Q6: What is the most important benefit of the Xonar DS for musicians? Answer:

1.Ultimate Fidelity: Xonar DS has the highest quality of audio in/out for the cleanest sound production.

2.Duplex HD: Supports audio sampling rates up to 24bit/192KHz for outputs and 24bit/96KHz for inputs.

3.ASIO 2.0: Xonar DS includes an ASIO 2.0 driver for low-latency, low- distortion music creation application.

Q7: Will PCM sound output through S/PDIF be just 2 channels even with different analog output channels?

Answer:

The S/PDIF protocol specification (IEC-60958) can only carry 2-channel PCM data or non-PCM AC3/DTS data. So, when a user selects PCM output for S/PDIF, the Xonar sound card will always deliver 2 channel PCM data through the S/PDIF output port. For attaining 5.1 channel surround sounds, you can select DTS Interactive encoding output from the S/PDIF out menu, which will allow the Xonar DS to deliver upto 7.1 surround sound for games, DVD movies, and even stereo music.

Q8: Why can I hear and record sound from other recording devices when Wave/Digital is selected in Record on Vista?

Answer:

Different from Windows XP, Vista has a multiple devices/streams concept in audio structure, in which the concept can be categorized into Digital Input and Analog Input. In other words, multiple recording devices can be used and working at the same time. In this case, Wave In or SPDIF-In, considered as a Digital Input, is an independent recording device from Analog Devices such as Mic In, Line In, or Aux In. Therefore, if you have analog inputs other than Wave In and set to be monitored, you are able to hear and even record sound from those analog devices even Wave In / SPDIF-In is selected as the default recording device.

If you don’t want to hear the analog input sounds at that situation, simply turn off “monitoring” function on other analog input devices.

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ASUS Xonar DS