Asus Xonar Xense - Manual (Page 44)

36 ASUS Xonar Xense
What are the most important benefits of the Xonar Xense for musicians?
• Ultimate Fidelity: Xonar Xense has the highest quality of audio in/out for
the cleanest sound production.
• Duplex HD: Supports audio sampling rates up to 24bit/192KHz for all
inputs and outputs.
• ASIO 2.0: Xonar Xense includes an ASIO 2.0 driver for low-latency, low-
distortion music creation application.
Will PCM sound output through S/PDIF be just 2 channels even with different
analog output channels?
The S/PDIF protocol specification (IEC-60958) only carries the 2-channel PCM
data or non-PCM AC3/DTS data. Hence, when you select PCM output for S/PDIF,
the Xonar sound card always deliver a 2-channel PCM data through the S/PDIF
output port. For attaining 5.1 channel surround sounds, you can select Dolby
Digital Live encoding output from the S/PDIF out menu, which allows the Xonar
Xense to deliver 5.1 surround sound for DVD movies, and even stereo music.
When I selected “Digital Output device” as the default audio playback device
on Windows ® Vista, the sound effects and UI controls do not work.
For Xonar sound cards on Windows ® Vista, there are usually two audio devices:
Speakers and Digital Out Device such as S/PDIF.
Speakers is the default device. Use this device to fully control the sound effects on
the Xonar Audio Center, the driver’s GUI.
Digital Out Device is designed as a pass-through audio path to play stereo
Hi-Fidelity audio contents or encoded audio formats such as Dolby Digital and
DTS Digital Surround bit-stream from DVD or Blu-ray disc titles. The driver do not
process all the audio data that pass through this digital device.
In most software DVD players’ audio settings, you could choose “Use S/PDIF
output” or “HDMI” for HDMI output, such as on HDAV1.3, and the players pass the
audio through the “Digital Output Device” automatically, which is better to disable
onboard audio devices first for some players. In this case, you do not even need
to change the system default audio device. Hence, in most scenarios, we suggest
that you keep it in “Speakers” to enjoy the full control functions of the Xonar sound
card. You could actually still get LPCM audio data monitoring from S/PDIF-Out port
as analog Front channel output in this situation.