DTS Opitical Delay - Workaround

ajsrock wrote: The Asrock Taichi motherboard has optical 5.1 surround, but if like me, it has a noticeable 1-2 second delay before you hear anything coming out of the speakers, here's a simple workaround. After setting installing drivers, selecting DTS and running tests, it's a consistent 1-3 seconds before sounds comes out of the speakers.  I can see on the receiver it switching to DTS when sound comes out, then reverts back to "not DTS" when the audio or video app closes. WORKAROUND: I created a custom sound file called "Background music.mp3" that has a very low volume, setup winamp to run it minimized (which if you close winamp, it will remember and reopen minimized), then put a shortcut in my startup.  Since a steady audio stream is now being supplied, the annoying delay is gone.  Many claim W10 doesn't support optical DTS at all, but it's working for me and now isn't a huge annoyance. I'm not asking for help or advice, just posting this in case someone else like me spent hours pulling their hair out trying to find the "right" solution.  I gave up and just found another way. Asrock Taichi Motherboard: Windows 7 or 8 have the same issue

The delay you describe sounds like the Digital to Analog Convertor (DAC) or really Digital Processor when decoding multi-channel surround sound, is not receiving a bit stream of data, even if it is all zeros (digital silence), when the audio source stops between songs, paused, stopped, etc.

You described that affect when your receiver's digital processor switches out of DTS mode. When you said "not DTS", was there any type of digital signal lock/detection on the receiver's display?

If you were playing a DVD in a standard home DVD player with surround sound into your receiver, do you ever lose a digital signal lock/detection indication on your receiver? You shouldn't and I doubt that you do. The same it true for a standard home CD/DVD Audio/SACD player, or other digital media player.

As soon as you turn on a home digital media player connected to an external digital processor, in your case the one in your receiver, you will get an indication that a digital signal was detected and the processor has locked onto that data stream. That happens when no disk or other media source is in the digital media player. The digital media player sends a bit stream of zeros so there is no delay time caused by the digital processor detecting and locking onto a digital bit stream.

The question is, as seems to be happening to you, why does the PC seem to stop sending a digital bit stream? I say PC because while it could be the Taichi board itself that is responsible for turning off the digital bit stream, the mother board is only one component among many (including software, Windows 10, and the Realtek Audio driver, among other possibilities) that together provide the DTS 5.1 digital signal.

For example, my different ASRock X99 board has a TOSLINK optical digital output. With no TOSLINK cable connected to the TOSLINK output, I can see the red LED optical output being on, through the little door that covers that connection. Does it seem that the LED actually goes off and on with the presence or absence of a digital signal? Muting that digital output should not turn off the LED. Stopping the digital source also should not cause a loss of the digital signal lock.

I understand the reason why your workaround works, but as you know it should not be necessary.

Can you describe the circumstances of the apparent lack of digital signal from your PC? For example, you start playback of what source, which then has the delay you described? An optical disk player in the PC? Do you lose digital lock if you stop, pause, or mute that digital signal?

How did you configure DTS audio in Windows 10? With the Windows Sound option? What is the source device that is the Default device selected in Sound? I have six possible audio source devices in my X99 PC.