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Music players, bit-perfect, DACs etc - a few questions

Nozza

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Joined
Jan 15, 2021
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I'm a bit confused about DACs, bit-perfect output, audio players and their interactions

If I use the WASAPI settings in MusicBee, the app that comes with my little Soundblaster USB DAC dongle becomes inactive - changes to things like EQ don't change the audio. So does that mean the WASAPI driver effectively talks direct to the USB DAC, bypassing the app's API in Windows?

However the EQ settings in my music player do still work? Why is that?

I've heard that when you enable things like DSP or EQ in a music app that the whole bit-perfect thing becomes void as the processing in the app is done at a set sample rate which might well be lower than higher res audio - is that true? If so, is a seperate DAC somewhat pointless? Does this only affect USB driven DACs and not ones liked to the digital output of a soundcard?

I can't quite get my head around the signal path and what affects what.

Thanks.
 
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