HD500X, Recording, and Output Paths

[DaveLeeNC]

I have a Windows 10 desktop and a (rarely used but maybe that will change) HD500X. My system has 2 USB DAC's. One (Dragonfly Red) drives a pair of so-so quality desktop speakers and the other (IFI Nano Black) drives Sennheiser 650 headphones and in my current system LINE OUT goes to the mp3 input of the HD500x. The HD500x then drives a pair of JB LSR305's. This way I can listen to music through either the desktop speakers or the JBL's (turn on the HD500x and direct output to the IFI Nano. And I can record easily using the HD500X as my input sound card. 

 

What I cannot do (easily) is to simply play (in realtime) my guitar through the HD500X and output  that to my desktop speakers (which I would upgrade if I could do this). Maybe there is some bring up Audacity and set it up in loopback recording mode solution (not sure if that works or if latency would be an issue). But is there a simple/straight forward way to do this? 

 

Thanks.

 

dave

[silverhead]

The only good way (imho) to do what you want is to connect your desktop speakers to your HD500X outputs each time you want to use them for that purpose. 
 

But are your JBL speakers not superior quality? Why not use them?
 

A suggestion: use your HD500X as your computer’s soundcard by connecting it via USB to your computer. Leave your JBL speakers connected. If necessary set your Windows 10 Sound settings to use the HD500X as both the audio input and output device. With this setup all sound from your computer (DAW, iTunes, YouTube, etc) will be routed to your HD500X and then through the JBLs. Your live guitar playing will be heard there as well.

 

One potential issue: you mention Audacity as your DAW. By default Audacity uses a fake (non-compliant) ASIO driver called ASIO4ALL. It is known to cause problems when used with fully ASIO compliant devices like Line 6 devices. Avoid using ASIO4ALL. If necessary move to another DAW that supports ASIO properly.

[DaveLeeNC]

The problem with the JBL's is that they are too big to fit on my (kinda' small) desktop. And their current placement in the room is far from optimum and I don't have a good alternative here that works from my spouse's perspective (room does duty as my office and a guest bedroom). 

 

I could do as you suggest and exclusively use the HD500X as an input/output sound card. But my sense of things is that my external DAC's (particularly the IFI DAC) is better for critical listening. SO I am trying out alternatives here (including better speakers that would fit on my desktop or a way to better control routing which includes the HD500X). 

 

One solution that I have tried is to use the free version of Amplitube as a router where I would route the HD500X sound card output to Amplitube and use Amplitube to route the output. I have not yet been able to make that work and, quite frankly, have not yet been able to make Amplitube do anything useful. 

 

And thanks for the info on ASIO4ALL. I did not know that it is not fully ASIO compliant. That might explain some of my problems. Do you happen to know if REAPER is fully ASIO compliant?

 

dave

[silverhead]

21 minutes ago, DaveLeeNC said:

The problem with the JBL's is that they are too big to fit on my (kinda' small) desktop. And their current placement in the room is far from optimum and I don't have a good alternative here that works from my spouse's perspective (room does duty as my office and a guest bedroom). 

 

I could do as you suggest and exclusively use the HD500X as an input/output sound card. But my sense of things is that my external DAC's (particularly the IFI DAC) is better for critical listening. SO I am trying out alternatives here (including better speakers that would fit on my desktop or a way to better control routing which includes the HD500X). 

 

One solution that I have tried is to use the free version of Amplitube as a router where I would route the HD500X sound card output to Amplitube and use Amplitube to route the output. I have not yet been able to make that work and, quite frankly, have not yet been able to make Amplitube do anything useful. 

 

And thanks for the info on ASIO4ALL. I did not know that it is not fully ASIO compliant. That might explain some of my problems. Do you happen to know if REAPER is fully ASIO compliant?

 

dave

It's the ASIO4ALL driver that is not ASIO compliant. A DAW, whether Audacity or Reaper, is neutral as far as ASIO compliance is concerned. However, Reaper does not use ASIO4ALL as its default driver. You will more easily be able to configure Reaper than Audacity to use the POD Go and the Line 6 ASIO driver as the audio device.

[DaveLeeNC]

@silverhead my question and your answer reveals how little I know about this stuff. Thanks again. dave

[silverhead]

We all learn bit by bit. Don't be afraid to keep asking questions. There are no dumb questions - only people who do a dumb thing by not asking the question. ;-)