Theatron DTS (with C-Media 8788) - Lots of pictures (56k beware)

MixBar said:
The X-Meridian is not a good analogue soundcard and not a effective effect or recording card.

No. The X-Fi can do more, many more.

The large advantage(if uses) of the CMI8788 are the real time encoding software, but for this you don't need a X-Meridian. A 57€ Club3D THDTS does exactly the same.
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I have both X-Meridian and X-Fi, I've heard both cards and I know which is a better analogue card, have you heard the sound from the X-Meridian? I've always suggested the Theatron DTS to people that are only interested in digital connection. I just can't stand people saying a card is bad but never listened to it before. Maybe for you anything that is not from Creative is always bad. I can't said the X-Meridian is better than Elite Pro because I've never listened to Elite Pro before. I've always suggested the XtremeMusic or XtremeGamer to people that have a lower budget.
 
I don't think the Theatron DTS analogue output is bad; it's cheaper because the 192/24 DAC is missing, that's all. I think a lot of people would rather save $100 and not have the 192/24 DAC than paying those $100 for the 192/24 DAC.

by the way, can the CMI-8788 automatically detect the source??? That is, if you play a 48/16 stereo source or a 96/24 pcm stereo source or a DTS source, etc, and automatically switch to the most appropriate output mode??? Or maybe a series of presets could be created -depending on the source- and then be automatically used... that would be cool...
 
cirerita said:
I don't think the Theatron DTS analogue output is bad; it's cheaper because the 192/24 DAC is missing, that's all. I think a lot of people would rather save $100 and not have the 192/24 DAC than paying those $100 for the 192/24 DAC.

by the way, can the CMI-8788 automatically detect the source??? That is, if you play a 48/16 stereo source or a 96/24 pcm stereo source or a DTS source, etc, and automatically switch to the most appropriate output mode??? Or maybe a series of presets could be created -depending on the source- and then be automatically used... that would be cool...
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Analogue output doesn't just depend on the audio chip, it depends on the OPAMPs, DACs, other components and also the cables. The audio chip plays a very small role to the analogue output, an audiophile would rather buy a $20 AV-710 with a shitty audio chip if compared to the X-Fi audio chip but they will use an expensive external DAC, expensive amp, and also expensive cables. A HT receiver is an external DAC and also an external amp, sometimes it is better than a sound card and sometimes it is not. I just don't think that a 60eur card is better than a $200 sound card and a $250+ HT receiver.
 
let's take the following example: 48/24 or 96/24 multichannel pcm sources (I have both). I can't send them via SPDIF as they are, they need to be reencoded to DD/DTS. Mind you, the DD/DTS reencode sounds great to my ears, but if you use analogue at least you get the pure multichannel pcm source.
 
cirerita said:
let's take the following example: 48/24 or 96/24 multichannel pcm sources (I have both). I can't send them via SPDIF as they are, they need to be reencoded to DD/DTS. Mind you, the DD/DTS reencode sounds great to my ears, but if you use analogue at least you get the pure multichannel pcm source.
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The real aim to send a 96/24 multichannel PCM digital to the receiver is to avoid the digital-analogue conversion of the sound card and let the receiver do the D-A conversion because the D-A conversion on the receiver is better than the sound card. If you use analogue, the D-A conversion is done on the sound card, maybe a DD/DTS to analogue conversion done by a receiver could give a better sound than a cheap sound card's 96/24 D-A conversion. You could try using analogue if you want but I seriously doubt that it will sound better than DD/DTS to analogue conversion done by your receiver.
 
alg7_munif said:
The real aim to send a 96/24 multichannel PCM digital to the receiver
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how are you supposed to do that? I thought SPDIF couldn't handle multichannel PCM sources and that HDMI was required!!! If SPDIF can't handle that source, then analogue is the way to go, right?

