• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

Weird ASIO behaviour?

daftcombo

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Feb 5, 2019
Messages
3,687
Likes
4,068
Hi,

I have the lastest drivers for my Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 2nd Gen. In Foobar2000, I have the ASIO component installed and chose "Focusrite [ASIO]" as the output.
In the past, when I chose ASIO (with other DACs, with which I had to use ASIO4All if I remember correctly), when a song was playing in Foobar2000, I couldn't hear sounds in Firefox or anywhere else.
Now, I can listen to songs in Foobar in ASIO and at the same time play a video in Youtube.
I don't understand... ASIO is supposed to work as an exclusive output, isn't it?

If I choose ASIO4All, I can't play sound in Firefox while music is playing in Foobar. is it different from other ASIO methods?
 

Vincent Kars

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Technical Expert
Joined
Mar 1, 2016
Messages
781
Likes
1,555
Mixing is done in general by converting to float, mix, dither and convert back to integer.
Makes me wonder if this interface is bit perfect even when a single stream is playing.
 

bennetng

Major Contributor
Joined
Nov 15, 2017
Messages
1,634
Likes
1,692
Floats are common on software, not so common on hardware (e.g. interfaces with additional FPGA/DSP chips). Even the lowest float is 32-bit which is fully compatible with 24-bit integer so bit-perfect up to 24-bit without dither is entirely possible for a single stream. There are 16-bit floats but they are generally used in GPU or AI, not audio.
 
Top Bottom