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tekszi t1_iyd7c0z wrote

As someone who is a tester of a heavily customized Windows os used by thousands, I can tell you for 100% that the answer is no. You can achieve a lot lower audio latency but that doesn't mean better quality, setting CPU processor affinities to your desired audio player or driver (for example ASIO) could theoretically help but even though I've been testing this for months, it seems like a complete placebo when it comes to actual audio quality. I'd still recommend setting affinities if you are running lower audio buffers since windows has this tendency to focus most processes to core 0 and by making it run on a different core, processing audio shouldn't be as resource-heavy as it is typically. And even this is a very rare case that I can only imagine happening on 25-year-old hardware.

Regarding "optimization"/"tweaking" software, most of their code has been sourced out by information you can access freely, or most of it can be plain wrong or hardware dependent which means they may not even work. Please do not consider ever buying such products for audio, gaming or any use case where it could come to mind.

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Nadeoki t1_iydcvtf wrote

Asio and Wasapi are superior to Windows Direct Audio.

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tekszi t1_iydjsj0 wrote

100% true, I feel that I may have worded my sentences so that it looks like I think otherwise but that is not the case

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Nadeoki t1_iyea32c wrote

You called using asio over windows direct drivers "placebo" even tho noise from sample rate conversion has been demonstrated as audible.

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tekszi t1_iyegc6c wrote

No, I said that tweaking anything mentioned by the op's post won't help you get more out of using ASIO, WASAPI or even Windows Direct Audio , I never mentioned that either of those protocols were placebo. What I was talking about was the case of setting their process to a dedicated processor core and that affecting their sound quality.

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juliangst t1_iydoops wrote

Nope, they’re not. You can simply measure the windows audio loopback and see that windows direct sound with its upsampling and dithering is as transparent as Wasapi/Asio

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Nadeoki t1_iyeb83r wrote

That has, in fact been done which demonstrates windows direct has noise in the audible range. While WASAPI does not. In fact, with WASAPI and ASIO, there's no need for sample rate conversion at all.

The difference between ASIO/WASAPI and DS is that DS always use the Win mixer.

All audio is dithered by the mixer.

If the sample rate of the audio differs from the one set in the sound panel, it will be resampled.

ASIO/WASAPI (exclusive) will bypass the mixer.

No dither and no resampling if the hardware is able to play the sample rate of the audio. This is about the protocol. The media player might do all kind of DSP like volume control + dither.

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