I only learned about wasapi last night, and since then I've been doing some trials with winamp and foobar,
 
and I'm not sure if I'm hearing a difference. I'm using my desktop pc with xfi titanium sound card on windows 8 64 bit, but I use o2/odac combo when I'm listening to music.
 
So far I know that wasapi can be used to mute all other windows sound and just play music only, which can be a good thing sometimes I guess. When o2/odac is plugged in through usb, xfi soundcard is 'turned off', and sound is coming from odac only. 
 
 
My question is, does window still mess around with sound before it is sent to the dac? Do I need wasapi to have this 'bit perfect' music sent to my dac without windows doing stuff to it?

Yes you do. When you use O2/ODAC, Windows simply switches the output, but all the digital signal processing remains active. It is still handling the volume control, mixing of all sound sources, effects etc. 
Whether the difference it makes is material is another story, but if you want the peace of mind that what you are hearing is as good as it can be, WASAPI is still relevant.

Quote:

pleasantsounds said:

Yes you do. When you use O2/ODAC, Windows simply switches the output, but all the digital signal processing remains active. It is still handling the volume control, mixing of all sound sources, effects etc. 
Whether the difference it makes is material is another story, but if you want the peace of mind that what you are hearing is as good as it can be, WASAPI is still relevant.

Click to expand...

Thanks dude. The part that I had a hard time finding answers was whether or not windows altered the music stream before going to the dac. I was under the impression everything was handled by my usb dac, but doing some researched had me doubting and left me without clear answers. I'll just use wasapi and have a peace at mind.

The answer is yes...and no. If you want your computer to function as a true audiophile transport and transmit bit perfect output, you need WASAPI. WASAPI also has the advantage of ensuring that your files are being played back at their native sample rate, whereas when you just use windows, it will be play back at whatever you have your audio device set at in the sound control panel. So if you have your control panel set to 96khz, your 44.1 files will get processed up to 9khz. WASAPI, on the other hand, will play them back at the native rate automatically without any switching, which I think is preferable.
 
However, that is not to say that you can't get good sound without it. After all is said and done you may like the end result after windows mixes, upsamples, ect, but there will be differences. One problem with WASAPI is that it totally takes over your computer's audio so if you are listening to music using WASAPI and playing a game, you can't mix in the game sound. That is the whole point, but once you decide to end the music and you want to listen to your game, your game or application is probably not going to be able to recover the audio without restarting the application.

Thanks for the detail reply. I had previously thought that windows down sampled the audio to a inferior quality even though I have my dac set to 24bit 96 khz. 
 
When I was using foobar with WASAPI, I noticed that it automatically went into 'exlusive' mode, blocking out all other windows sound, where as on winamp, exclusive mode had to be enabled. I personally like having windows sound enabled as I can just control the volume of other sounds from volume mixer, though I can see how exclusive mode can become a benefit at times.
 
I hope that I'm still getting all the benefits with winamp with WASAPI, though exclusive mode isn't turned on, as I read one of the member's guide on how to enable 'audiophile quality' music on windows and on it, it just mentioned installing WASAPI plugin, also mentioning that exclusive mode is for a more 'advanced use'.

Does anyone's computer/laptop still make sounds from moves like deleting when using Wasapi for foobar? My youtube videos also produces its sound from the laptop's speakers when I'm using foobar. I wanna cancel that out as its highly annoying.

Wasapi is like 10X too much of a PITA for the psuedo peace-of-mind that it offers.

Strictly based upon my opinion and personal experience, of course.

Quote:

chrislangley4253 said:

Wasapi is like 10X too much of a PITA for the psuedo peace-of-mind that it offers.

Strictly based upon my opinion and personal experience, of course.

Click to expand...

 
Agree 100%.
 
Just too much misinformation going around about dacs, wasapi, windows, and other sound related stuff. People just need to take a chill pill and enjoy their music

 

Sorry if this is an off-topic question. Those screens you have there, it got me interested. What player is that or is it just a skin? It seems that I can't find anything in Google aside that it's a mobile app.

akaruryutaro said:

Click to expand...

Above pictures are "noozy" high end music player for Windows platform that will release soon.
 
I have few products at Google Play as well.
 
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dogsbark.noozy
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.noozxoidelabs.eizo.rewirep
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.noozxoidelabs.eizo.rewirepro