Thread: alpine pxa-h700/701 distortion

What does it sound like?

Hey Scott....are you using a soundcard with an optical out going to your alpine? I tried this route and had lots of distortion...i then ditched the sound card and used the onboard spidf out -> converter -> H701 and the noise went away.

The problem is probably a software setting on the soundcard, but i was happy to get rid of it (one less component to slow me down).

i actually have the same converter as you (i think)

the distortion kind of sounds like the music is streaming from a lower bandwidth connection (think about real audio back when you had a 56k modem)

hmm...it could be an audio driver issue. I remember reading a post on something similar and it was solved by downloading the audio codecs from the via arena website.


Also...i had a question about the converter. Can it affect sq or is it just a translator?

well, from my experience with video, digital is digital. you either have a 1 or a 0. so it's either there or it isn't. the only way it can affect sound quality is if it's upsampling or downsampling (thats what i'm thinking is the problem with mine) and then you're adding in distortion there. it's interpolating what goes between the samples and that will give you and aliasing on the soundwave...for lack of a better description.

I think i remembered reading about the drivers as well, just didnt come across much with my specific problem with the searches that i tried. I'll download them tonight and try to get them installed.

The reason i asked about the converter is because mine is getting 14V with the car on...lol. It works fine, but i was just wondering if i could be causing it to behave sub-optimally.

When i installed my drivers, i followed that online guide thing step by step, and it worked for me. I installed that AC3filter and the audio codec from that page also. The only other things i installed on my via were the sound drivers that came with its original cd. I would play a song in winamp and media player to make sure that they sound the same.

Another stupid question (but it happened to me, so ill ask): Did you make sure to select the correct input for the optical in?

it very well could be the driver. I have experienced crappy tinny sound cause of the driver.

Try the using the onboard with the realtek AC97 driver. Search the forums. It will work with the via boards

thanks guys, I'll have to install the drivers this weekend. hopefully this will work. it's only going to be a temporary thing since i'm going dsp-less when i finally get my echo soundcard. I would just go back to analog for the time being but i want to make a fair comparison between the two.

I did follow that online guide as well, maybe i missed a step or my drivers are old like you guys said. i'll report back on monday. thanks again

that was it, just unstalled the latest driver and it worked.

thanks guys