HDMI Audio 192kHz

Discussion in 'Videocards - AMD Radeon Drivers Section' started by Lavcat, Nov 29, 2015.

  1. Lavcat

    Lavcat Master Guru

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    I'm not sure if this is the best place to ask this.

    I have a Nano running under Windows 7 pro 64-bit and the latest Crimson drivers. I connect the Nano to a NAD M51 DAC and connect the HDMI output of the M51 to my 1920x1200 Samsung monitor.

    Everything appears good except the highest audio format Windows offers me is 176.4 kHz, not 192 kHz. The NAD M51 is supposed to be capable of 24/192 kHz.

    What do I have to do to get 192 kHz as an audio option? Maybe it's Windows or maybe it's the Crimson drivers. Maybe it's the Nano, maybe it's user error, or maybe it's just the rum?
     
  2. sammarbella

    sammarbella Guest

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    Did you set your NAD M51 DAC as 24/192 kHz capable output device in windows audio properties (speaker icon in taskbar near clock..)?:

    I don't know which software you are using to ouptut the audio over HDMI but in Kodi (former XBMC) you should select WASAPI to allow real passthrough of sound to your DAC.

    Same for Jriver or Foobar.

    At least is what i do to send the sound (and image) via HDMI to my AV Receiver.
     
  3. Lavcat

    Lavcat Master Guru

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    Thanks for the response. In this case the software is PowerDVD 13, but the settings are in Windows Control Panel/Sound/Supported Formats -- from which the choices are 32.0, 44.1, 48.0, 88.2, 96.0, 176.4 -- but not 192.


    In foobar I use WASAPI: 1-NAD M51 (AMD High Definition Audio Device)
     
  4. sammarbella

    sammarbella Guest

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    I don't know why your Win 7 is not detecting the 24 bit 192 KHz as supported format.

    Here you can see my Onkyo TX-NR636 support fully detected by Windows 10 enterprise TH2 (build 10586) INCLUDING 24/192:

    [​IMG]


    ?¿?
     

  5. Lavcat

    Lavcat Master Guru

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    Thinking about this a bit more, I still have a puzzle that Windows does not allow me to choose 192kHz. But the real problem is that PowerDVD 13 (the player I am using for Blu-ray audio) insists on decoding the LPCM stream itself rather than passing the LPCM to the NAD M51. The "Non-decoded high-definition audio to external device" option is not available in the PowerDVD 13 audio settings.

    I wonder does the Nano with Crimson drivers support Windows' protected audio path?
     
  6. sammarbella

    sammarbella Guest

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    I guess there is at least a problem with PowerDVD 13 not letting passthrough the audio.

    Is there an option for wasapi?

    Install Kodi to test that there is no OS related problems.

    It has audio options to HDMI passthrough and WASAPI (2 selectable options for this) in in-program audio settings under his settings>system>audio output.

    http://kodi.wiki/view/Settings/System#Audio_output

    Set channels, amount of speakers (max), formats supported.
     
  7. Lavcat

    Lavcat Master Guru

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    PowerDVD 13 does not support WASAPI, I believe. To the best of my knowledge WASAPI support was introduced in PowerDVD 14.

    But I did install Kodi to use WASAPI, however there is no passthrough option that I can see, even at the Expert level.


    Edit: The passthrough option just appeared when I changed the output configuration setting from "fixed" to "optimized". I'm not sure what this tells me though.
     
    Last edited: Nov 30, 2015
  8. theoneofgod

    theoneofgod Ancient Guru

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    [​IMG]
     
  9. Lavcat

    Lavcat Master Guru

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    You posted while I was editing my post. I have the passthrough option now in Kodi.
     
  10. sammarbella

    sammarbella Guest

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    Well that say you a few things:

    - Your OS can let you use passthrough for audio over HDMI using WASAPI with some softwares

    - PowerDVD 13 is not what you want as it doesn't let you use passthrough and WASAPI

    - LPCM is decode by windows because you are not using WASAPI and passthrough but Directsound.

    - Directsound will always decode LPCM as you know and mess with audio formats

    Some good reading:

    http://kodi.wiki/view/Windows_audio
     

  11. gyigyo

    gyigyo Guest

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    Can I ask you something? why are you want to force 192khz? every BLU-RAY is use 24bit/48khz!! and most of games is too and rare today games still use 16/44.1khz.

    you gonna get downgraded sound quality If u force everything to 192khz!!!!
     
  12. Lavcat

    Lavcat Master Guru

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    My goal is not to force everything to 192kHz but rather to have the LPCM on the disc (which may or may not be 192kHz) sent to the NAD M51 without being downsampled to 16bit/48kHz by PowerDVD as it is now.

    I'm working on further experiments.
     
  13. Lavcat

    Lavcat Master Guru

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    I am discouraged. In attempts to get better than 16bit/48kHz out of PowerDVD I replaced my Nano with my 6970. Then I reinstalled my Auzentech Home Theater card. Then I took those out and put the Nano back in with today's beta driver.

