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Hi all I have a question- with my current set up comprising a Windows 11 Laptop with Windows system audio and EqualizerAPO>Motu M2 audio interface with its own volume knob>3e A5 amplifier also with its own knob & a knob bypass switch>JBL A170 passive speakers, how would you maximize the SINAD from said set up? Should I max out everything and adjust volume by the amplifier, or do the same but adjust from the Motu, or same again but adjust from Windows/EqualizerAPO, or try to strike a balance by adjusting 2/3 or 3/3 of the above?
My understanding has always been that you want to max out the digital source signal as much as possible with the DAC and then you use your analog volume control to set the desired listening level. If you've got two analog amplifiers in the chain then I suppose you'd want to run your best quality amplifier at max (or at it's most well-measuring point) and then you'd run your lesser quality amp to adjust for desired listening level - which is working on the assumption that the lesser quality amplifier will introduce more noise & distortion into the signal the louder you set it. I guess you'd want your best performing amps further up the chain closer to the source, that way you're not amplifying any defects.
 
The intersample file has the level of samples around +/-0.1 to see that Audacity screen, correct?
No, it was because SoX works in integer domain and it needs headroom for those new samples.
What happens if you create the same file with +/-1?
If I upsample it with SoX, it will clip, as mentioned above. If I upsample it in Audacity, which works in float domain, it will just go above ±1.0. Here with vertical scale from -2.0 to 2.0:

intersample_fs.png
 
Hello all! I was hoping I could clarify something I’ve spent a few hours trying to find an answer to on here.

I’m committed to Apple Music at this point (and certainly to subscription audio services - was a long time tidal user) for the sake of the large and always growing library at a much lower cost than buying albums individually.

(Edited for clarification - the bottleneck is that of course Apple Music doesn’t have exclusive mode on any platform)

i have a usb uac2 drop grace balanced dac into Cambridge Audio 100watt amp into Harbeth p3esr.

So my questions are:

1. so long as I manually set the same sample rate on the Windows driver to the same rate as the Apple Music file I am playing, have all software volume at 100% I will avoid theoretical reprocessing harms. And that even though I’m in dreaded wasapi shared mode, *only when two or more pieces of software are playing sounds at the same time* will I deviate from “bit perfect?”

(I certainly have no real issue changing the usb audio driver setting for each album at this point and I find it easy enough to turn other sounds off for the most part)

2. Is windows 11 in 2025 wasapi software volume control competent relative to other software digital control?

Bonus question is ios or Mac OS software volume control currently theoretically better than windows?
 
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not sure why this keeps popping up. Windows 11 as did Windows 10 provides easy total control and configurability to give any app total priority over the audio path.
 
not sure why this keeps popping up. Windows 11 as did Windows 10 provides easy total control and configurability to give any app total priority over the audio path.
Yes but if the app doesn’t take advantage of that feature, I am wondering what the effects are.

Also wondering if windows volume control has different performance from macOS or iOS.
 
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1. so long as I manually set the same sample rate on the Windows driver to the same rate as the Apple Music file I am playing, have all software volume at 100% I will avoid theoretical reprocessing harms. And that even though I’m in dreaded wasapi shared mode, *only when two or more pieces of software are playing sounds at the same time* will I deviate from “bit perfect?”

Even in that setup you will still be subjected to CAudioLimiter, which applies to all shared mode streams.

2. Is windows 11 in 2025 wasapi software volume control competent relative to other software digital control?
Bonus question is ios or Mac OS software volume control currently theoretically better than windows?

What do you mean by "software volume control" exactly? Windows will automatically use hardware volume control if the device supports it. Most devices, including most USB DACs, support hardware volume control. The typical exceptions are when using digital outputs like S/PDIF or HDMI.
 
Most devices, including most USB DACs, support hardware volume control. The typical exceptions are when using digital outputs like S/PDIF or HDMI.

Good to know CAudioLimiter issue. I’ll try and use my MacOS or iOS in my higher resolving systems.

re: software volume control that’s great if the Dac is actually calculating the change in volume with a typical usb dac. I would trust that to be implemented well.

I expected that because other processing was potentially happening on computer in the OS the OS that volume control was happening there.

When volume control exists within an app (say iTunes or YouTube) I would expect processing is happening in the software there though?
 
Good to know CAudioLimiter issue. I’ll try and use my MacOS or iOS in my higher resolving systems.

I think you're being overparanoid, but in any case, if you really insist in disabling CAudioLimiter, you can either use the Equalizer APO -1 dB trick described earlier in this thread, or you can get rid of CAudioLimiter entirely. Obviously, if you do the latter, you will get nastier distortion when multiple streams are playing at the same time and producing out of range samples after mixing.

