Asus Xonar Essence ST - Manual (Page 52)

45 ASUS Xonar Essence ST
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 does not
process all the audio data that passes 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. The player then passes
the audio through the “Digital Output Device” automatically. Some devices require
onboard audio to be disabled first. In this case, you do not even need to change
the system default audio device. In most scenarios, we suggest that you keep the
settings in “Speakers” to enjoy the complete features 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.