ASIO with Musical Fidelity V-DAC

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Aug 10, 2019
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Hi guys!

I am just about to take possession of a V-DAC; my system will look like this:

Acer Aspire One > V-DAC > NAD C326BEE > Mission m73

The Acer is running Windows XP. I'm new to whole PC-based hi-fi thing... I mean, I've been playing WMAs as background music whilst I work, but now I want to get my hi-fi streaming audio from my NAS. (My CD collection will be re-ripped as FLAC. I'm planning on using MediaMonkey.)

So, I have a few questions! I'm hoping there are people here who've been down this path before who can offer a little advice. :)

1a. ASIO. With Windows XP, am I right in thinking that I'll need to install third-party drivers? (Are they built-in with Windows 7?)

1b. If so, which are the best drivers to go for?

2. I'm planning on using the netbook's Wi-Fi for streaming the audio. This should give plenty of bandwidth, right?

3. If I'm connected to the V-DAC using ASIO via USB, am I right in thinking that things like revert effects, equalizer, and even the volume control in MediaMonkey will be inactive? (As the bits will be going straight to the DAC without any processing.) (This is what I want!)

Thanks very much! This should be an exciting process. :)
 
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Anonymous

Guest
Good call!

1a/b. Yes. I tried ASIO4ALL to add an ASIO device to your system, and a plugin dll (see the MM site for the link to a site where it can be downloaded) to use it from MM. Not standard in W7. Big but: never been able to get gapless playback with ASIO and MM! I use wave_out and that works very well (no difference with ASIO to my ears).

2. Yep

3. Think so yes. Anyway, these effects are easy to disable, avoiding processing.

Although I like MM they are very slow in releasing a working WASAPI plugin (like foobar already has) for Vista/7. Which is annoying, and for an audio-only player rather strange.
 
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Anonymous

Guest
Thanks, Pete! :)

What exactly does wave_out do? My understanding is that ASIO can be used to send a bit-perfect data stream to the DAC. Does wave_out do the same thing, or is there some data processing occurring in the driver/plugin before it reaches the DAC in this case?

As for MediaMonkey, I'm not tied to that. I've installed it and had a little play. It seems nice to use, but, if there's something else that will do a better job, then I'm willing to give it a try! (Presumably, any decent application should produce the same output while ripping to FLAC?)

I just did a quick search and found someone recommending the in_mad plugin for gapless playback. I'm not sure what it does, but it seems to mess with the data stream, apparently making "all audio files sound cleaner". I'm highly sceptical.
 
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Anonymous

Guest
I really believe wave_out is bitperfect as long as you do not use equalizer or dsp effects, volume at 100% etc. It is an alternatuve way to send audio to the music system, and you can set (pre)buffer size to avoid dropouts and gaps. Also the oprion to overrule the volume setting. The other default MM output plugin, direct sound, had more problems with gapless I seem to recall. Kernel streaming leads to horrible crashes in my system.

Anyway, you can just install both MM and foobar and see what you like best, and if you hear a difference.

I think the the in_mad is an input plugin to sort out issues with playback of mp3 tracks - I always use lossless flac.
 
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Anonymous

Guest
Sorry to bring back an old(ish) thread. I just wanted to give an update, and to say that I'm very happy with my new setup. My system now looks like this:

WD NAS (FLAC) > Acer Aspire One running MediaMonkey v3 (ASIO out via USB) > MF V-DAC > NAD C 326BEE > Mission m73

I upgraded from an old Technics amp at the same time I bought the V-DAC. I now, for the first time, have a system with which I'm completely satisfied. It sounds great! :)

(I still have ~25% of my collection waiting to be ripped.)

P.S. Thanks, Pete, for the info!
 
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Anonymous

Guest
Good to hear you're happy. I am now running W7 on the netbook, but still using wave_out (the upcoming MM 4 will support WASAPI exclusive mode, so they say). I also installed foobar but I prefer MM (they sound the same to me).
 

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