Equalizer APO and playback device settings in windows

[Hippocamp]

I'm implementing headphone EQ using EQ APO. Players are Foobar and Qobuz.

Since APO requires "non-exclusive" mode, the rate/depth of output to DAC is set in Windows via the playback device menu.

Do people tend to re-set the windows rate/depth each time the rate in the file changes (say, from 44.1/16 to 96/24)? Would there be any downside to just leaving the windows setting at a relatively high level (e.g., 96/24)?

 

[Berwhale]

I leave mine on 96/24. There's lots of discussion on this topic in this thread... https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...nding-the-windows-audio-quality-debate.19438/

 

[Offler]

If possible I play music or movies through exclusive mode where EAPO is not used, but if you cant or dont want to use it, there are following approaches to use different rate/depth:
1. 44/16 - because its CD quality.
2. 48/24 because its DVD/BluRay audio quality.
Both above are following the rule that you want to play source on same rate/depth, without any conversion. If the source and output do match, the playback is almost like in exclusive bit-matched mode. If they dont, the conversion in Windows will chew a lot of quality away.

Some will prefer 24bit output all the time, simply because it will not damage original stream in any way, while extending resolution for mixer.

3. 96/24 or higher, because higher resolution lowers the aliasing artifacts.
This one is chosen when conversion is not avoidable - for example games use 44 or 48KHz without any notice anywhere and you may get info about audio only by reverse-engineering the game.

For me the best value was 192/24 because artifacts moved beyond 20KHz and are inaudible. It can be specific behavior of my DAC, but I would not use lower resolution, simply because Windows Mixer as a feature can benefit from higher resolution output.


Downsides... i see higher sample and bit rate in a similar way as a display resolution. The higher, the better are attempts of displaying low-resolution content. However you might get bugs from certain game titles - sometimes they may not expect anything higher than 96/24.