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How do I optimize J.River with quality sound card

I've been doing a bunch of reading on this site and it's been very informative. I'm trying to wade into the PC audio arena and I would like to do so initially on a small budget.

I currently have a two channel setup with a Rotel CD/integrated amp and Linn speakers. I do not have a stand alone DAC and I would like to set up my PC using a quality sound card initially. I read a good article in the Absolute Sound on the subject and the author used an Echo/Mia Midi soundcard and Foobar2000.

I purchased an Echo Gina sound card which has an internal PCI card with a breakout cable to an external box. The external box has a DAC and both analog and digital I/O connections.

After messing around with Foobar, I find the user interface a little lacking. I think J.River is easier to use and I would like to use that as my software.

So, the question is what steps must I take to use J.River and bypass the KMixer in WinXP. Most of the other posts on this subject reference setup with USB DACs. I may go that route one day, but not yet.

Thanks to all in advance. This is a great site.
bmdduck
oldlistener
9 posts
 
Bigamp was wrong about jriver MC 12 having an ASIO driver builtin. It has code to interface to an ASIO driver.

A real ASIO driver talks to the actual soundcard hardware. You usually get that driver from the company that made your soundcard. If the manufacturer didn't write an ASIO driver for their soundcard, you probably will have to settle for ASIO4all.

The ASIO4all driver doesn't talk to actual H/W. It talks to the normal Windows driver at a lower level than the Waveout or DirectSound interfaces.
gmood1
1,251 posts
 
Thanks Oldlistener for the clarification. This is what I thought from the start. My USB-Audio driver does what you describe. It talks directly to the Dac. It has something to do with the Burr Brown USB receivers..the USB-AUDIO driver recognizes them unlike the C-media receivers in some USB Dacs.
oldlistener
9 posts
 
Bmdduck, check the echo website. I looked at the description of the driver package for one echo card and saw that it included ASIO.
bigamp
219 posts
 
Yikes! If I was wrong about the ASIO driver being built in, then I apologize. It's been over a year since I used an ASIO driver. I'm becoming and "old listener" too.

In any event, I still recommend using direct sound output if it works with your device. Otherwise, you're just introducing more overhead than needed.
bmdduck OP
99 posts
 
Thanks to everybody. I plan to download JRiver MC 12 then see if it recognizes an ASIO driver for my Echo card. I think the ASIO driver was included with the software.

By the way, can anyone define ASIO?
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