If your sound card supports ASIO, you should be using Foobar with the ASIO plugin.
This works wonders with M-Audio Delta series cards IME. Here's a guide on how to do it that I posted on another forum a while back... ------------------------------------- Basically 'ASIO' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_stream_input_output) is Steinberg's alternative to Windows sound architecture. Its main purpose is for recording applications, but it generally provides a much cleaner path to the soundcard than the regular means. Quite simply, you need these files: http://www.foobar2000.org/foobar2000_0.9.4.2.exe http://www.foobar2000.org/components/foo_out_asio.zip http://yuo.be/download/foo_uie_albumlist-0.2.1.7z http://yuo.be/download/foo_ui_columns-0.1.3-beta1v7.7z First run foobar2000_0.9.4.2.exe Then shut down Foobar if it has opened automatically. If you don't have anything that can unzip the '.7z' files, grab winrar (it can be found with Google easily), and unzip 'em. Copy foo_ui_columns.dll and foo_uie_albumlist.dll to the components directory within the directory that foobar has been installed in. This will probably be C:\Program Files\foobar2000\components Do the same with whatever comes out of foo_out_asio.zip when you extract it. Now fire up foobar and choose the Columns UI. To make it a bit more usable do the following... Go to File:Preferences and set it up like 'this' (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.sherlock/foobar1.gif). You change things in the big window (above where it says 'use contextmenu to change layout') by right clicking. You'll figure it out ;) OK - now we're going to improve the signal path... Expand the 'Output' menu tree and click on ASIO Virtual Devices. Set it up as you see it 'here' (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.sherlock/foobar2.gif) There will be some differences with your card - you will have only two output channels I'm guessing - and maybe SPDIF. As long as M-Audio Delta ASIO is the driver you are using, you're in the right ballpark. You won't be able to set this up while anything is playing - so make sure the player is stopped. You also will not want any other audio applications open when you make this change. Now hilight the 'Output' preference menu item and make it look something like 'this' (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.sherlock/foobar3.gif). Now hit 'Save All', close the menus, hit play and enjoy improved sound. As an aside, there is a nice add-on for Firefox which lets you control Foobar through the status bar of the browser: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/219/ The only problem with this set-up is Foobar's rubbish interface :( You can make it look really nice - but it takes a hell of a lot of work :\ I just can't sacrifice the audio quality though. I don't know if this does anything for Creative cards - but it made a big difference on my Delta66, and I'm assuming will make a difference for any user that uses a Delta series card (M-Audio 2496, 192, Delta44, Delta1010 etc.). It's worth trying on any card with ASIO support though. -- Codmate ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Codmate's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=7154 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=32369 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
