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ODAC - general and technical discussions
- Thread starter swalter
- Start date
Been using the odac for about a month now and very impressed! I use it with Foobar and wasapi on a Win7 PC. With Foobar (preferences - output - output format) and the odac (control panel - sound - properties - advanced) both set to 24 bit (or any other combination for that matter), the Windows volume still works, I had expected this not to be the case as wasapi by passes the windows controller, has anyone else experience of this?
Hi, Do you have any info on connecting the ODAC to the raspberry pi? I would like to do this using XMBC or perhaps wheezy. I couldn't find the post you quoted.
Thanks!
Hi, the quote above is copied from my website and was posted as review from one of my customers.
From his experience the Pi is not able to handle the ODAC with bit perfect output settings.
16bit CD quality seems to work fine with it.
Best Regards, Stefan
I want to share my experience with odac. I bought odac to drive my power amp and floorstanding speakers. I have tested it with my notebook and brother's. Everything was working OK and sound was very good, compared to notebook integrated crap sound. I decided to connect odac to my girlfriend HP notebook. The sound was very distorted. I didn't understand why.... I have done a lot of google search to find out, why it sounds so bad. The problem was here:
What Is the AMD USB Filter Driver? | Tech Tips - Salon.com
Maybe this information willl help for others, who has notebooks with amd chipsets and has distorted sound with odac. Usually amd usb filter is installed when you buy new notebook with factory installed OS and drivers, and you won't have problems with odac, but I always do clean install to get rid rubbish software which installed by manufacturer. So don' forget to install amd usb filter if you also do clean instal.
What Is the AMD USB Filter Driver? | Tech Tips - Salon.com
Maybe this information willl help for others, who has notebooks with amd chipsets and has distorted sound with odac. Usually amd usb filter is installed when you buy new notebook with factory installed OS and drivers, and you won't have problems with odac, but I always do clean install to get rid rubbish software which installed by manufacturer. So don' forget to install amd usb filter if you also do clean instal.
The notebook issue can be caused by its switched power supply. I tried USB DAC with ASUS low-end notebook and then connected to desktop speakers. The interference was so high that it was not pleasant to listen to anything. I've tried to replaced power supply with the one from old Thinkpad and the distortion has disappeared.
If it's your reply to my post, I don't agree with you. The problem is only amd chipset, which manage all usb hubs in computer. I also must say that amd usb filter driver still didn't solve completely the problem. After installing driver, distortions became much lower, but I can still hear some. Maybe the newest version can solve the problem, but HP support gives only one old version and you can't download the latest driver neither from amd webpage or from other laptop manufacturer, because driver is individually written only for concrete model. My suggestion is to forget any usb dac, if you need to install amd usb filter driver. Before buying usb dac, I'm recommending to check your laptop model support webpage and search for amd usb filter driver. If you found such, don't buy usb dac, if you don't want surprises. In such situation maybe firewire, spdif will be better connection choice.
I'm not the only one
:USB Audio problem HP 6735s laptop - Page 2 - HP Support Forum - 21803
I replaced fb102 and it didn't fix anything. I also noticed that ESD1 and ESD2 are missing from my board. The replacement I just got has something in both of them. Any ideas what they are? could I just short them and see if I get anything?
I just received my ODAC in the mail and I've been testing it against an internal Terratec Aureon 7.1-Space sound card in my PC, connected to a NAD C 352 amplifier with a pair of B&W DM603S2 speakers. I can't hear a difference. Not that I necessarily expected to; one of the reasons I bought the ODAC is to avoid the loud sound output by the analog out of my sound card when my computer is turned off. Also, it makes me able to have devices without a sound card output sound to my stereo.
One thing that disappointed me though was the noise floor. It's exactly the same as that of my internal sound card.
When nothing is playing on the ODAC, it's silent. Probably because it's not outputting anything. But when I play a WAV file with silence in it, its noise floor goes up to exactly that of the internal sound card. The noise floor of the internal sound card is the same whether I play anything on it or not though.
Interestingly, when I connect the ODAC to my Raspberry Pi, the noise floor disappears almost completely. So as far as I can deduce, noise is being transferred from my PC over the USB cable to the ODAC.
