carloscarr

Although it appears from the manual that one should be able to play ("preview") a list of songs in File Manager view, I haven't been able to get that to work (maybe doesn't work w/FLAC?). So to play more than 1 song I start a new project and load the list of songs into the project. This works but isn't ideal (leaves a bunch of temporaray .hf2 and .hfc files in the music folder). Wavelab I believe has a better File Manager. The program supports MME, ASIO and WDM playback but I've not figured out if it supports WASAPI (probably not). For me, the subtle improvement from ASIO to WASAPI under Foobar is dwarfed by the large improvement in SQ going from Foobar Wasapi to Samplitude ASIO. Have you tried Samplitude SE or Music Studio? Do they have the same SQ as the full Samplitude program?

I just downloaded a demo of the new version of Samplitude (v11), and am very impressed by the noticeable improvement in sound quality compared to playback (ASIO in both cases) via Foobar, Cplay, etc. (all fine programs as well and free). Has anyone else tried the new version of Samplitude? Vs. version 10.0, it offers playback of FLAC files (actually added in v10.2 or thereabouts), and based on my memory of the demo of version 10 I tried a while ago, v11 has much better playback quality. More detail, musicality, PRAT, etc. With v10, the contrast with Foobar wasn't enough to make me consider switching. But the full version of Samplitude is pricey and overkill, so now I have to determine if the "lite" version (which they sold as version 10 SE, and hopefully a version 11 SE is in the works) has the same SQ. Also Magix makes a program called "Music Studio" which is inexpensive, I'm not sure how that fits in. Also, Steinberg's Wavelab 7, due out in the next few months, will have FLAC playback, and they offer a "lite" version as well. In any case, the SQ of Samplitude 11 has convinced me that pro audio software may be a worthwhile improvement for music servers. I'd be interested how many others are using one of these pro programs on their systems.

I had a similar problem as the previous poster had from a PS/2 keyboard, however, with the help of the dpc latency checker ( http://www.thesycon.de/dpclat/dpclat.exe ), I was able to identify the source of the problem with ASIO dropouts and latency spikes on my Lynx aes16e card: it was conflict with my wireless adapter (DWA-552), whose Windows 7 drivers are evidently poorly behaved.<br /> I resolved this conflict by disabling the wirelss card, but for now I've rolled back to Vista because IMHO the beta Lynx drivers sound better on Vista than on Win7. Maybe by the time they come out in the final release this will be resolved. I still have Win7 on all my other (non-media server) computers, it's a great OS but with a few teething pains....

Chris - Are you able to get hi-res playback via the new beta Lynx driver? I upgraded the firmware on my aes16e to v9 and upgraded the driver to the new beta version that you are using, and I can no longer play files with resolution >96hz (ie, 176 or 192)(via single-wire output to BDA-1). These previously played fine with this software and hardware configuration. The OS which I encountered this problem on was Vista32, and now having upgraded to Win7_32 it persists. The light on the DAC indicates the resolution of the stream correctly eg, 176, but no sound is produced. The Lynx Mixer Outputs panel also show no activity on the relevant channel when the file being played is above 96k resolution, so this might be a bug in the beta driver, or if you are not experiencing it, a bug in the new aes16e firmware.

There is a new Windows driver for Lynx cards (eg, aes16e) and new firmware for the aes16e. Installing these noticeably improved the sound quality on my Vista-based system. They're posted at: http://www.lynxstudio.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=2906

I have a Lynx aes16e sound card installed in an vista (32-bit) OS. The lynx has 8 stereo output channels. Mine installed as 8 Playback Devices (as seen in the Vista System Tray sound device manager): Speakers (corresponding to channel 1), and Play 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 [shown in the sound device manager as RCA output cable symbols]). I initially used channel 1 for playback (via Foobar or CPlay into BDA-1 DAC). I was disappointed with the sound (some fairly subtle distortion in the treble, etc.). Then I switched to Play 5 (channel 5) and the sound quality was great as expected. The strange thing is that I playback via ASIO or WASAPI mode which supposedly prevent Windows from messing with bitperfect output (although I have no way of determining if I'm getting bitperfect playback into the DAC). My questions area: 1) Does the Lynx card always install as 1 "speakers" device and 7 "Play" devices? 2) Is a "speakers" device to be avoided for bitperfect playback? 3) Why would ASIO output be affected? The other explanation is that there is a physical defect in channel 1 of the card but that seems less likely. Thanks.

