Got my Music Streamer II today...

There isn't a WASAPI plugin for Winamp. There is an ASIO output plugin. I tried it about a year and a half ago in both Winamp and MediaMonkey. It works but not as well as I would consider proper. It's sort of a kludge type solution. For example, gapless playback didn't work properly for all formats (gapless for MP3 was not working).

My suggestion would be to try Foobar with WASAPI to see what it is like. You should be able to play your high res files (88.2 and 96) without any fiddling. The right sample rate will get sent to the DAC. Foobar is free and is a good player.

J River Media Center is also a nice player. More graphical and more like Winamp than Foobar is. J River Media Center can do WASAPI or ASIO along with gapless playback and other audio goodness. It's $50, though there is a trial period. I use JRMC as my primary player but also have Foobar.

There's not much to configure in Foobar or JRMC for WASAPI. Set WASAPI as your playback output mode. There will be a slider to set the buffer size.

One thing about WASAPI and ASIO is that they give the application exclusive access to the audio interface. That means that while Foobar is playing you won't be able to access the DAC (sound card or audio interface) at the same time in another application. So you won't be able to play audio from something like a YouTube video in your browser while Foobar is busy playing music.

DirectSound operates in shared mode which allows mixing and allows for things like playing music in WinAmp while simultaneously also playing audio from a YouTube video in your browser.

 

Likewise...
When I initially installed mine and linked into one of the internet music stations through iTunes, I was pretty amazed. I've heard the the newer version that Puma just purchased trounces yours and mine! However, it serves my purpose well, and I doubt that I will upgrade anytime soon.

Puma Cat... do enjoy your new purchase. I'm sure it will put a smile on your face for some time to come.

Steve

 

This is indeed correct. I installed Foobar and the WASAPI plug in and, sure enough, Windows' mixer is bypassed. However, it has introduced popping and other unwanted sound. I played around with the buffer size but to little effect.

For what it's worth, I emailed HRT again and asked for advice and was told that WASAPI is not recommended for use with MSII as it conflicts with the asynchronous USB.

Consequently, I'm forced back to allowing Windows' mixer to dictate the resolution and having to manually alter it when switching between high and standard res. It's frustrating but it's a small price to pay.

 

Which model of HRT Music Streamer II do you have: older one without sampling rate indicators or the newer one? I found the newer one using firmware v.1.7 to have a clicking issue with 88.2 KHz under ASIO4all (the other sampling rates seem to work fine and click-free). The older model of HRT MS II (using firmware v.1.4) seems to play all sampling rates material fine with ASIO4all...

 

WASAPI doesn't conflict with asynchronous USB. People are doing WASAPI with asynchronous USB devices with no problems.

Both Ayre and Wavelength have asynchronous USB DACs and both have suggestions on their site to use WASAPI.
Wavelength's support pages for Windows setup
Ayre's support pages for computer audio and Windows
Some of the info is specific to Ayre and Wavelength. But most of what is on the support pages there is general enough for any USB DAC.

When do you get the popping sounds? Is it just at the begging or ends of tracks like during a crossfade or track change? Or does it happen in the middle of the tracks?

If the popping happens during crossfades the Ayre support page for Foobar setup in Vista explains the problem and solution. The problem comes up if you try to crossfade between two tracks that are at different sample rates. The solution is to set fades to 0 ms to disable any fade ins and fade outs.

If you are getting pops in the middle of tracks then I would suggest running the DPC Latency Checker utility. Run the utility and see if you get big red bars. A few red bars can be fine. Lots of red bars or red bars all bunched together indicates that you may get popping or glitches in audio playback. WASAPI is more sensitive to DPC latency spikes than DirectSound.

You can also try J River Media Center. It has a 30 free trial. It does WASAPI a little differently than Foobar and may not have the same issues.

 

The newer one with the sampling rate indicators.

It happens during tracks. It's not regular but when it starts, it can quickly overwhelm the music.

 

I have contacted HRT Support and here is the response I got from Kevin Halverson regarding my issue with 88.2 kHz playback on newer HRT MS II:

"There was a firmware change to work around a known problem with OSX and 88k2 (v 1.7) but no such behavioral problems have been found with non Mac platforms.

I would recommend bypassing the ASIO plug in you are using and testing again. My suspicion is that it may have too large of buffer and this is causing the feedback values to be ignored by the host for too long. Keep in mind that 44k1 and its increments have a more complex feedback mechanism as the sample rate causes data packets of varying sizes as the rate is non integer to the data packets frame rate (1 kHz). The small hardware buffer is more challenged as the sample rate increases and if the host is late in adjusting its data payload then over/under runs become possible (this is almost certainly what you are hearing). For a simplex operation such as a playback only system, there is no need to have buffers of any size as latency isn't an issue. ASIO and similar 'fixes' aren't well suited to an asynchronous interface as their approach ignores this mechanism."

Reluctantly tried using a non-ASIO output in fooobar2000 (DS : Music Streamer II) with 88.2 kHz sampling frequency and was pleased to hear click-free playback. Oh, well

 

Tried the DPC latency checker. I get the occasional orange bar but 99% I'm in green.

And yet I'm still getting pops...

 

The clicking issue with newer MSII & ASIO4All @ 88.2 kHz appears to have finally been resolved with firmware v.1.8 released by HRT earlier this month. Life is good . It took just under a year...

 

New MSII firmware v.1.9 is now available from HRT support page (ZIP file also includes firmware v.1.9 for MSII+ & v.1.8 for MSII Pro music streamers).

 

I was interested in the Music Streamer Pro for a while but got scared off due to its non-linear behavior in the high frequency spectrum, at least as measured by John Atkinson. See figures 6,7, and especially 8:

http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/hrt-music-streamer-pro-usb-da-converter-measurements


If HRT fixes this behavior in the next iteration of the Music Streamer Pro, I would like to audition it. Otherwise, there are too many other choices that offer superior HF performance. Oh well.

 

Thanks for that. I was still running v1.7, never upgraded the firmware since I bought it. I had been hearing some pops in 88.2khz material but always assumed it was because my machine isn't dedicated to just music (I run some other light apps).

 

I've upgraded firmware on my HRT MSII (2nd edition) to v.1.9 this evening. So far so good (no popping/clicking issues with ASIO4All v.2.11 Beta1 on any of the sampling rates)

 

Any idea what has been improved from 1.8 to 1.9?

I have no complaints about the performance of my MSII since upgrading to 1.8.

 

^^^ Not sure what was fixed and/or improved with firmware v.1.9. I have since reverted back to v.1.8 after experiencing an occasional click several minutes into a track (3 or 4 times in total over few hours of listening with v.1.9 this weekend)...

 

The updated firmware versions for various products are now available from HRT support page (including FW v.2.0 for MS II, 2nd edition). It's the 3rd update in 2012 alone, wow...

 

The newest versions of firmware for a family of HRT products (including FW v.2.1 for MS II, 2nd edition) are now available from company's support page. This is the 4th FW release in 2012.