One thing that disappointed me though was the noise floor. It's exactly the same as that of my internal sound card.
When nothing is playing on the ODAC, it's silent. Probably because it's not outputting anything. But when I play a WAV file with silence in it, its noise floor goes up to exactly that of the internal sound card. The noise floor of the internal sound card is the same whether I play anything on it or not though.
Interestingly, when I connect the ODAC to my Raspberry Pi, the noise floor disappears almost completely. So as far as I can deduce, noise is being transferred from my PC over the USB cable to the ODAC.
It is likely that what you are experiencing is the windows sound software stack getting in the way. You need to configure a music player such as Foobar2000 to send the data directly to the DAC over USB without windows touching it.
It has been a few years since I have used windows and therefore foobar to play music but a quick google found this link.
Configuring foobar2000 and Windows 7 for digital music playback
Personally I use GNU+Linux as my OS of choice with MPD as my music player. While the learning curve is quite a bit steeper, it is a lot easier to decide what happens to the music. Pushing the bits directly to the DAC is just a matter of editing a config file. If anyone one wants more info on MPD+DAC configuration then let me know. The stuff on the Internets is a minefield for newbies.
I was thinking of trying to put a Pi+ODAC into a custom case, but this comment has given me pause. Was a powered USB hub tested? I am wondering if the problem is trying to power the ODAC directly off the Pi USB.
Hi, above comments have been made almost a year ago, lots of things happened during that time
Have a look over here: www.raspyfi.comI have the ODAC PCB and I broke it by carelessly handling it while the power was on. I wonder if I can repair it. The L100 inductor gets extremely hot when plugged in and I wonder if replacing it might fix the problem. Is this something worth trying out? What specs should I look for if buying a replacement?
ODAC mod for optical audio in or similar DAC suggestion please!
I may be looking for a different DAC and headphone amplifier then I thought I would originally get since the ones I've ordered from China do not seem to be coming because the seller is not reliable and PayPal's tells me I may have to file a dispute.
Consequently I was thinking both the Objective2 and ODAC or the combination was looking very desirable to drive my new Sennheiser HD 600s headphones. However I will need an optical audio input on my DAC an USB will not do it for me since I will be using my set up in two places near my computer and across my basement near my television. So in optical audio input is what I will require. So is there any way I can do either a do-it-yourself mod or get a commercially available optical audio to USB converter which would give me a very high quality set up using the ODAC?
Or alternatively could you suggest another DAC with optical audio input designed under the same philosophy of having objective audio and being of good value?
I may be looking for a different DAC and headphone amplifier then I thought I would originally get since the ones I've ordered from China do not seem to be coming because the seller is not reliable and PayPal's tells me I may have to file a dispute.
Consequently I was thinking both the Objective2 and ODAC or the combination was looking very desirable to drive my new Sennheiser HD 600s headphones. However I will need an optical audio input on my DAC an USB will not do it for me since I will be using my set up in two places near my computer and across my basement near my television. So in optical audio input is what I will require. So is there any way I can do either a do-it-yourself mod or get a commercially available optical audio to USB converter which would give me a very high quality set up using the ODAC?
Or alternatively could you suggest another DAC with optical audio input designed under the same philosophy of having objective audio and being of good value?
Noise issues with ODAC
Has anyone had problems with volume control noise with an ODAC?
I have a very nice stepped attenuator from Khozmo but I get crackly noise when adjusting it when the ODAc is selected as input to my passive pre-amp. I get no problems with any other input selected (e.g. TV, alternative DAC) and I get the same with different USB ports and even from my laptop.
I have the ODAC (Rev. B) installed as a bare board in my preamp and was wondering if it needs grounding somehow. I have tried grounding the USB connector, but it made no difference.
Any help or advice would be most welcome!
Has anyone had problems with volume control noise with an ODAC?
I have a very nice stepped attenuator from Khozmo but I get crackly noise when adjusting it when the ODAc is selected as input to my passive pre-amp. I get no problems with any other input selected (e.g. TV, alternative DAC) and I get the same with different USB ports and even from my laptop.
I have the ODAC (Rev. B) installed as a bare board in my preamp and was wondering if it needs grounding somehow. I have tried grounding the USB connector, but it made no difference.
Any help or advice would be most welcome!