Topic: AV-710 Kernel Streaming w/MediaMonkey

[Jammin72]

Howdy folks!

Thought some of you might be interested that after some tweaking I've gotten MediaMonkey 3.0, the AV-710, and Kernel Streaming to play nice togehter automatically.  No more manual switching!!  The New Via 5.20 Drivers with the Kernel Streaming Plugin for Winamp do the trick.  Now DTS, Flac16, Flac24, you name it play bit perfect over optical to the STR-DA3000Es and AV-C70ES.  Dramatic improvment over the DS Output Modes.  Volume control is gone but who really cares, gapless is also operations.  The new MediaMonkey is quite nice I can't wait for for the Beta to run it's course and get a release.  For you "computer as a source" folks on the cheap this solution is great.   I attempted with foobar2000 but the 710 would not Auto Switch sampling frequency, it was a manual process.

Now to pray to the Hard Drive Gods for more cheap storage!

Ben

[L Ron Hoover]

What do you notice different sound wise? I just leave the output set at 96 on the audio deck and upsample everything. It sounds good to me. I'll definitely have to get the updated driver and try this though.

[Jammin72]

What do you notice different sound wise? I just leave the output set at 96 on the audio deck and upsample everything. It sounds good to me. I'll definitely have to get the updated driver and try this though.

On my home system the sound is cleaner, bass hass better defintion, soundstage is larger and more detailed.  Just better overall.  It's not night and day but it certainly makes a difference in those "critical lisetning" system.

*I haven't tried a 24/96 source yet.  Just 24/48  we'll see how that goes.

[L Ron Hoover]

Thanks Ben! I downloaded the new drivers, winamp, and the kernel streaming plugin. (I was using foobar) Wow what a difference! The bass is tighter and the soundstage is much wider.

[Jammin72]

Thanks Ben! I downloaded the new drivers, winamp, and the kernel streaming plugin. (I was using foobar) Wow what a difference! The bass is tighter and the soundstage is much wider.

That was my impression too.  You should be able to use Kernel Streaming with foobar as well if you like that interface.  It was too many things for me to want to keep track of setting wise with that program and I really liked the MediaMonkey interface "out of the box"

Enjoy!

[L Ron Hoover]

So now I'm confused. Is kernel streaming only for 24 bit filesets? My 16 bit files do not want to play in either winamp or foobar. (without turning kernel streaming off)

[Jammin72]

So now I'm confused. Is kernel streaming only for 24 bit filesets? My 16 bit files do not want to play in either winamp or foobar. (without turning kernel streaming off)

No it should play either 24 or 16 bit.  I didn't go to the point of setting up Kernel in foobar though I know it can be done. You have to tell Foobar to use the Kernal Output, Change the Output to 24 padded to 32bit, and turn off the respampling I believe.

There is a trick for getting the AV-710 to play nice with auto switching.

I need to look it up again or look at the control panel when I get home from work... but essentiall it involves clicking on the two channel output, disabiling S/PDIF, going to the 6Channel Settings, and

The trick is to do the following:
Go to the 6 channel mode, and disable "digital output", slect "auto frequency" and then re-enable the "digital output". Now go back and re-select 2 channel mode. You should be good to go.

Also when you're done make sure the card is set to PCM Output only and S/PDIF is Re-Enabled.

I'll look at my MediaMonkey settings a bit later.

[jerryfreak]

so you say you havent tested 96k yet?

what exact driver version are you using?

my av710 with kernel streaming and winamp requires manual sample rate switching, as 96k is different than all teh others.

heres my post from hydrogen audio awhile back (never got any replies unfortunately):

ok, heres my setup:

winamp 2.91
kernel streaming plugin 3.63
Chaintech AV710 w/ envy 24 ht-s chipset

I initially tried using (i beleive) 5.20 via drivers for the envy. This didnt work so hot, and i uninstalled and tried to install 4.73.

I know the de/re-install was not completely clean, as the envy utility shows a driver version of 5.12.xxx

I need to play back audio at various sample/bit depths spdif out to a DAC.

I have verified that the card is 100% bit accurate when playing back 24/96 wav or flac (i recorded the stream coming off of it, then compared it in a wave editor, it was bit-for bit identical).

the via audio panel is setup in 'high sample rate mode' at 96K.

the problem being, i cant figure out any way to play back 44.1 or 48k audio, even if i switch it from high sample rate into normal 2-channel mode, i get no sound out.

Is there a driver amonsgt the 5.2 or 4.73 that can work and handle 'auto sample rate' appropriately for both low and high sample rates? I dont want to have kmixer messing with my bits, and asio4all just doesnt really work for me.

I want to use this setup for an htpc, and it has to work all the time without changing control panel settings up.

alternatively, i would switch to foobar if the appropriate IR remote plugins were avaialble. I'm currently using winamp on my htpc with girder+irman to translate ir remotes into winamp commands