This topic is an overview with some advanced details on the setup of you machine's sound card device and the Audio Setup in the Media Center.
I have found that on the sound card on several machines I have worked with you need to disable by un-checking the add on features under the:
In Control Panel > Sound > Enhancements Tab.
Also if you have those type of machines with built in nice higher end computer type cards or a top line creative labs, turtle beach or other card with features such as dts, dolby, and wma etc. , I have found that disabling them in the computers start-up or in most cases under Services in Windows will be a best practice to eliminate shuttering, stutters, clipping etc.
The goal is to give the DAC to WASPI drive complete and total control of the hardware to driver.
The attached pdf will go into more detail about testing and setup for supported output modes of your card to test on your computer and there is also a pretty good overview of the media Center Audio Setup features such as speaker selection format, effects, leveling, EQ and other tweaks.
I think most of us so called purist use about none of these. I use 2 Ch Stereo only and no change on the Sample rates. Even though I have 2 sub woofers I let my MX150 control that via the K03 and do allow Media Center to get in the middle of that.
Don't over look clipping protection and Bitdepth settings.
A few other advanced things to look at:
Check the box - Open device for exclusive access.
Check the box - Disable event style (required by older hardware).
A tip from me and my experience on several builds.
Also on my laptop I opened the volume mixer and made the spdif the default not the speakers for the audio card, and then you right click on spdif go to its properties and I disabled dts, dolby, and wma pro audio, set volume to max per jriver docs selected all sample rates.
