Due to my frustration with onboard Realtek audio and it's shortcomings, I'm going to give one of these a shot. It's DC coupled and supposedly supports 24 bit / 192kHz audio.
With the Realtek, setting my audio processor to output above 96kHz results in no audio, suggesting that Realtek may be capped at 96 kHz. This is despite Windows reporting that it's 192 kHz capable. Hopefully this dongle solves that issue as well as helps me avoid overshoots and having to do tilt compensation.
I finally got home and was able to try this thing. It sounds freaking amazing. I did a quick and dirty test by resetting all my PEQ and tilt settings to 0. The sound is phenomenal. Also, no static noise or interference. Highly recommended. No more screwing around with tilt settings and oscilloscopes. The loudness is blowing away every commercial FM on the dial.
Post by jayonradio76 on Sept 4, 2021 9:16:07 GMT -6
Interesting.. I know what you mean about the frustrations with the Realtek chip especially on an older laptop. I just ordered that dongle myself. For $12 for 24 bit/192khz audio is worth a shot.
What realtek chip do you have onboard? Mine is the ALC271X Which does support 192khz but doesn't seem to play well with StereoTool and the latency is really bad.
Jay, I had the Realtek ALC889 chipset (older Realtek audio). The biggest issue I had is I couldn't get it loud enough without it cutting out. I had to use an Aphex as an amplifier and that barely cut it. Then the frustrations with the overshoots, static noise and humming. It was terrible.
I hope you like the new dongle. It seems well worth the small price tag. I'm running RDS through it with no problem. I'm still using stereo encoding on the transmitter. However, now my stereo separation doesn't degrade as much with distance. Also, it was plug and play in Windows 11. No driver installation necessary.
