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I generally agree with that article with just one caveat: it's a bit one-sided because it doesn't mention that DACs can have linearity issues, which manifest as increased distortion at low digital levels. This is a potential problem when driving a DAC at very low volume. (Hence why @amirm...

What kind of hardware and driver are you using? Just removing APOs should not make that much difference unless the manufacturer screwed up and bundled in questionable APOs in their driver package.

Again, and because that bears repeating: most DACs will not "render the peak at >0dB", because most DACs are not designed with ISOs in mind. It's "undefined behavior", to borrow a term from software engineering. When presented with ISOs, some DACs will clip inside the DAC itself; other DACs will...

I don't think you need to go that far: isn't it the case that you can end up with ISOs simply by taking the signal from an ADC, and then "just" normalizing it to 0 dBFS before releasing it? Just that simple, seemingly benign operation can produce ISOs that weren't there in the original signal, I...

Yes. Does this look like clipping to you? Or this (yellow trace)? Bottom line is, at least some DACs fail spectacularly when faced with intersample overs - they don't "just clip" as has been implied several times in this thread. I think it would be insightful to play some real-world...

By the way for those willing to experiment, here are some SoX commands to generate ISO test signals at various true peak levels at any given sample rate and bit depth: sox --channels 2 --bits 16 --rate 48000 --null intersample-peaks-48000-16-0.wav synth 30 sine 12000 0 12.5 gain -1 sox...

CAudioLimiter is bypassed in exclusive mode, just like all other APOs and the rest of the Windows Audio Graph (mixing, resampling, etc.). WASAPI Exclusive mode is guaranteed to be bit-perfect as it gives the application direct access to the DAC's hardware buffers.

There is no need to go through all this trouble: exclusive mode bypasses all APOs, so if you use exclusive mode it doesn't matter which APOs are installed.

In theory, yes. In practice, the channel mapping will be a bit of hack because you'll have to lie to Windows and tell it you have a 5.1 device, otherwise you won't be able to output 4 channels from an APO. This means applications will believe you have a 5.1 output, and might try to output 5.1...

@Davide I figured it out. The problem is that PortAudio calls IMMDevice::Activate() passing the IID not for IAudioClient, but for IAudioClient3. Problem is, API Monitor is a fairly old piece of software (2013) - it doesn't know about IAudioClient3 which first appeared in Windows 10 (i.e. in...

Yeah, I've noticed that as well when trying to use API Monitor on FlexASIO (which uses PortAudio). I have no idea why it doesn't work on PortAudio. I can't think of any reason why it wouldn't. I'll see if I can investigate that when I have some time.

To be clear: there is nothing wrong with having a dedicated PC for audio playback. If that's more convenient or practical for you, by all means, feel free to do that. Just don't go claiming that using a dedicated PC improves audio quality. It doesn't.

Oh I am dead serious. I also double-checked my setup by using an industrial-grade audio analyzer to measure the entire chain up to the DAC outputs, just to make sure there are no "surprises". (There wasn't.) And of course I also check the final acoustic output using REW and a measurement...

This is a forum, not a chat room. Immediate response is not expected. Feel free to take as much as time as you like to formulate a response. In most cases, this is not as much as an advantage as some like to think. The processing done by the Windows audio engine is usually benign and...

Surely you have a rough idea as to why your users are using your software? Do you mind providing a few examples of the reasons your users prefer your software compared to alternatives? Can you elaborate please? Why on earth would an audio player possibly care about which brand of CPU it's...

No. Their only purpose is to help with driver compatibility (sometimes). There is some information on these concepts in my APO notes.

I don't know what recommendation you are referring to, but I'd expect the reason WASAPI would be recommended over ASIO has more to do with practicality/convenience/reliability (no need for an ASIO driver, better driver stability, better format negotiation, nicer behaviour around state...

I never said all music players are bit-perfect. Audible transparency does not require bit-perfectness. Bit-perfectness is only really useful as a psychological tool to put some minds at ease by removing the possibility that something might be messing with the signal in audible ways. Just because...

As far as "minimalistic music players" go, foobar2000 is fairly minimal and a pretty good choice. You can use ASIO output with it, if you're into pointless tweaks and unnecessary hassle. Given how digital audio works, any claim that any two audio player apps have audible differences between...

That's very likely, yes. EQ is cheap, so it makes sense Neumann would use that to improve the response, especially in a $1K speaker. I expect most active speakers to have some kind of integrated EQ these days. There's no reason to leave performance on the table by not using it. No. Why would...