Xonar DX, Sony DAV-DZ260 and stereo headphones

[sesselpupser]

I wasn't sure if I should keep adding to my thread about building a PC, but this is different enough and may help other people (maybe) so I thought it would be ok to make a new thread; I apologise if I was wrong.

I just bought an Asus Xonar DX. It took a while to get it working, but I think I'm getting there. I have a few questions, though, because I can't seem to work it out.

First of all, it seems that I can't configure it to automatically detect whether or not my headphones are plugged in, so I have to go to the Sound control panel and switch from 'Speakers' Xonar DX Audio Device to 'S/PDIF pass-through Device' Xonar DX Audio Device; is that how it's done?

Secondly, I can't get anything more than stereo over the S/PDIF connection to my Sony DAV-DZ260 receiver, at least not in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which has no sound settings that I can see other than volume. How can I set this up in the Xonar DX Audio Center?

I also can't work out the headphone settings, either; what is GX? What is 7.1 Virtual Speaker Shifter? Do I have to have Dolby Headphone turned on to get fake 7.1 from the headphones? How do games know they're supposed to use surround sound if they don't have a setting for surround sound in them?

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 also seems to want to crash if I use the DX, which is far from good; I've only tried that, DXHR and Splinter Cell: Conviction (it was the only game I can think of that has a surround sound test feature), so if this happens on a lot of games I'm probably better off with the on-board audio. Problem is, so many people seem to love this card, so they must know something I don't...

Also with the default equaliser settings the card just seems to have no bass and things sound weird; how can I work out what settings to use, given the dynamic range most games have now? It's not like I can get a game to play an infinite explosion so I can set the EQ so it doesn't sound distorted or clipped...

I think that's all the trouble I'm having so far, but given that I bought this card to get 5.1 sound from my speakers and some kind of directional sound from my headphones, it's kind of a big deal (to me). I've googled around and have yet to find anything completely useful.

As far as I know if I have my Sony box set to 'A.F.D. STD', which I have, it should 'present the sound as it was encoded', according to the manual, so if the DX was putting out 5.1 it should play 5.1; yet if I use the Splinter Cell: Conviction sound test (so tedious given that it has to go through what feels like 5 minutes of pointless talking before testing the speakers), only the front three channels work. I can't tell if it's working with my headphones, it just sounds like stereo to me, but then I have heard that fake 7.1 is a massive gimmick... Is it really SO bad to the point that it actually doesn't do anything at all and is actually a lie?

I'm guessing I've missed something pretty big, because this card is supposed to be pretty good, yet I can't get anything more than stereo out of it!

Thanks guys!

 

[bevo]

If you are using a surround sound receiver you don't want to use a sound card unless you have to. All the sound card is doing is getting in the way of your receiver doing the audio decoding. I think I remember you bought a GTX 580. If that is right, does your receiver have HDMI in. If it does and your monitor does just run the hdmi from the card to the hdmi of the receiver and then to your monitor. Thats the best way to do it. The GTX 580 will just pass through the lossless LPCM audio to your receiver, and let your receiver do the work. If you use the sound card, then you have it trying to do audio processing and the receiver also trying to figure out what your sound card is trying to do.

If your monitor won't do HDMI or your trying to go higher then 1080p then just use your onboard sound. If you have optical on board sound then it's probably 7.1 and that's what you want going to the receiver. You want to try and avoid a sound card when using a decent 5.1 setup. Let your receiver do what it's suppose and let it figure how and where to send the audio. All you will have to do is set your audio to 5.1 in the nvidia control panel and everything will work great. If your not using HDMI then just set it to 5.1 in the windows sound setting.

I also bought a sound card when I did my build but tried HDMI from my 570 first and it worked perfect. I shipped the soundcard back and saved myself almost 100$ and it sounds like some headaches.

As for your headset I'm not sure. Does it plug right into an out on your receiver or does it have it's own box with an optical in on it?

Just give it a try with just running the hdmi without using the soundcard, and I'm sure it will sound better. No messed up effects that the soundcard is trying to add, just lossless audio to the receiver just like it's suppose to be. Soundcards are for people who don't have a device that already decodes the audio, you have If no HDMI then just use optical from your mother board to your receiver and not from the sound card. Try to avoid the soundcard if you can, and if you have to use it, just use it for the headphones. The reciver has no need for the sound card, and it will actually sound better just using the onboard sound with the receiver then it will using the soundcard. Sound cards are only made because most people don't use a decent 5.1 speaker setup with the PC. Most go out and buy a cheap logitech or pc speaker setup and are happy with that, ot they just use headphones.

 

[Casio]

I also have a Xonar. I actually plug my headphones into the front panel, as Xonar's have front panel detect, so it will automatically swap from the rear input.

In regards to Dolby Headphone, etc, it really depends on what headphones you have. Dolby Headphone I find is really good for gaming, but reduces the accuracy of music, the way I have it configured for gaming, is Dolby Headphone on, and in game set your speaker setup to 5.1 (If the game allows it), I can get excellent directional sound this way (better even than my 5.1 phones with 3 drivers in each year), but the amount of directional sound you will get highly depends on your headphones. What headphones are you using?

I actually find the 7.1 Virtual Speaker thing to give a little more bass, but it sounds more artificial, so I don't use it, if you're looking for more bass though it may be for you.