also, why is a D-A conversion required? If the receiver supports 96/24 pcm digital signals -mine does- isn't it better to play the pure 96/24 pcm digital source and avoid the analogue conversion???
 
cirerita said:
how are you supposed to do that? I thought SPDIF couldn't handle multichannel PCM sources and that HDMI was required!!! If SPDIF can't handle that source, then analogue is the way to go, right?

also, why is a D-A conversion required? If the receiver supports 96/24 pcm digital signals -mine does- isn't it better to play the pure 96/24 pcm digital source and avoid the analogue conversion???
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Digital is used for storage, the digital audio will always need to be converted into analogue signal for the speakers. Your receiver can accept 96/24 digital because it can convert it into analogue for the speakers. You can't directly connect a speaker to the SPDIF output but you can connect a speaker directly to an analogue output. A single SPDIF can't handle more than 2-channel, multiple SPDIF can but your card doesn't support it. The real question is, the DD/DTS to analogue conversion done by your receiver or the multichannel 96/24 D-A done by the sound card will give a better sound. Against a 60eur sound card, I'll rather put my bet on your HK AV3000 receiver doing the DD/DTS to analogue conversion.
 
alg7_munif said:
people saying a card is bad but never listened to it before. Maybe for you anything that is not from Creative is always bad. I can't said the X-Meridian is better than Elite Pro because I've never listened to Elite Pro before..
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a soundcard is a player. It is not an instrument, an not a amplifier to drive speakers.
It is a player. And player quality measurably. This must be as orignal as possible.
The X-Meridian is the soundcard with the worst sound quality, which I saw lately.
A marketing product with fat condensers and fater marketing twaddle.
It is unbelievably ridiculous which supplied Auzentech there.
 
cirerita said:
I don't think the Theatron DTS analogue output is bad; it's cheaper because the 192/24 DAC is missing, that's all. I think a lot of people would rather save $100 and not have the 192/24 DAC than paying those $100 for the 192/24 DAC.
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The Club3D THDTS uses the same 24Bit/192kHz DACs as the X-Meridian, or the AC-1, or the b-Enspirer.
 
MixBar said:
The Club3D THDTS uses the same 24Bit/192kHz DACs as the X-Meridian, or the AC-1, or the b-Enspirer.
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Nope the Theatron DTS can't support 192/24 because the DACs are not the same but the other cards have the same DACs and the exact same DAC is also used in this.
 
MixBar said:
The Club3D THDTS uses the same 24Bit/192kHz DACs as the X-Meridian, or the AC-1, or the b-Enspirer.
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It could be, but the 192/24 is certainly disabled. I get sound from all outputs (analogue, DD, DTS, 44.1, 48 and 96, but 192 is a no-go). The DAC might be there, but maybe it was disabled so the card could be sold cheaper.

Hmm, is there any way to know whether the DAC is actually in the card? If it is, maybe it can enabled somehow.
 
The DACs on the X-Meridian is the four horizontal chips with the words AKM on it. The same DAC is used on the b-Enspirer but the placement is different, most likely the DACs on the Theatron DTS are at the same place like the b-Enspirer. The DACs on the b-Enspirer are at the right of the pictures, there are four of them placed vertically on each other.
 
thanks, I'll check that later on.

back to the D-A conversion. So you're basically saying that I forget the analogue output and use the spdif one only, right?

ok, when you say to use the digital only so the receiver does the D->A conversion, is that what is usually called "passthrough"? As far as I know, if the source is DD or DTS and you choose the SPDIF output, that's a real passthrough. However, if you use the soundcard to encode 96/24 into DD/DTS and THEN choose the spdif output, I don't think that's passthroug any longer because the soundcard is already converting the 96/24 pcm signal to DD/DTS.
 
cirerita said:
thanks, I'll check that later on.

back to the D-A conversion. So you're basically saying that I forget the analogue output and use the spdif one only, right?

