Dac Testing: Incompatibility of ASIO4ALL and Windows 10

[amirm]

Some of you may have seen my review of Schiit Modi 3 where I uncovered a problem with ASIO4ALL wrapper with Windows class drivers: https://audiosciencereview.com/foru...w-and-measurements-of-schiit-modi-3-dac.4742/

I need ASIO interface to test USB DACs with my Audio Precision analyzer. Since many DACs don't come with ASIO interface, I use the wrapper driver, ASIO4ALL. Unfortunately it seems that ASIO4ALL cannot work with 24 bit data with Windows inbox class driver. It truncates the samples to 16 bits.

Sadly this problem now happens with other DACs and I confirmed Audio Precision is seeing the same issue.

This is a new problem that did not exist until a few weeks ago. So I have to believe Microsoft has changed something to cause this incompatibility.

I have reached out to author of ASIO4ALL and my contacts at Microsoft. Something has changed in the latest update of Windows to break this compatibility.

Until this is softed out, my testing ability of USB DACs will be severely limited unless they also have a S/PDIF interface. Fortunately the next DAC I was going to test comes with ASIO drivers so I am good at the moment.

Anyway, raising the visibility of this issue in case others are hitting on it. Or in the event that some of you have better connection to author of ASIO4ALL than I have (his forum seems to be broken).

 

[amirm]

BTW, if you are using ASIO4ALL with your media player, you will hit the same problem. I confirmed it in Roon and even though Roon thinks the pipeline is pure/24-bit, samples are getting truncated to 16 bits if you use ASIO4ALL. Native ASIO drivers are of course fine. As is WASAPI.

 

[restorer-john]

Can't you roll back your win10 updates to a few weeks ago, then determine which update caused the issue and not re-install it?

 

[restorer-john]

The windows10 updates have gotten out of control. I've got mine disabled through winaero tweaker and blocked on my router. I'm sitting on 1803. I do updates when I want, not when MS decides.

These are blocked at router level and any of my machines (XP to Win10) are safe from the claws of updates.

crl.microsoft.com
download.microsoft.com
doawnload.windowsupdate.com
ntservicepack.microsoft.com
office.microsoft.com
officeupdate.microsoft.com
stats.microsoft.com
update.microsoft.com
v4.windowsupdate
windowsupdate.com
windowsupdate.microsoft.com
wustat.windows.com

Apparently all new releases of Win10 will have no printer driver repository either- everything will come from Win update. I can see that being a problem as 'legacy' printer drivers will just disappear altogether.

It's a mess Amir.

 

[Blumlein 88]

The windows10 updates have gotten out of control. I've got mine disabled through winaero tweaker and blocked on my router. I'm sitting on 1803. I do updates when I want, not when MS decides.

These are blocked at router level and any of my machines (XP to Win10) are safe from the claws of updates.

crl.microsoft.com
download.microsoft.com
doawnload.windowsupdate.com
ntservicepack.microsoft.com
office.microsoft.com
officeupdate.microsoft.com
stats.microsoft.com
update.microsoft.com
v4.windowsupdate
windowsupdate.com
windowsupdate.microsoft.com
wustat.windows.com

Apparently all new releases of Win10 will have no printer driver repository either- everything will come from Win update. I can see that being a problem as 'legacy' printer drivers will just disappear altogether.

It's a mess Amir.

That explains a laser printer which was working fine, and now doesn't. I had to find some obscure illicit driver. It wouldn't use the original one on the disk which was maybe Vista. It wouldn't find a new one that worked correctly. The new one worked, but messed up formatting badly. Over time I tripped over some clues and found a driver to download from some personal website which worked.

I've also had some fishy results of an older Canon Photoscanner that worked until this recent round of updates.

 

[Timbo2]

Some of you may have seen my review of Schiit Modi 3 where I uncovered a problem with ASIO4ALL wrapper with Windows class drivers: https://audiosciencereview.com/foru...w-and-measurements-of-schiit-modi-3-dac.4742/

I need ASIO interface to test USB DACs with my Audio Precision analyzer. Since many DACs don't come with ASIO interface, I use the wrapper driver, ASIO4ALL. Unfortunately it seems that ASIO4ALL cannot work with 24 bit data with Windows inbox class driver. It truncates the samples to 16 bits.

Sadly this problem now happens with other DACs and I confirmed Audio Precision is seeing the same issue.

This is a new problem that did not exist until a few weeks ago. So I have to believe Microsoft has changed something to cause this incompatibility.

I have reached out to author of ASIO4ALL and my contacts at Microsoft. Something has changed in the latest update of Windows to break this compatibility.

Until this is softed out, my testing ability of USB DACs will be severely limited unless they also have a S/PDIF interface. Fortunately the next DAC I was going to test comes with ASIO drivers so I am good at the moment.

Anyway, raising the visibility of this issue in case others are hitting on it. Or in the event that some of you have better connection to author of ASIO4ALL than I have (his forum seems to be broken).