I noticed Lynx is releasing a version of the aes16e card (aes16e-50) that has a new type of port (AES50 standard) that can carry both digital channels and wordclock with very low latency. Is anyone familiar with the AES50 standard and can suggest whether this has potential for the audiophile market vs. the existing AES XLR output? I'm not aware of any DACs that have AES50 input but maybe there are within the pro music market.

I wanted to add a few comments as another pleased (amazed) owner of a BDA-1. I have had it about a week, but knew from the first few minutes that it was a keeper. My previous DAC was a Lavry DA10, which is a very musical DAC and has bested Benchmark DAC1 and other DACs in its ~$1000 price range in several reviews I've seen. It was certainly a big step up in sound quality from what I had before, analog out from an M-Audio Audiophile 192 soundcard. But in comparison to the BDA-1, the DA10 sounded muddied. Perhaps my system (Magnepan speakers, Classe amps) needs a very transparent DAC like the BDA-1 to avoid this. All the faults in my system I had previously attributed to the speakers or amp, believing the opinion that a DAC is of relatively low importance and will not have a huge effect on SQ. But now these weaknesses are gone, transients are crisp and everything is more musical. I agree with a previous reviewer that the BDA-1 has "mad PRAT" (pace, rhythm, attack, timing). I especially notice this on jazz horns which previously seemed thin, but rock and other genres also benefit.<br /> After trying the optical and USB out I feel the spdif coax out gives best sound, slightly better than optical and noticeably better than USB. I also leave the upsampling off at to me it reduces the transparency and clarity of the sound (some have commented that it adds a tubey effect). One post said the spdif BNC is superior to spdif coax, but I have not tried BNC yet. USB also has some problems with volume control that I don't have with spdif, I can believe what others have reported that USB out can send high volume surges of sound due to quirks in Windows. Even with spdif, I get slight crackling when the audio playback jumps to a new sampling rate file, which never occurred with the Lavry. It would be nice if the BDA-1 was available with a digital volume control. Since I run the DAC's balanced out directly to my amps, I now must use digital volume attenuation within the playback program (Foobar or Xmplay). I buffer the original 16-bit file to 24-bit, and I believe this means that the program can reduce the volume substantially without altering the 16 significant bits. WASAPI output is available in Foobar and Xmplay on Vista, and to me sounds very noticeably better than ASIO (either ASIO4ALL or with M-Audio drivers). I think the redesigned Vista audio stack has a lot of potential. I use spdif out from the onboard audio chip (Realtek AC889). Realtek has been one of the first good implementations of the new audio protocols in Vista, and using WASAPI, the onboard chip sounds indistinguishable to WASAPI out through a mid-range soundcard like M-Audio Audiophile. I think when Lynx and RME release WaveRT drivers that take advantage of Vista's potential, then the gap between digital out from the motherboard vs. a good soundcard will widen again.<br /> In any case, the BDA-1 has improved my enjoyment of the system by a huge amount and is well worth the increase in cost over the ~$1000 DACs, which is saying something in hi-end audio's world of rapidly diminishing returns with increasing price.<br /> <br />

I've never had this problem and I use applications (Foobar, XMplay) that use Vista's Wasapi exclusive mode. So that would imply that no Windows sounds or sounds produced by other apps will be heard (also I disable Windows sounds in the Control Panel). But doesn't the Lynx card that Chris uses use an ASIO driver that would allow equivalent exclusion of any sounds not from the audio playback application?