ok, when you say to use the digital only so the receiver does the D->A conversion, is that what is usually called "passthrough"? As far as I know, if the source is DD or DTS and you choose the SPDIF output, that's a real passthrough. However, if you use the soundcard to encode 96/24 into DD/DTS and THEN choose the spdif output, I don't think that's passthroug any longer because the soundcard is already converting the 96/24 pcm signal to DD/DTS.
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Passthrough is you let an already encoded DD/DTS signal to pass through the SPDIF output. Encoding is is you take a normal unencoded PCM signal and encode it into DD/DTS because you want to send more than 2-channel sound through SPDIF. A DD/DTS signal is also a stereo PCM signal. If you convert the DD/DTS signal directly to analogue you will just get a noise, but the decoder can "understand" the noise and create an audible PCM signal based on the noise.
 
what about 96/24 or 48/24 stereo pcm sources sent using the 48 or 96 digital output (not the DD/DTS one)? Is that "passthrough" as well?

For passthrough I always understood that the soundcard didn't do the encoding, just sent the signal through the SPDIF output. However, if you encode the pcm signal into DD/DTS, the soundcard is encoding the signal and then sending it to the receiver through the SPDIF output...
 
cirerita said:
what about 96/24 or 48/24 stereo pcm sources sent using the 48 or 96 digital output (not the DD/DTS one)? Is that "passthrough" as well?

For passthrough I always understood that the soundcard didn't do the encoding, just sent the signal through the SPDIF output. However, if you encode the pcm signal into DD/DTS, the soundcard is encoding the signal and then sending it to the receiver through the SPDIF output...
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A sound in digital is always a PCM signal, either you convert it into analogue at the sound card or send it out to an external converter. Like I said before a DD/DTS signal is also a PCM signal and I think that the signal is a stereo 48/16 signal but there is also a DTS 96/24 signal but it is very rare. I wouldn't worry about the signal much because most of the time the sound degradation is caused by analogue. If you couldn't hear any difference between a 192kbps mp3 and a CD, I don't think that you would notice the difference between a 48/24 signal and a 96/24 signal.
 
alg7_munif said:
Nope ... because the DACs are not the same but the other cards have the same DACs and the
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The Club3D TDTS uses the same DACs. The AK4396.

ge_908.jpg



The AK4396 is also the standart DAC by CMedia for the reference design for CMI978x soundcards.
All CMI8788 and CMI8787 soundcards used this DAC.
 
I suspected as much. The 192/24 DAC is physically there, but it's disabled. In the Theatron DTS manual it's clearly specified that the card supports up to 96/24 only. As I said before, it probably was a "marketing" idea to sell the card cheaper, thinking that most people wouldn't care about the 192/24 anyway.
 
I also said earlier that the Theatron DTS comes bundled with an Inferno user manual. A coincidence?


actually, if you donwload the Theatron DTS drivers from Club3D, the user manual included reads "Inferno Manual 1.01", so go figure!
 
Either they disable it just for the Theatron or the Inferno can't do 192kHz as well. They look the same and they have the same manual, are they the same? Have you tried using another driver from other company? The Inferno has a lower quality OPAMPs compared to the b-Enspirer and the stock OPAMPs on the X-Meridian. Btw the same circuit board is not a coincidence, according to an e-mail replied to me from Auzentech before this:

Regarding the DAC, yes, we use the same DAC from Bluegears, but they are in different placement and that is the technology that Auzentech have. The placement of the DAC in the BlueGears board are far from the output and the other components. The BlueGears sound card is the same as the Sondigo sound card which is all supplied from the same Taiwanese company Formosa 21 which use the C-Media reference board for mass production.

We have engineered our board with difference DAC placement and additional component to produce better sound quality. An analog signal degrades the further it travels along a circuit. We enhance the quality all along the board. We use double layer PCB and many additional engineering technology involved in the design and development of our board.

