SurroundByUs.com

Hi I am Barry and I have been playing surround for as long as its been around and collecting DTS content since its inception.

I have just started to play with PB since I realized I can output 6 channels into my Meridian sound card which encodes to DTS out the SPIDF into my home systems. No muss no fuss - very nice.

FYI - I keep all my surround content in .flac (both wrapped DTS and flac encoded DTS) and play everything back with Foobar2k. I use this in a netbook with a X-FI 5.1 USB in my car - amazing sound! Closing in a TB!

Now for my problem - I have been playing with a few advanced surround Bougles - lets take Ourgasm as the example - it comes preconfigured and all I want is to setup my monitor output at the end, but I keep getting this annoying "Cannot create - Only one Audio device on the patch bay at the same time" error. I have turned off off-line processing and it still fails.

Any clues?

Hey Barry,

I'd be interested in the exact model of sound card you have that does dts encoding on the fly.

I've been waiting to hear from someone who has one of these.

Also interested in your car project. Do you use any particular skin for foobar to make it easier to use while driving or do you set up your playlist before driving and just let it go?

Which foobar version and dts plugin /spdif plugins do you use to play back dts enocded flacs to SPDIF in the car?

I have a winamp based solution but would like to switch to foobar.

Thanks,
Zeerround

Sorry for the late reply - got busy distracted with my ATT-Pure that I waited for 2 years for them to release

The card is the Auzentech Meridian 7.1 http://www.auzentech.com/site/products/x-meridian.php

It took me YEARS of screwing around with this card to make it all work the way I want and finally it does!
Here is my setup on the PC:
I use Foobar2k with the DTS decoder plug in. I tried the Andrews Lab ATSouround (I do use this in my car). However once I got the card figured out the NEO encoding on 2 channel works much better (WAY more kick on the bottom).
The key is the output setting - I use KS:Auzen X-Meridian 7.1 via the FB2k plugin for Kernal Streaming. ASIO also works ok on W7 - not so good on Vista.

My goal which is what took so long was to be able to simply intermix DTS and 2 ch content in a playlist and not have to change any settings between cuts - sounds simple - it was not!

I switched from Winamp for 2 reasons - the above goal and FB2k media DB is just the best I have found for LARGE collections - hands down! And I have tired a ton of them.
As for the skin - I modified a Columns UI. I can send you the file if you want.

One other plugin I use (FB2k can use most of the winamp plugins) is the IZotope Ozone - just the best - you can tweak and actually assign different settings to each cut you play. Only works on 2ch cuts.

The Car:

I use an ASUS N280 HA1000 Netbook that I put W7 on (I am a MS MSDN subscriber) right away. It plugs into a creative X-FI 5.1 USB unit that plugs via a set of rube-goldberg a-b switches (so i can go back to the CD/Radio) directly into the amps (almost) - This is a great story - this system I had put in my SL-500 cost around $10k and includes a custom tuned eq box that was setup by using a TASCAM equalizer playing a Barbara Streisand record that the person doing the setting up actually sat with Barbara in her car doing the tweaking under her guidance. So since he know exactly how its supposed to sound, he uses that experience as the baseline to eq my system. Then he takes the TASCAM into the lab and builds my eq out of discreet parts. So now with my netbook I can play all my DTS FLAC files anywhere.

As for ease of use - that was the big question - i tired a couple remote controls that required external USB dongles and they kind of worked, but then I found the Sony Playstation Bluetooth remote and a program called intellremote that works really good. And allows me decent control over main vol, player vol, play pause, skip, next, prev and even startup of FB2k. And yes I usually just run a single playlist per drive.

The X-FI has its own set of controls that you need to mess with to get the balance etc - I do not use its surround or Crystalizer - though on DTS it tends to sound better - but it is not as good as the Izotope. So there is the one area that needs improvement and I have contacted Creatives Developers to ask them to provide an API to their settings so I can remote control individual channel levels and switch the special features on and off. No luch so far -if you go with this setup, bug them as well.


My Collection:
I encode (really it just wraps and removes some space) all .dts or .wav files into .flac via Switch Sound File Converter and use tag & rename to fill in the tags and pick up folder art. Works great 99% of the time, but for some reason a small percentage of my tracks don't play (static) - so now I reverse the .flac back to .wav-then rename to .dts and use FB2k to encode to a real flac (which is always much bigger). If anyone know of another program to do the wrapping please let me know.


Let me know if you have any more questions.

Barry

Thanks! That is a lot of really good detail.

My car rig is here:





I haven't used the laptop+winamp in ages, just DTS cd's and DVDs, but the alpine processor has toslink inputs that override the signal from the head unit. I bought an electronic optical switch, and hacked it so it had a remote control, plus on-off-on for 44K.1hz sound card, Head Unit, 48Khz sound card.

I was using winamp but will probably switch to foobar with your recommendation. I still have the SPDIF output hurdle. I've never used foobar that way.

The other thing that's been holding me back is where/how to mount (a third) "large" touch screen display. By the time I finish this system (no in it's 3rd or 4th incarnation) it'll be time to retire the Z Already the TV tuner has been surpassed by digital TV.

Oh well.

The FB2k SPDIF I have been told will work just fine - I am not understanding how you get SPDIF from your laptop. The X-FI has spdif out as well - so that might be the way to go - then you have the option of either SPDIF or jack into the amps via the spam outs. It would be interesting to see if there is any determinable difference.

Do you make your own mixes using PB?

Its funny how things work out, just before I was discussing this stuff today with you I answered an IM from River161 with the question below, not knowing it was you I should have asked .

As I mentioned before re my Meridian card - I have been A-Bing feeding the same 2ch content vs 5.1 encoded by various means. The one that I just did was Love - Forever Changes (which I got last night - nice Thx Giving Preset!) - the one difference that is on the plus side for the Meridian is the amount of bottom (the kick drum bottom) - its much heavier and therefore a more realistic punch or kick to the sound then the 5.1 mix using I was told the ArcTan variant of your software. The rest of the mix - especially the placement of vocals and instruments is much better than Meridian. So this of course begs the question as to how to tweak probably the Isotope (or some other part) to get that type of bottom?

Even though the Love mix is really clean, its overall level is a good chunk less than the 2 channel sound coming out of the FB2k source and encoded via card into DTS - I think it is using NEO - do you know anything about that technique?

Did you do the Love conversion? If not, do you know who did and is it possible to get the .bidule file? I just stated messing with PB and got side tracked just as I was going to test SPEC

With all the SPEC methods you have the option of boosting the base by turning on the LFE channel.

We have lots of methods for adjusting the volumes, from by ear to using a spread sheet to two types of automation. Then we also have guides for "mastering" with both free and commercial VST plugins like Ozone.

Mastering can also affect the amount of bass, when you use multi-band compressors.

Back to the car, I have spam controls between the processor and the amp for center and sub, that way I can easily adjust the center and sub levels per track, with out fumbling through menus, etc.