Until recently i've been using ASIO since my original 'good' music source - the mbox2 - was only really usable with ASIO for playing music, and i've was using XP. I later switched to a newer fastrack 2 (the small model with the knobs on top) which does usbaudio like many DACs, and has a dedicated ASIO driver as well, which i use since, subjectively the sound quality is better, and windows 7. I'm pondering a udac2 as my next DAC, mainly due to a decent price performance ratio, and the ability, if i chose to use somewhat higher impedance phones - the maudio boxen only accept up to 30 ohm headphones
Now i'm aware that there is an alternate sound system on windows 7 (and possibly vista) called WASAPI, and kernel streaming for windows - the former requires a plugin at the least.
Now, i'm wondering the following things
Firstly, do WASAPI and kernel streaming need additional drivers for sound cards like ASIO does?
Secondly, ASIO seems to have an advantage for better equipment - is there any advantage to using ASIO4ALL on a bog standard integrated card?