BlueGears and Audiotrack Prodigy 7.1 uses the same JRC 4580 SMD type OPAMP. We use different vendor (AUK). The biggest advantage of our OPAMP would be that we are swappable.
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I tried all the drivers from all the companies, as I explained a few posts earlier ( I also included a pic from the Barracuda AC-1 control panel).

How am I supposed to know whether the drivers from X-Meridian or b-ENspirer perform better than the Theatron ones?
 
cirerita said:
I tried all the drivers from all the companies, as I explained a few posts earlier ( I also included a pic from the Barracuda AC-1 control panel).

How am I supposed to know whether the drivers from X-Meridian or b-ENspirer perform better than the Theatron ones?
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Not better but can you use 192kHz? Any sound from the card?
 
I'll try the other drivers later on and I'll check whether all the DACs are on my card or not.
 
I've been using the b-Enspirer drivers for a few days now 'cause they're newer (xxx.8.17.8) than the Theatron DTS ones (xxx.8.17.1). The 192khz output does not work with these drivers. When I choose the 192 digital output, the PCM signal disappears from the receiver's display. If I switch back to 96khz, the PCM signal reappears on the receiver's display.

I'll try the Barracuda and X-Meridian drivers later on.

btw, I tried to download the Inferno drivers, but they're nowhere to be seen -at least, I can't find them in the Sondigo page. Weird, huh?
 
how can I send a 192khz signal through the analogue? I mean, the analogue output of the Theatron DTS is hooked up to the receiver's 6hc Direct input, meaning there's no info diplayed on the receiver's display, it just says 6ch Direct, independently of the signal sent via the souncard's analogue output.

so, how can I send a 192khz singal through the analogue. I have an unprotected 192/24 DVD-A, and the only software that I know of that can play the tracks is PowerDVD, but in the Sample Rate info tab it says "restricted". I guess that means that PowerDVD is downsampling the 192/24 to 96/24.
 
First you can't send a 192kHz signal through analogue but if you play a 192kHz source, you will get a sound if the card support it. Now the problem is to play a 192kHz sound. Try to disable SPDIF output both in PowerDVD and Xear3D, use 2 channel setting for both Xear3D and PowerDVD. Now test whether the sample rate is still restricted or not. If it is still restricted, maybe your card can't support it or PowerDVD just can't play the track at full sample rate. I can't test this for you because I don't have a DVD-Audio. If the card is exactly the same as the Inferno, you could try using analogue because the DAC on the card is good actually, and I don't think that they could disable 192kHz playback anywhere else a part from the DACs because the chip is also capable, the DACs are also capable and the OPAMPs don't play any role in sample rate.
 
damn, I thought my unprotected DVD-A was 192/24, but it's actually 176/24!!! how are you supposed to play that?

anyway, I tried all your tips, but PowerDVD keeps saying "sample rate: reserved" (and not "restricted" as I said before). In other words, no sound at all using the digital output. If I use the analogue, I get sound, but I think PowerDVD is downsampling the 176/24 signal.

I also played an unprotected DVD-A with 48/24 MLP 5.1 tracks over the analogue output and I think it sounds really great. The stereo 48/24 MLP tracks sound really good over the analogue output as well. The only really noticeable difference regarding the Digital Audio 48khz output is that the Digital output uses the subwoofer and the room really shakes, while using the analogue the subwoofer seems to be off.
 
cirerita said:
damn, I thought my unprotected DVD-A was 192/24, but it's actually 176/24!!! how are you supposed to play that?

anyway, I tried all your tips, but PowerDVD keeps saying "sample rate: reserved" (and not "restricted" as I said before). In other words, no sound at all using the digital output. If I use the analogue, I get sound, but I think PowerDVD is downsampling the 176/24 signal.

I also played an unprotected DVD-A with 48/24 MLP 5.1 tracks over the analogue output and I think it sounds really great. The stereo 48/24 MLP tracks sound really good over the analogue output as well. The only really noticeable difference regarding the Digital Audio 48khz output is that the Digital output uses the subwoofer and the room really shakes, while using the analogue the subwoofer seems to be off.
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I've ordered a Hotel California DVD Audio before Christmas, I'll post later when I get it.
 
