Benchmark Dac2 HGC Problems

[zenpmd]

This has been a problem on and off since I got the device. Basically, sometimes it just doesn't work..!!

 

No audio when I play anything when I using, say, j river, and with video it will play for a second before stalling (despite being fully buffered if it was streaming).

 

Then I reboot and all is ok. Its like it struggles to load properly on a fresh reboot. My feeling is that the benchmark driver sucks. Anyone got any thoughts/experience?

[andyv]

Hi. I had a DAC2 HGC for a couple of years, and used it with Benchmarks ASIO driver (under both Windows 7 and 8). It performed absolutely faultlessly. I know that might not be much help to you, but I don't think it's correct, or fair, to say that the Benchmark driver sucks. Could be anything on your system. Benchmark use the Thesycon USB2.0 driver. There is a driver control panel through which you can set different buffer sizes. Might be worth experimenting. And it's likely to be worth checking your Control Panel settings for the driver - do you have "allow applications to take exlusive control of this device" and "Give exclusive mode applications priority" set?

[zenpmd]

Hi. I had a DAC2 HGC for a couple of years, and used it with Benchmarks ASIO driver (under both Windows 7 and 8). It performed absolutely faultlessly. I know that might not be much help to you, but I don't think it's correct, or fair, to say that the Benchmark driver sucks. Could be anything on your system. Benchmark use the Thesycon USB2.0 driver.

 

Thanks Andy. Its just odd as Ive had this problem across several builds.

[robocop]

I agree with Andyv I've had no problems with both audio feeds up to 24/192 from an under powered I3 Asus notebook and audio video feeds up to 24/192 from a Cambridge BR751 player. Thesycon USB driver works well.

 

Perhaps try DAC2 in a friends system. Have you contacted Rory at Benchmark? JRiver settings? Lastly your computer build may have underlying issues. Lots of comments online on various forums re all these. Have to say everytime I strike a problem I always find the answer on the web but it can take time.

[Skeptic]

I had to switch to WASAPI Exclusive rather than using ASIO.

 

ASIO has been broken in JRiver for me for at least a couple of months now. I just randomly get "format not supported" errors and the logs say the device is missing.

 

That is not just with the Benchmark DAC2, but all my ASIO devices including PCIe sound cards.

[robocop]

Gosh that's interesting with regards to JRiver. I use XXhighend and no problems with Asio and Kernel Streaming. You would think JRiver would provide all the playback options with the large variety of devices available new and old.