My AIR issues sorted??

[Womaz]

I have been using a Dell XPS 12 laptop which was knocking around the office unused for a dedicated quick-n-dirty music server for the last two months with W8.1 Roon Server and Air with a Sony Tablet remote and it worked without issue apart from one or two tracks that seemed to occasionally introduce feint crackles on the left speaker for some reason, but going to the latest Air seemed to have fixed that, no drop outs, no white noise, nothing...

Then I upgraded to W10, initially with no issues, but as I said on another thread, several weeks in, I found that after 10 to 15 mins of listening I would get the 'blue-screen-of-death" on the Dell, well, the W10 version which is a tad more helpful than the older windows given that situation. The Dell would automatically reboot, but 10 mins in, and the problem repeated - the error I can't remember but it related to Air I think!

Being well peed of by this, I tried going the USB route, but for days I could not find out why I was not being able to route music out of the USB port, never having to do this before. Last weekend I got to do some proper analysis of the problem, comparing another machines config out to USB. Then I twigged and I felt such a numpty!

What was needed was a USB windows audio driver... Doooh!  

Finding one was not as easy as I thought it was going to be... I looked in vain for any help on t'internet - nuffing of any direct help....then decided to look at the Dev site, and peruse their help files... strangely they do mention USB setup in one of the short articles, but no useful links as to where a driver might be found.... annoying...
Then I looked at the download page, and sure enough... about halfway down that page tucked away is a Windows USB driver!!!!! Not a lot of description but I gave it a go, installed it on the W10 Dell, and BAM! Eureka! It worked!  

Had a one hr session last night... Initial impression:

sounds quite different to Air (I am running two USB jitterbugs), smoother, mellower, not so prominent top-end treble... In two minds as to if I miss the 'excitement' of Air though...but am waiting to my Regen to be delivered (taking a friccin long time!), so as soon as I get that I will do some more comparative listening tests.

Not having to mess with the vagaries of Air is a bonus, it became a pain!

As to the USB sound... Jury is out at the moment!

You have the dedication i just do not have with my Hifi. I never intended to have a PC in the chain until I got the 200, so in time I will go back to my original thoughts I would imagine. If AIR worked satisfactorily then great, but like you say Windows might do an update and we are back to square one. Thanks for the reply.