Given that MSFT just had to claw back its major October update for deleting user files, perhaps they should reevaluate their whole QA "on the fly" process. And doing two major updates a year seems like asking for trouble.

Updated version of Windows 10 October 2018 Update released to Windows Insiders

Hopefully it is relatively easy to fix.

 

[restorer-john]

That KFR fiasco is ridiculous. Some heads should have rolled over that.

Win10 is still clearly a work in progress and should have never really seen the light of day. I only run two computers now with Win10, all the rest have had Win7 re-installed or they were left alone in the first place. I wish it was a good OS, but it's not.

At least you can use vista/7/8/8.1 drivers for older hardware in Win10 with a little bit of tweaking. Winaero tweaker is good for stopping driver updates globally.

 

[derp1n]

Applying random OS updates to the machine used for taking measurements is pretty poor practice from a reproducibility/repeatability point of view. A common theme.

 

[amirm]

Applying random OS updates to the machine used for taking measurements is pretty poor practice from a reproducibility/repeatability point of view. A common theme.

I test products in exactly the same situation users do. No interest in creating special test cases/setup.

The problem I just found here will impact anyone playing music through ASIO4ALL just the same. This is the value of real-world testing.

If ASIO4ALL is truncating all music to 16 bit, it needs to be found and fixed.

 

[derp1n]

None of that has anything to do with what I said.

 

[Patrick1958]

The problem is clearly in win10. On one computer i'm running OtsDj. A program i use to create nonstop music mixes. Native the program works at 16 bit 44.1 khz. That's the sample rates 99 % of my music is.
However since an update (don't know when/what) win10 is applying some heavy dithering when in sound manager my settings are 16/44.1. In order to avoid that dithering i need to set 24/44.1 in sound manager.

How did i discovered this :
For the shortest path from OtsDj to audacity Wasapi is used. Setting audacity to match output settings of OtsDj (16/44.1) i noticed that when i delete the blank intro and outro from the recorded mix something wasn't right, i measeured contrast on the silence parts and got consistant results of 96 db, looking at the frequency response it also clearly shows there is a signal in the silent parts. This is no longer there if i change the settings in soundmanager and audacity to 24 bit.
I performed the same test with a Marantz PMD661 external recorder, coax output from usb/spdif converter to Marantz external recorder. Visible dithering on 16 bit signals, gone when both win soundmanager and Marantz are set to 24 bit.
Wasapi is supposed to be the Window alternative to ASIO, an unaltered path from player to dac, player. It is not anymore !!!
This problem didn't exist before win10 updates.

 

[restorer-john]

win10 is applying some heavy dithering

I wonder what the characteristics of that 'heavy dithering' are? mmm. Some sort of digital dithering watermarking perhaps? Something 99.9% of users would never know was there, buried down in the noise.

 

[garbulky]

That explains a laser printer which was working fine, and now doesn't. I had to find some obscure illicit driver. It wouldn't use the original one on the disk which was maybe Vista. It wouldn't find a new one that worked correctly. The new one worked, but messed up formatting badly. Over time I tripped over some clues and found a driver to download from some personal website which worked.

I've also had some fishy results of an older Canon Photoscanner that worked until this recent round of updates.

Ohhhh....you just made my stomach lurch!!!!!!! I have an expensive but old color laser!

 

[restorer-john]

Ohhhh....you just made my stomach lurch!!!!!!! I have an expensive but old color laser!

Make sure you download and store the driver files someplace in case they disappear of Win update and the printer's site.

 

[Wombat]

Make sure you download and store the driver files someplace in case they disappear of Win update and the printer's site.

Good advice. I will do that.

 

[Ron Texas]

I wonder what the characteristics of that 'heavy dithering' are? mmm. Some sort of digital dithering watermarking perhaps? Something 99.9% of users would never know was there, buried down in the noise.

Must be a conspiracy...

 

[daihedz]

I posted this Asio4All 16-Bit issue to www.aktives-hoeren.de. One of the specialists there (Acourate's Uli Brueggemann / www.audiovero.de) replied that Asio4All was primarly relying on the Windows Sound Settings. So the question is, if the windows updates have reset/overwritten a prior 24-bit statement within these Windows Sound Settings to 16-bit bit depth setting within your computer?

 

[garbulky]

Make sure you download and store the driver files someplace in case they disappear of Win update and the printer's site.

Great it only comes on a CD. HP's download site only lets you request the CD.

 

[amirm]

I posted this Asio4All 16-Bit issue to www.aktives-hoeren.de. One of the specialists there (Acourate's Uli Brueggemann / www.audiovero.de) replied that Asio4All was primarly relying on the Windows Sound Settings. So the question is, if the windows updates have reset/overwritten a prior 24-bit statement within these Windows Sound Settings to 16-bit bit depth setting within your computer?

Hmmm. I had seen this before but forgotten.... Let me check!

 

[svart-hvitt]

RANT WARNING

What a mess!