Oh, and also make sure to disable any other APOs by making sure the "use enhancements" checkbox is unchecked in the Windows control panel audio device settings. (Unless you're using Equalizer APO, of course.)

If the Windows audio shared mode sample rate matches the sample rate of the file, bit depth is set to at least 24-bit, APOs are disabled, and CAudioLimiter is removed, the shared Windows audio pipeline has been demonstrated to be bit-perfect.

When volume control exists within an app (say iTunes or YouTube) I would expect processing is happening in the software there though?

Yes. That's another way to defeat CAudioLimiter: just set the app volume slightly lower than max.
 
If the Windows audio shared mode sample rate matches the sample rate of the file, bit depth is set to at least 24-bit, APOs are disabled, and CAudioLimiter is removed, the shared Windows audio pipeline has been demonstrated to be bit-perfect.
Ok so that is not particularly difficult to control (I have been manually matching sample rate when playing an album, and the usb dac doesn’t even allow selecting sub 32 bit output)

I also can’t tell the difference between lossless and compressed files (even though I use lossless) - I definitely believe audible transparency is sufficient rather than theoretical “perfection” - I do try to avoid “audio paranoia”

Thanks all
 
So, what would be the ending result?
Using EQAPO to disable Original APO
Set an preamp of -4dB
Use the regedit to disable CAudioLimiter
Disable Windows Sound
Thats it?
 
The -4 dB preamp is to work around CAudioLimiter. It doesn't make sense to do that and disable CAudioLimiter at the same time.
Yeah so only will be for non EQAPO users, disable CAL with regedit and Disable Signal Ench and Sounds. Right?
 
Great....I just wanted to make sure my Topping DX3pro+ and BD DT1770 get the best audio signal data from Windows 11, now I went down this rabbit hole, spend hours reading through this whole thread, and A/B testing things :)
In the end I am absolutely ,100%, totally confused now, of what is happening in the windows 11 audio stack, as my test seem to conflict a lot, with what has been written here :facepalm:

I was under the impression to have no "audio enhancements" active in Windows (there is no tap for those in the device propreties) but toggling the setting "Enable audio enhancements" makes a very noticeable difference. Is there any way to find out, what could be the active "enhancer"?

Then installing Eq-APO and un-toggelling the "Use original APO" I was hoping to de-activate all unwanted Windows sound processing, as described in the original post. But still the "Enable audio enhancements" makes a VERY noticable difference. (no active filters in EqAPO).
Does this mean, that Eq-APO "changes" the sound even though all filters are inactive?
Or does it mean, that there is a windows/system/driver/original APO active, that Eq-APOs "Use original APO" is unable to deactivate?

Now what puzzles me the most: It was stated here, that Eq-APO requires the "Enable audio enhancements" to be active in order to function (Even its own Device Selector setup, states "Enable audio enhancements" will be activated, when it has been manually deactivated), as basically windows sees it as just another APO....BUT: even though toggling the "Enable audio enhancements" in Windows makes a big difference in sound, all Filters in Eq-APO are working, whether "Enable audio enhancements" is activated or not and whether its set up with "Use original APO" or not, so clearly Eq-APO does NOT require "Enable audio enhancements" to be active in order to apply its filters...right?

BTW: I am just listening to mainly Spotify with no fancy ASIO or WASAPI drivers, but I have installed the Topping DX3pro+, using the latest driver (5.72.0.18040) from their website.
Is it possible, that the Topping driver uses some kind of APO to "improve" the signal in any way for their DAC chip?

I hope you will understand why I am totally confused as nothing seems to make any sense to me :p

Maybe someone more experienced might have a tip as to what Windows is doing here :facepalm:
 
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I am using the "Exclusive Mode" switch in my Tidal client and super happy with it. The incoming bits are sent to DAC exactly as they came, no meddling. It's pretty much the equivalent of a BlueRay disk player.
 
I am using the "Exclusive Mode" switch in my Tidal client and super happy with it. The incoming bits are sent to DAC exactly as they came, no meddling. It's pretty much the equivalent of a BlueRay disk player.
I have Jriver Mediacenter doing the same. Drawback is that on the work computer, when you play your FLACs like that, no other app (Outlook Teams...) can ping you audibly... :) Also, in work environments, I can't hear a difference between the different modes, whether I have an ASIO driver for the DAC or so. Happy with standard audio settings for that.

If you use your WinPC for your audio shrine, absolutely I see why you'd want everything configured for total transparency.
 