    Lastly I downloaded a trial version of PowerDVD 15 with WASAPI.

    In no case could I get better than 16bit/48kHz. Is there blu-ray player software that works with the audio of AMD's cards and drivers?


    Edit: Update. In looking at the PowerDVD 15 on screen information display it shows 24 bits, not 16 bits, being output. Still at 48 kHz, though. I don't have any way to measure the actual bit depth but the NAD M51 reports the input bit rate. At least this is different from PowerDVD 13.
     
    Last edited: Dec 1, 2015
  14. sammarbella

    sammarbella Guest

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    If you are using WASAPI and passthrough over HDMI from any software DirectSound (DX Windows) could not mess with formats and the sound should be send as is unnaltered.

    There is something wrong with your OS.

    Are you able to play audio files like dsd/dsf (SACD) from Foobar/Jriver or Kodi using passthrough and WASAPI (or ASIO just to try in audio softs) and see higher bitrate in your DAC OSD?

    Edit: I've just see your edit, so something changed....the pasthrough WASAPI. :)
     
    Last edited: Dec 1, 2015
  15. sammarbella

    sammarbella Guest

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    Kodi has no official BluRay support yet (licenses $$$) but you can rip your owned BluRay to MKV with MakeMKV and nothing at sound image quality will be altered it's a simple change of container format to MKV.

    Then you could try it from Kodi and see if it send the audio as is.

    What bitrate and depth are the audio streams?: TrueHD, MA?
     

  16. Lavcat

    Lavcat Master Guru

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    The thing is PowerDVD is not giving me (neither PowerDVD version 13 nor 15) the option:
    "Non-decoded high-definition audio to external device (HDMI 1.3 and above)"

    I am offered only:
    "PCM Decoded by PowerDVD"


    For the disc I am listening to at the moment, 2L's Ole Bull Violin Concertos, the input is shown by PowerDVD as "LPCM 2.0 9216Kbps". Output is "LPCM 48KHz/24bits 2 Channels".
     
  17. gyigyo

    gyigyo Guest

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    And? whats the problem? you get losseless sound with that... kbps is not the same as kHz... anyway do you have movies with 192khz? I never found any of it... most of if not all is 48khz/24bit. you get losseless sound if you setup to 24bit/48 kHz. you have hdmi 1.3 cable?
     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2015
  18. Lavcat

    Lavcat Master Guru

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    I had not mentioned movies. The 2L blu-rays I own are stated to be 192kHz. On their website 2L has sample downloads from their catalog in several different formats. I had not tried the 352.8kHz files because I don't have anything to play them with. But I downloaded 192kHz and 96kHz FLAC files.

    http://www.2l.no/hires/


    Kodi plays the 96kHz files as 96kHz, however the 192kHz files play at 176.4kHz. This makes me wonder if there is an edid problem.

    Tomorrow I plan to update the firmware in the M51 to see if that makes a difference.

    But what I really want is for the Blu-ray LPCM not to be decoded in software but rather sent to the Nano and thence to the M51 for processing. Stereophile has tested the M51 to accept 192kHz LPCM from a Blu-ray player, so it should be able to do so from a computer.

    http://www.stereophile.com/content/nad-m51-direct-digital-da-converter#pDmA3dOGJR7jTL7l.97


    At this point I don't know whether to blame the M51, PowerDVD, Windows, AMD, or all of the above. And as always it may be user error. Whether I can hear actually hear the difference between 192kHz and 48kHz remains an open question.

    And I believe my cables are OK.
     
  19. sammarbella

    sammarbella Guest

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    You can convert the 352 to 192 flac using Jriver or foobar with sacd plugin.

    I have a few bluray movies with TrueHD audio streams 24/192 and also a few SACD/DVD-AUDIO concerts.

    I even have content at 352 converted to Flac 192 to send it in the best quality possible.
     
    Last edited: Dec 5, 2015
  20. janos666

    janos666 Ancient Guru

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    Well, I just checked and I realized that the latest AMD audio driver (10.0.0.2) only allows me 2ch/16bit/48kHz. :3eyes:

    When I uninstalled it, the MS driver took it's place on both the audio Device and audio Controller (these always show up as two separate devices: a system and an audio device) which allowed the same 2/16/48 max (as per usual, even though the MS driver is often updated according to it's driver date, so I would expect it to handle 8/24/192 on ~2 years old AMD cards by now...).
    A few moments later I saw that Win10 kept it's own driver for the audio Controller (system) device but updated the audio Device with the 10.0.0.1 AMD version and now I have 8/24/192 as usual.

    So, my problem was the new AMD version:
    - either that it now has a custom driver for the system audio Controller device as well (which I think is a completely new thing, I never noticed that one before, it always ran with the MS driver as I remember)
    - or the 10.0.0.2 audio Device driver has a bug which is not present in the 10.0.0.1 (the latter being available on Windows Update as well, the former came from the Crimson Hotfix package).
     
    Last edited: Dec 5, 2015

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