Is sampling rate 384kHz through direct sound playable in MATLAB?

I am trying to produce ultrasound through a directsound soundcard (radius RK-DA60C), which supports 384kHz sampling rate.

Using other softwares like Audacity, I confirmed with an oscilloscope that 120kHz sine wave is playable.

However, it is not successful in MATLAB.

First, I used Data Acquisiion Toolbox and it reported an error "Rate cannot exceed 192000 in the current configuration."

Next, I used audioplayer function in MATLAB like,

a=rand(192000,1)-0.5;
pl=audioplayer(a,384000,16,6) % Device ID is 6
play(pl)

and got "Device Error: Unanticipated host error"

When I reduce the sampling rate,

 pl=audioplayer(a,192000,16,6)

Player worked correctly.

Does anyone know whether the 384kHz sampling rate is supported or not?

Answer 1

[Govind KM]

Hi @哲史 伊藤,

Audio features from base MATLAB, such as “audioplayer”, use the “DirectSound” audio host which is limited to 192kHz. This causes the mentioned “Unanticipated Host” error.

A workaround for this is to set the driver to “WASAPI” or “ASIO” using “audioDeviceWriter”, as these drivers do not limit the sample rate to 192kHz. This requires a license for the Audio Toolbox.

Sample code to set the driver to “WASAPI” is given below:

%Set driver as WASAPI or ASIO
adw=audioDeviceWriter("Driver","WASAPI","SampleRate",384e3);
%Using pinknoise as sample audio
adw(pinknoise(1024*16,2));

To get the name of your output device to pass as argument, the “getAudioDevices” function can be used to list available devices for the selected driver:

getAudioDevices(adw);

More details on “audioDeviceWriter” and “getAudioDevices” can be found in the documentation below:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/audio/ref/audiodevicewriter-system-object.html

https://www.mathworks.com/help/audio/ref/audioplayerrecorder.getaudiodevices.html

Hope this is helpful!