Soundstorm, DTSWAV and digital receiver

[mito2005]

Greetings.

I was reading the DTSWAV related topics. I am able to play those files using VLC Media Player. My receiver is a Sherwood New Castle R-756. Everything else works fine: games, dvd and surround.

When playing those dtswav files, the receiver displays DD instead of DTS. If I choose "A/52 over SPDIF", the receiver immediately displays DTS, however the sound is choppy and fragmented. If I choose 5.1 then I can hear them, but the receiver displays DD.

Another weird thing. I got Aqualung.DTS and played it with PowerDVD 6. The same thing happens, the receiver displays DTS but the sound is too fast and with a high pitch. I have to select "4 channels" in order to listen the music properly.


When my receiver is displaying DD, is it converting the DTS stream to DD on the run???

Thank you.

[mito2005]

bump

[Krobar]

Try forcing the soundcard to 44 or 48khz. It sounds like the soundcard maybe synching from the Revievers clock (Usually they default to 48khz).

[mito2005]

I'm not sure if I can configure my Soundstorm (asus a7n8x-deluxe) to do so...


:scared:

[Krobar]

What sampling rate are the files you are trying to play?

[daphy]

DTSWAV -> 44.1KHz like PCM WAV
I guess your soundcard upsamples those files to 48 (your amp won´t understand a DTS in side a PCM WAV, then), I rembered a setting inside Media Player Classic to force a specific sampling rate (I maybe wrong :confused: )

[Rockaria]

Yep, the Soundstorm renderer resamples any 44.1k signals to 48K before feeding to the spdif passthrough to the receiver(resulting a broken 48k dts signal).
Some dsfilters(ffdshow audio...) may be used in graphedit to decode & upsample & pass to other filters like AC3filter for the 6ch wav signal to be encoded dynamically to 48K AC3(dd) to be passed to the spdif.

A correct solution would be transcpdong them to 48K dts/ac3/or any compact formats(to be dynamically encoded to 48K AC3 for spdif passthrough using ac3filter/vlc/foobar).

BTW, the soundstorm AC3 encoded sound is still very good when digitally connected to a receiver. ;)

[mito2005]

What sampling rate are the files you are trying to play?

They are PCM 44.1KHz according to GSpot.

When VLC Media Player or Foobar are able to play those dtswav and dts files, are they keeping the 44.1KHz rate?

I still don't understand why the receiver is displaying DD.

[Rockaria]

The 44.1k 2ch pcm is the external format for the dtswav to be written as the cd audio.

Any proper decoders(foobar or vlc plugins) will decode the 44.1k 5.1ch dtswav to 44.1k 5.1ch pcm wav.

And the soundstorm dd live 5.1ch speaker setup will encode the stream to 48k dd 5.1ch to your receiver through spdif(no passthrough mode).

[mito2005]

The 44.1k 2ch pcm is the external format for the dtswav to be written as the cd audio.

Any proper decoders(foobar or vlc plugins) will decode the 44.1k 5.1ch dtswav to 44.1k 5.1ch pcm wav.

And the soundstorm dd live 5.1ch speaker setup will encode the stream to 48k dd 5.1ch to your receiver through spdif(no passthrough mode).

How do I configure soundstorm to "passthrough mode"?

Also, I'm having similar issues here http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=95720.

Thanks.

[Rockaria]

In the players options, you can set the spdif-pass-through mode in many different names and ways :

ac3filter : check the spdif option in the filter main panel.
vlc : right click the frame while playing : choose the 'audio device' to 'a/52 over s/pdif'.
foobar2k : select the audio device to kernal streaming(may not work with soundstorm).
ffdshow audio filter : you can set...
windvd/power dvd : you can set...

When the spdif pass through is set in the player, the audio stream will bypass the Soundstorm audio renderer(thus the DSP and onboard DAC).

[mito2005]

In the players options, you can set the spdif-pass-through mode in many different names and ways :

vlc : right click the frame while playing : choose the 'audio device' to 'a/52 over s/pdif'.

When the spdif pass through is set in the player, the audio stream will bypass the Soundstorm audio renderer(thus the DSP and onboard DAC).

That's exactly what I did. In the metallica ac3/a52 case the sound is choppy.
Any hints?

[Rockaria]

The sound storm will s/pdif-pass-through correctly 48K sample rate only.
There are some known ways to do it(if you really want to):

1. resample to 48K(from 44.1) dynamically using a resample dsfilter or plugin.
2. re-encode to 48K format permanently.
3. use another card 44.1k s/pdif pass-through enabled.
4. buy a $20 dvd player dedicated to play dvds and dts/mp3 cds.

But you will experience the sound storm (h/w live)encoded 5.1ch ac3 is not bad at all.