The receive should be on AFD, so that's correct. Does it work with the optical out on the motherboard?

 

[Sharky.]

Obvious question is obvious, have you set the card in the Windows Speaker config to output 5.1?

 

[sesselpupser]

I was going to quote you all and reply specifically, but I got confused and it was really long, so I'll summarise:

I found that you have to select the Xonar DX 'Speakers' rather than 'S/PDIF pass through' in the control panel, I can't remember why but there was a good explanation for it on the Asus forums. Then in the Audio Center I just had to tick SPDIF Out and set it to Dolby Digital Live, and it works perfectly and sounds pretty good. Now that I've got it working I'm reluctant to switch back to the on-board sound... I might give it a go, though, it's not exactly difficult to switch back I suppose. Then again my hearing isn't the most acute in the world so I can't claim to be able to hear the difference between, say, 44KHz and 96KHz, and the sound card isn't adding any effects or anything like that to the receiver output. As far as I can tell it sounds exactly the same as it did when I was using the same receiver with the on-board audio of my Mac Pro running the same games in Boot Camp.

My monitor is DVI only and my receiver is S/PDIF or Coaxial optical in and HDMI out only, unfortunately, when I had my PC by the TV I used HDMI there and that worked quite well except for the odd underscan issue (easily fixed with Nvidia's software, though), but no such luck here. My headphones are just a normal 3.5mm phono jack pair, they're not an actual gaming (or otherwise) headset or anything like that. They're an old, old pair of Sony somethings which had to be re-homed following an office chair mishap so they currently reside inside a pair of army surplus ear defenders. Uncomfortable, yes, but very good at reducing ambient noise and are also office chair proof, which is apparently something I need. I do want to replace them, though, Christmas is coming up after all...

Finally, yes, the speakers are all set up as 7.1 in the Windows setup thing. I've played the test tone over and over and over again, and I can't help but wonder why they used completely different sounds for each speaker; it's making it difficult for me to be able to tell whether or not I can discern where the sounds are coming from. That was a weird sentence.

Actually, while we're on the subject, can anyone kindly recommend a good pair of headphones to use with Dolby Headphone type stuff that I could also use with an iPod or similar device? Nothing too fancy, though, my budget has become considerably less elastic since building this PC. Also my hearing, as I said, isn't great so they don't need to be made from gold plated unicorn horns or anything like that.

As always, thank you all very much for your help, I really appreciate it.

This was still quite a long post.

 

[Casio]

Dolby Headphone (And directional sound as a whole) will benefit most from headphones with a wide sound stage, which unfortunately are generally large, circumaural types which aren't really suited to portable use. Don't waste your time with gaming headphones as 95% of them are trash and overpriced.

Some reasonably priced, smallish, headphones I've heard good things about are:
Alessandro MS1
Audio Technica ATH-M50

Even less price maybe look at the Shure SRH240.

Definitely need to get a headphone expert in here.

 

[bevo]

I don't use headphones so maybe I just don't understand what use there is for a soundcard. Here's my question for you, why is it that you want to use the soundcard with your receiver? Unless your receiver doesn't have a way to plug the headphones in it, I really can't see any benefit for using the soundcard. The soundcard is just in the way of getting LPCM audio going to your receiver. Again though, I don't use headphones so maybe headphones benefit from it. Your just wanting normal stereo headphones without a mic, so the headphone jack on your receiver (if it has one) would work fine. If it doesn't have a headphone jack I guess you would need the soundcard.

 

[sesselpupser]

I don't use headphones so maybe I just don't understand what use there is for a soundcard. Here's my question for you, why is it that you want to use the soundcard with your receiver? Unless your receiver doesn't have a way to plug the headphones in it, I really can't see any benefit for using the soundcard. The soundcard is just in the way of getting LPCM audio going to your receiver. Again though, I don't use headphones so maybe headphones benefit from it. Your just wanting normal stereo headphones without a mic, so the headphone jack on your receiver (if it has one) would work fine. If it doesn't have a headphone jack I guess you would need the soundcard.

It has a headphone jack but I can't get emulated surround sound from it. I'd prefer to use the receiver so I could have a hardware volume control rather than software, but here we are...

Also I tried plugging my receiver into the on-board audio but I can't get 5.1 from that, either, my audio options in the control panel are Realtek digital, Realtek digital (optical) and speakers, but I can't select speakers because there aren't any connected, and the digital options have no configuration settings at all, the Realtek control panel has no settings for channels as far as I can see, and yeah, it's just a pain.

I have the Xonar working now so I think I'll just leave it alone for the time being, I spent all of last night and a lot of today trying to work it out and now that I've got it working I don't really want to spend more time doing whatever to the Realtek stuff, but thanks for sharing your thoughts. I at least know what I should be looking to do when I do decide to get round to doing it (that was a weird sentence), but as it took me three years to finally get round to modifying these army surplus ear defenders into actual headphones (all I had to do was de-solder the driver wires, drill two 4mm holes in the cans, thread the wire through, tie a knot in it and re-solder the wires, for the past three years I've had the wires hanging out of the inside of the cans pressed against my ears and face, which was really uncomfortable), I somehow doubt I'll be doing it any time soon!