I have been playing with the simple Crossover plugin for Foobar in Asio mode.
I am able to route the signals as I am pleased in this software.
Why can`t I do this in Allocator?
I don`t know what I am doing wrong.
I got the Bluegears b-inspirer which has native Asio support.
This is basically the same card then the X-Meridian.

Regards,
Klaus

Hi Radian,

When you start the allocator you have two menus under "View": Audio Settings and Audio Routing. I Audio Settings you select the ASIO sound card you want to use. Once you have done that you can select the inputs and outputs for your crossover in the Audio Routing menu.
If you are looking for a way to use the Allocator inside Foobar, there is no VST plugin bridge that will let you do it.
There might be one in the future- for Winamp- but for now you have to route signals between applications either using SPDIF cables or using the method Presto outlined in one of the threads in this forum.
http://www.thuneau.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=97
You will need a piece of software to do the audio routing- namely Virtual Audio Cable.
Hope this helps.

But then the whole thing is not Asio anymore right?

What about Console?
Can I use the software of my choice, and use console to implement Allocator and route the signals to the 8 outs of my card?
What about Spdif in/out loopback that I can enable in the cards setup, does that help with my problem?
There must be a way to do this, any serious audiophile avoids Spdif.
It makes no sense to have clean PCM streams in our computers
and have to convert them to a lesser format and convert it back again to I2S so an external dac can be fed.
I have top notch dacs on all 4 pairs of outs on my soundcard and I want to be able to use them.

Regards,
Klaus

Yes the whole thing is still ASIO- you just use Asio4all driver. It takes up a bit more resources from your computer, but any pentium 4 or Atlhlon XP will pull it with no problems.
As far as routing SPDIF out back to in, some cards will work that way, some won't. It has to do with synchronization- some cards have problems "chasing their own tail".
You could try it and see if it works with your card.

Console is like the VSTShell- it's a VST plugin host, but more sophisticated. You can use a bunch of VST plugins together inside the Console. If all you want is to use one instance of Allocator then you don't need the Console.

By the way, did you try to use the mixer application in your sound card's driver? From looking at the manual posted on their website it seems that you should be able to select the Wave input as record source, which then can be selected in the ASIO input in VSTShell.
Just use the regular Windows sound in Foobar for playback.

It might be worth trying.

No matter what I try I can not get any sound out of my soundcard using Allocator. There seem to be to many variables.
Would it not be the most logical thing to do , to just use your eight analog outs on your soundcard and drive your amps with them. I got such a good sounding soundcard now (with the analog out mod) and I can not even benefit from it.
Please change this limitation in the next version.
If you just once heard my modded Bluegears you would understand why I hate Spdif out.

Regards,
Klaus

Yes, you will use the analog outputs on your card to drive amps. The question is how you feed the signal to the Allocator. It can only use valid ASIO inputs. If you plug in your CD player into the analog inputs on the card it will work just fine. If you use SPDIF out of your CD player into SPDIF input on the sound card it will work as well.
The problem arises when you try to feed audio from Foobar or other media player to Allocator inside the computer. There is no easy way to do it internally. You have to use third party software (as outlined by Presto), or send stereo audio out of Foobar to a sound card's SPDIF and feed that same signal back into SPDIF input on the sound card. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't- depending on the card. In any case you need to set your routing and sync source correctly.

It would be nice to be able to set the output device in the PC control panel to be Allocator....maybe a future upgrade? Barring that my Firewire410 handles it perfectly. I set the device to the 410's spdif. Then I loop the optical cable back to the input on the 410 and declare that my source in Allocator. Then I still have the coax digital input on the 410 for anything else I use without changing anything. It will even play both sources at the same time if there's input.

Am I missing anything? There aren't any losses or opportunity for noise introduction since the signal is digital, right?

Also note that use Media Monkey almost exclusively for playing my music. I haven't had a single pop or bleep in months of use, and this same computer is my work computer.