If you check the prices a typical Tidal compatible streamer from this list goes for $3,000, some of them are crossing $40,000. So configuring Windows properly can save you a lot of money.
The problem with the original post is that he claims that the switch in the Equalizer APO that turns off all the additional APOs that are destroying the sound quality is based on some particular version of Windows, some particular combination of drivers and maybe some luck that somehow it worked. For some other version, or some peculiar switch in some other config, or a software bug this may not work. And you will never know because you don't have a spare $3,000 streamer to swap back and forth and check. At least have several computers and try them all to be sure.
My solution is to use the "Exclusive Mode". Tidal has it, Foobar2000 has it. Spotify doesn't have it, but I hope nobody here is using Spotify because it is a total garbage in terms of sound quality anyway.
Yes, in the exclusive mode you cannot change sound volume and cannot play anything else through your stereo. Btw, inability to change the volume is a good test that indeed the exclusive mode is on. My solution is to have my stereo for Tidal only, and have a separate cheap computer speakers for everything else. Yes, I have 4 speakers on my desktop, why not.
And don't forget to have a dedicated USB card with a precision clock in the PCI slot, the built in USB ports that any PC has are no good for music, they have clock jitter. It's cheap.
 
Btw I do want to try the Equalizer APO one more time because I do have some bass back wall reflection at 200 hz that would be better to tune down.
However I am frankly scared. Right now my Tidal in exclusive mode sounds really good and I am afraid that messing with the Widows sound drivers can break something that would prevent the exclusive mode to work. Can anyone confirm that it is possible to switch into exclusive mode even with Equalizer APO?
 
Yes, in the exclusive mode you cannot change sound volume and cannot play anything else through your stereo. Btw, inability to change the volume is a good test that indeed the exclusive mode is on.

No, it is not.

The ability to change the master volume in exclusive mode is tied to whether Windows is using software or hardware volume control.

If Windows is using software volume control, then you are correct that the master volume control won't work in exclusive mode.

However, if Windows is using hardware volume control, then the master volume control will work in exclusive mode. That doesn't mean exclusive mode is not active. Hardware volume control and exclusive mode are compatible because hardware volume control does not involve touching the samples, contrary to software volume control.

Whether Windows uses software or hardware volume control depends on the drivers and hardware. Typically, digital outputs such as S/PDIF or HDMI use software volume control, whereas most directly connected DACs use hardware volume control.

And don't forget to have a dedicated USB card with a precision clock in the PCI slot, the built in USB ports that any PC has are no good for music, they have clock jitter. It's cheap.

This is nonsense. There is exactly zero chance you would be able to hear that, unless you have a very bad DAC that is overly sensitive to input jitter.

Btw I do want to try the Equalizer APO one more time because I do have some bass back wall reflection at 200 hz that would be better to tune down. However I am frankly scared.

You are scared because you have the wrong priorities. Room correction will bring vastly, vastly, vastly more audible improvements than some dubious fears about bit-perfectness. It's not even on the same order of magnitude.

Can anyone confirm that it is possible to switch into exclusive mode even with Equalizer APO?

No. The entire point of exclusive mode is to bypass APOs. But you may be able to do EQ in whatever software player you are using, and that amounts to the same thing - just less convenient I guess.
 
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@edechamps you're right about volume control, I forgot some DACs have a hardware volume control. My understanding from the past (it could be outdated) that most affordable DACs (under $1k) have either no hardware volume volume control or they are some low quality Chinese stuff. If you want both quality and hardware volume we are talking $1000s. I have a very modest Schiit Bifrost, it has kinda good enough quality but no features. Even Yggdrasil that costs $2300 well outside of my price range still no hardware volume control. Sure some $5k DACs must have it.
About jitter, again you are right, the DACs outside of my price range have input buffering and reclocking so they don't care about jitter. The same $2300 Yggdrasil does it, but my very modest Bifrost 64 cannot. You throw ****** USB on the input, it gives you ****** music on the out. If I simply replug USB from my special USB card into regular USB slot it is audible, same way as downgrading from HD to CD is audible. A dedicated PC + $25 card is much cheaper than $2000+ DAC or $3000+ Tidal streamer. Sorry let's be real about affordability.

My question about Equalizer APO was, it seems to mess with software drivers if I try it. If I don't like it, can I switch back into exclusive mode? I am scared that once it changes something in my settings it may prevent me from using the exclusive mode again and I will have to reinstall Windows... Windows like it is without Equalizer APO and exclusive mode off sounds really bad. Indeed the title post of this thread was right, Windows drivers whatever they are I don't know in my case substantially degrade the sound quality.
 
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