Donnie27 said:
Now that's what I'm talking about:)
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I want something from Blink182, Green Day, Bowling for Soup, All American Rejects, Yellowcard or something in this direction(dunno what genre this is) but can't find any DVD Audio in this direction. I really like how the guitar sounds with my headphones.
 
I read somewhere that the original Eagles master was 96khz and that it was upsampled to 192khz for the DVD-A release. Is that true?
 
cirerita said:
I read somewhere that the original Eagles master was 96khz and that it was upsampled to 192khz for the DVD-A release. Is that true?
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After comparing 24/192 to 24/96 2Ch, if that's true it means the others are poor recordings. 24/192 easily sounds better.
 
just a brief note: the Theatron has indeed 4 DACs on the right hand side. I'll post pics later on, but it seems identical to Sondigo's Inferno.

Weird, huh?
 
cirerita said:
just a brief note: the Theatron has indeed 4 DACs on the right hand side. I'll post pics later on, but it seems identical to Sondigo's Inferno.

Weird, huh?
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The card must have DACs, how many time do I need to say that the digital signal needs to be converted into analogue lol. Does it say AK4396VF? The AK4396VF is a pretty good DAC, this baby here also uses it. Not bad for a 60eur card, just the OPAMPs are different from the b-Enspirer, the circuit board and other components are also different from X-Meridian.
 
yep, on the AKM chips it says:
AK4396VF
010A0550N

on the 6 (analogue??) chips it says:
4580
G75
JRC

I have this feeling that the Inferno and the Theatron DTS are identical cards...

ok, it seems this card is 192/24 capable, right? Now I just need the 192/24 material to double check that. Do you think that the 192/24 could be disabled somehow, though? If so, how could they disable that? Just with the drivers? As I said earlier, I'm using the B_Enspirer drivers and I get no sound when I choose the 192khz Digital Audio output...
 
cirerita said:
I read somewhere that the original Eagles master was 96khz and that it was upsampled to 192khz for the DVD-A release. Is that true?
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If true, there should be no discernible difference in audio quality. They could have introduced some slight dither to anti-alias quantization, but the audible difference would be about as close to nill as you can get.

The original Eagles master was surely 2" tape, and it's highly likely the DVD-A was created from a 192kHz dump of those reels. Do you have a credit list for the DVD-A that I can look at to be certain?
 
well, here are the pics. You can see the 4 DACs on the right hand side. It's very similar to the Inferno, but maybe there are differences my eye can't see.

anyway, according to the official Club3D specs, the Theatron DTS supports up to 96/24 only, so they must have disabled the 192/24. How? Phisically? Through the drivers?

Maybe the 192khz it's not actually disabled, but my receiver can't handle the 192/24 signal. Is there any test I can run to know that???

after all, it seems that the Theatron DTS is not that bad a card. Actually, if it's identical to the Inferno, it's actually a pretty good card. I only have to find out whether the 192/24 ouput is disabled or not.
IMG_1875.png

IMG_1879.png
 
ok, more tests.

X-Meridian Drivers: a new sound device named Auzuntech Meridian appears in the device manager! It seems that I actually have a $200 card. But I get no sound from the 192khz output.

Razer Barracuda AC-1: same thing as X-Meridian. New sound device named Razer Barracuda, but no sound from the 192khz output.

b_Enspirer: the sound device is named C-Media, not B_Enspirer. No sound from 192khz output.

Couldn't find Inferno drivers.

There are two options: Clubd 3D actually disabled the 192khz output -but not through the drivers- or the 192khz is NOT disabled and my receiver doesn't support that signal.

in the Xear 3D control panel, when I switch to 192khz the Audio System Status is ON even if I hear no sound at all.
 
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