the BDA?

If so, what do I need to do?

Thanks,

Peter 

[srb]

You should be using either the WASAPI or ASIO driver to bypass the internal Windows mixer and avoid resampling the audio stream.  WASAPI is most often the first choice followed by ASIO, but you may find for your particular setup that one sounds better than the other or one is more stable than the other.

You may also want to go into Control Panel > Sound > Playback tab > Bryston BDA-1 USB > Properties > Advanced tab and checking both checkboxes under Exclusive Mode.

Steve

[ricko01]

You should be using either the WASAPI or ASIO driver to bypass the internal Windows mixer and avoid resampling the audio stream.  WASAPI is most often the first choice followed by ASIO, but you may find for your particular setup that one sounds better than the other or one is more stable than the other.

You may also want to go into Control Panel > Sound > Playback tab > Bryston BDA-1 USB > Properties > Advanced tab and checking both checkboxes under Exclusive Mode.

Steve

Thanks.

I am currently using WIN XP 64bit (aka win server 2003)... but thats easy enough to change.

I did some more research and WASAPI (in exclusive mode) would need win 7 and ASIO would only be an option if the underlying hardware provide it.

I have no "onboard" soundcard drivers/software installed such that when the BDA1 is not turned on, the PC has no audio subsystem defined.

I have also set the windows default sounds to "no sound".

It would appear from my research that the WIN XP "kmixer" will only do resampling if there are two programs running at the same time that are generating sound at a different rate or the endpoints have a mismatch.

I am only using the PC to replay music videos and 99% of DVD's will only output 48 kHz (no matter the underlying codec selected)... which is what the BDA-1 USB max is.

So in this case, the "kmixer"will not need to resample as its getting a 48kHz stream from the VLC video player and the BDA-1 48kHz led is lit, indicating a "bit-perfect" connection.

I also note that moving the windows volume control has no affect on the sound volume... which would indicate that the BDA-1 USB is bypassing "kmixer" in some way?


Peter

PS. This is potentially an interim solution while I research a USB to SPDIF solution but given I will not be streaming anything but 48 kHz material then I am potentially at 90% of what can be achieved with the current setup?

[srb]

Windows Vista was the first Windows OS to support WASAPI, and when I used that prior to upgrading to Windows 7, I believe it also supported Exclusive Mode (?).

Anyway, I didn't stop to think that you might be using something earlier than Windows Vista.  I don't have a BDA-1, but when you installed the BDA-2/BDA-1 USB driver pack, I assumed it installed an ASIO driver that would work with the XP architecture, but maybe not?

And of course, the particular driver that a sound playback device uses is not selected in the Sound control panel, but in the music player application (if the particular application itself does allow for mapping a particular driver, such as JRiver, foobar, etc.).

Which playback software are you using?  I assumed that's where you were seeing any driver choices if available.  The fact that your files are 48kHz does seem like resampling may not be an issue, and the Windows volume control having no effect also seems to indicate that some type of internal mixer bypass might be going on.

Steve

[ricko01]

thanks again for the reply.

The BDA-1 is "plug and play", no software needs to be installed, probably because it runs in usb 1.1 mode and doesnt support asynchronous usb.

I am testing both VLC and XBMC as media players and both obviously leverage directsound/directx given its XP.

The only area where the "kmixer" might rear its head is when a DVD is sticking out 24bit/48kHZ... cause the BDA-1 USB maxes out at 16 bit.

Anyways, thanks again... you have confirmed what I read on the interweb.

The sticking point with VLC is that they dont support ASIO, where as XBMC supposedly can.

Given I will move at some point soon to SPDIF via USB, the limitations of the BDA1 USB is temporary and at least now I know what to look out for in a SPDIF  USB product (being a ASIO driver)

Peter

[ricko01]

Done more research.

Linux doesnt have any of these potential issues that windows does and the USB/SPDIF dongles I am looking at all support Linux.

VLC is my preferred player and its available for Linux so I have now installed Linux in a dual boot config.

This way I have a horse on both camps, although I do prefer Linux.

Peter

[James Tanner]

Yes Linux is what we use in our BDP-2 Digital player.

james