Ending the Windows Audio Quality Debate

[Roen]

Don't you switch between outputs manually in PEACE? How does APO know?

You see the dropdown on top of the editor that says Device?

If you set it up this way, you can see the EQ curve on the bottom change as you change device.

However, if you unplug a headphone and swap to another headphone, you'd have to manually change the EQ curve in EAPO at the DAC device level. This works if you have a DAC, another output dedicated for another device and BT headphones let's say.

 

[Roen]

Does the -4 dB to avoid inter-sample overs setting still apply when using ASIO / WASAPI (i.e. foobar2000 with MathAudio Headphones EQ)?

 

[Dlomb11]

Does the -4 dB to avoid inter-sample overs setting still apply when using ASIO / WASAPI (i.e. foobar2000 with MathAudio Headphones EQ)?

Yes. The problem does not depend on the interface drivers, but on the conversion in dac ic.

 

[Roen]

Yes. The problem does not depend on the interface drivers, but on the conversion in dac ic.

In foobar, should I apply -4.0 dB volume reduction or -4.0 dB MathAudio Headphones EQ preamp gain?

 

[Dlomb11]

In foobar, should I apply -4.0 dB volume reduction or -4.0 dB MathAudio Headphones EQ preamp gain?

There shouldn't be any difference

 

[Mulder]

I decided to investigate this as I kept hearing issues with Windows, even after following common practice to (controversially) supposedly make it clean. I found some surprises along the way.

Thank you for sharing your research on this. It was very helpful.

 

[Dunring]

I just came across a Github with a program for disabling the peak limiter. It took Google Chrome translate, but it's got the source code and both 32 and 64 bit versions at:

GitHub - skawamoto0/dpeaklim: Disable Peak Limiter in Windows Audio Engine

Disable Peak Limiter in Windows Audio Engine. Contribute to skawamoto0/dpeaklim development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

It was posted three years ago, so the problem might have been fixed with a patch in the meantime. I ran the question through Chatgpt just for kicks, and it reported that the limiter was patched in some versions of Windows 10. It didn't say which ones (later ones I assume).

All it really had to say was:
"The CAudioLimiter issue was a bug in the Windows 10 audio stack that caused distortion and other audio quality problems when certain conditions were met. Microsoft released several updates to address this issue in Windows 10, and it is possible that these updates also apply to Windows 11."

 

[edechamps]

I just came across a Github with a program for disabling the peak limiter. It took Google Chrome translate, but it's got the source code and both 32 and 64 bit versions at:

GitHub - skawamoto0/dpeaklim: Disable Peak Limiter in Windows Audio Engine

Disable Peak Limiter in Windows Audio Engine. Contribute to skawamoto0/dpeaklim development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

In case you haven't seen, I already found a way to do that using a small registry hack. Which is a hack yes, but is still vastly cleaner than what the program you linked is doing: that program is monkey-patching the audio engine binary which is very risky and could potentially cause all kinds of problems, especially if you run it on a Windows version it was not designed for.