This is the first time I've tried ASIO, on recommendation from many people for perfect sound.
Got an X-Fi XtremeMusic, in Audio Creation mode, Bit-Matched Playback enabled, using Vista 64, using SPDIF.

Installed latest foobar and the ASIO plugin and configured it etc, works great! .... but when I close foobar, it seems to not unlock the sample rate or something, because I cannot play anything of a differing sample rate (such as a movie in Media Player Classic) without restarting the computer.

Anyone know how to solve this?

Complain to Creative. Eventually try to go back to a previous driver revision. Bitmatched playback using X-fi is a joke, and so are their support.

Certainly not suprised if Creative are at fault, just wondered if there was a workaround.

I did notice when when installing the Creative Console Launcher (the bloated version of the Creative Audio Console), you can visibly see the output switches to 44.1KHz when playing an FLAC in foobar over ASIO (which it should, of course), but it doesn't switch back to the default sampling rate afterwards, so you basically manually switch back to 48KHz or 96KHz within the Console Launcher (curiously, this option is not in the Audio Console). Just a pain in the arse more than anything else, which is a shame because for the most part, I've no real complaints with this card (hence I've not just switched to my onboard).

Being locked to 44.1KHz might not matter to a lot of people, but it's a pain for someone like me who has all their DVD's stored on their PC as VOB files (which obviously have 48KHz sound).

Since most of my sources are CD, i'm just happy as long as it don't lock to 48khz (which it tend to do sometimes).

Like I said, search for the older driver - At least it solved my SPDIF out problem (resetting on every restart, needs to be reenabled). I can't remember the driver version atm, but it's available several places.

Okay I've just tried the Kernel Streaming plugin - that works a charm. Which is wierd because I didn't think KS worked in Vista, but it must be working because my volume controls don't work.

I gather ASIO and KS both basically achieve the same thing? Cause I'll just stick to KS.

ASIO is not the same as KS in the case of the X-Fi (for all other cards it is the same for playback). ASIO is the only output method that will automatically change the Master Sampling Rate (KS will not) on the X-Fi.

For example, let's say you have two audio files, one sampled at 44.1kHz, the other at 48kHz. By default your Master Sampling Rate is 48kHz. Let's say you go to play the 44.1kHz with ASIO; the Master Sampling Rate will automatically change to 44.1kHz (assuming you are in Audio Creation mode and have bit-matched playback enabled). Then if you play the 48kHz file, the Master Sampling Rate will automatically change back to 48kHz.

This is not the case with Kernel Streaming (as far as the X-Fi is concerned). Let's say your Master Sampling Rate is set at 48kHz (the default) and you go to play a 44.1kHz file with Kernel Streaming. The Master Sampling Rate will not automatically change to 44.1kHz and will stay at 48kHz (therefore your audio file will be converted from 44.1kHz to 48kHz). Thus you can see the difference between ASIO and KS with the X-Fi.

What I'm assuming is happening in your case is that you play a 44.1kHz music file in foobar with ASIO, which causes the Master Sampling Rate to be changed to 44.1kHz. Then you attempt to play a file in MPC with a sampling rate of 48kHz (like a movie). But MPC uses DirectSound so the Master Sampling Rate doesn't get automatically changed and remains at 44.1kHz. Therefore you get problems with your audio playback. The fix for this is fairly simple. Either play a file that has a sample rate at 48kHz in foobar with ASIO (to set the Master Sampling Rate back to 48kHz) or you can manually change the Master Sampling Rate back to 48kHz by the following:

That sounds right - the fact that I couldn't even tell the difference between ASIO and KS converting to 48khz is quite telling though!

I'll give your idea of playing a 48KHz file in Foobar to force it back to 48Khz a go though - shame it doesn't just change back when you close Foobar or something.

EDIT - Just created a blank 48KHz wave file on the desktop called 'Switch back to 48KHz Mode.wav'... much easier than changing back via the Creative panel

how do bypass windows mixer on win xp ? is there any guide ?

You can still use ASIO and KS to bypass the kmixer (in XP or Vista), but realize only ASIO on the X-Fi will cause the Master Sampling Rate to automatically change to the correct sample rate.

I've decided to just stick with Kernel Streaming... it still bipasses the Windows mixer, just not the on-card resampling, I can honestly say I cannot hear the difference between ASIO and KS running at 48KHz... it's just not worth the messing around between files for me, considering I use a lot of stuff of differing sample rates.

Thanks for all the help with this though!

Thanks for the tip

Do you know of a card, ANY card, in Vista, that can play "bit-matched" AND auto-switch between the 2 sampling rates over SPDIF? I think this is the million dollar question.

Yeah, the X-Fi. One just has to use ASIO (it's the same deal as XP). If the X-Fi can do it, I'm sure almost all other cards can do it too (they may not even have to use ASIO). And yes, I have already tested this (with a 44.1kHz DD file and a 48kHz DD file using the S/PDIF plug-in with ASIO in foobar, they both passed through correctly to my receiver).