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Roon Player?

Spider

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Hi I have purchased the Roon Media/Audio/Streaming Windows App, and I have a question, it goes like this: If you use the WASAPI Output Mode, Will you then Bypass the windows kernel mixer and achieve the best audio the Notebook can perform(Acer Aspire 315) or does it matter if you use Directsound, which output is the best, besides ASIO that my PC not have installed.
Please Respond.
Kind Regards Spider.o_O
 

Pluto

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If you use the WASAPI Output Mode, Will you then Bypass the windows kernel mixer and achieve the best audio the Notebook can perform
Provided the software has opened the audio device for exclusive access, yes.

You can test this by attempting to play a second audio stream while the device is playing…

Play the first software. When you hear audio…

Play the second software. If you hear both, the former was not exclusive. If you continue to hear only the former, so far so good. Stop (NB stop not pause) both. Play the latter. You should now hear it.

If all the above happens without fuss, it's reasonable to assume that the former is operating in exclusive mode. Job done.
 

win

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Hope this isn't a derail, but is there any proven benefit to using wasapi exclusive? It seems to create issues for me occasionally.
 

Pluto

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is there any proven benefit to using wasapi exclusive?
  • it avoids the possibility of inadvertent use of Windows' internal sample rate conversion
  • it prevents any other sound (i.e. system sounds, contributions from other software etc.) intruding upon your listening
It more or less ensures that the audio arrives at the output device entirely unmolested.

For serious listening, I suppose the question ought to be, “why not use WASAPI?”
 

SKBubba

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Hi I have purchased the Roon Media/Audio/Streaming Windows App, and I have a question, it goes like this: If you use the WASAPI Output Mode, Will you then Bypass the windows kernel mixer and achieve the best audio the Notebook can perform(Acer Aspire 315) or does it matter if you use Directsound, which output is the best, besides ASIO that my PC not have installed.
Please Respond.
Kind Regards Spider.o_O

Yes, WASAPI bypasses the Windows mixer, just make sure in Windows settings for the sound device you have "allow applications to take exclusive control of this device" checked. WASAPI is the preferred mode for best sound quality unless your dac requires an ASIO driver for certain features.
 

Jimbob54

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Yup- select the WASAPI versions of your DACs when setting up the audio devices in Roon set up- assuming you've got windows set up as suggested above. You can check the signal chain when playing a track on that device (the purple/blue/green dot) and it will tell you if its going direct from Roon to DAC or via windows mixer ( i think)
 

JoachimStrobel

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Using direct sound, you can tick off ‚Windows System sound’ in the mixer and nothing will interfere with the Roon stream (provided no other package runs). Out of 10 times I get Wasapi only one time working with Roon as it reports being busy otherwise. ASIO works 8 out of 10 (RAAT works 10/10).
 
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