ROG Centurion 7.1 - 16bit/48khz max? What about 24bit or 32bit?

[TEG2TEG]

I got an ROG Centurion hoping for a really high quality DAC based on seeing ESS9601.

I installed latest drivers and app, but Windows 10 only offers me these choices from the sound driver:
16 bit, 44100 hz (CD quality)
16 bit, 48000 hz (DVD quality)

Is there any way to get anything better? I was hoping for at least 24 bit, 96000 hz (Studio quality)
or maybe even 32 bit, 192000hz

In Windows, my driver says:
ASUS ROG 7.1
Driver Provider: A-Volute
Driver Date: 11/24/2016
Driver Version: 8.12.15.485
( If I search for anything else it always says I have the best driver installed. )

I have Sonic Studio v1.1.20
Sound Card FW v1.0.6
Control Box FW v1.3

Thanks in advance for any helpful responses here.

[TEG2TEG]

I disabled the AMD HDMI audio in my Radeon card, and disabled my Realtek motherboard audio, so my only audio device is the Centurion USB base station.

[TEG2TEG]

So...

Great answer would be:
"Here, use this driver and now you have 32/96!" (or at least 24/48)

Sobering answer would be:
"Sorry, we have a 16 bit DSP so there is no point in sending 24 or 32 bits to the Control Box even though it has a 32 bit headphone DAC."

Unfortunate answer would be:
"Yes, the Control Box operates at 32 bits, but unfortunately nobody works on that driver anymore, so you are stuck at 16 bits."

Bad answer would be:
Nobody wants to talk about it, so I am left in the dark wondering...


Note, I have read every Centurion review I could find, and nobody seemed to mention this as a limitation.
Does ANYONE see more than 16 bits from their Centurion device driver?

Note, my motherboard is a recent ASUS Prime Z490-P with USB 3.2 ports and such. I tried plugging the Centurion into all the various USB ports and always got 16 bits max from the driver.

[TEG2TEG]

[TEG2TEG]

Well, I guess I am out of luck. It appears that the Centurion control box uses a Realtek CM6210 chip which does 24/96 for Stereo, but only 16/48 for Multichannel.
Too bad Realtek didn't design the chip to take 24/48 on multi-channel.

[Nate152]

Thank you,

I don't have the ROG Centurion so I wasn't 100% sure, but I was wondering about the shared mode.

Based on that, it seems you'd use 24/96 stereo for music and 16/48 multichannel for games.

[TEG2TEG]

I got this headset for the 7.1 surround sound. I don't plan to put them in stereo mode, so will just leave them in 16/48 mode all the time, for games and 5.1 / 7.1 music. (Yes, there is a limited selection of surround sound music available.)
Most of the 5.1 & 7.1 music comes from Bluray and is 24bit sampled, so it is a shame that this DSP chip in the controller can't support that.

I have a better DAC and better stereo only headphones when I want to listen to stereo music.

I have a Soundblaster X3 that can do 32/96 Surround sound to a Razer Tiamat 7.1 headset that I was using before.
The audio sounds slightly clearer at the higher bit depth and sampling frequency, but I am sticking with the ROG Centurion because:
* It has richer/deeper bass than the Tiamats
* The Sonic Studio VU meters are very handy
* The Centurion beta firmware has that crossmix feature to convert 5.0 sound into 5.1 (driving the subwoofers) for some games and music that lacks LFE/sub encoding.

I am finding that the beta firmware feature to drive the subwoofer (when source audio lacks LFE encoding) only works in headset mode. I wish I could use that feature with the speakers out as well to drive some home theater speakers.

I realize that this is a discontinued product (although they are still available from Amazon) , so I don't really have any hope of any new (software/firmware) features being added...