[SR-71Panorama]

Im running XP now, but will probably switch to Vista in September. Assuming there are any working drivers for ASIO in Vista, is it an improvement over XP, downgrade or no difference? Or is ASIO needed at all? I read somewhere that they either alter or forgo the KMixer. Anyone have more info on this?
I am assuming E-Mu will have drivers by then ( what I use).

 

[EnOYiN]

You can check the link in my signature.

 

[Darkestred]

Quote:

Originally Posted by EnOYiN /img/forum/go_quote.gif You can check the link in my signature.

do you have an alternative download site for asio4all? the site is not working and i dont understand deutche.

 

[Jackboot]

Same problem here...asio4all website is down

 

[EnOYiN]

The website isn't down, the link isn't working somehow. Maybe they've blocked it somehow. I don't know. Try going there by looking it up with www.google.com.

 

[Darkestred]

it be's working again...thanks!

 

[003]

1. XP is better.

2. ASIO4All is not as good as ASIO, at least in certain situations. It will resample the audio to make it work on a sound card that would not otherwise support ASIO.

The point of ASIO is to provide very low latency to the audio signal. A side effect, is that it also bypasses all sources of software resampling. We here at head-fi use ASIO for it's side effect: bypass all software resampling. In some cases the DSP on a sound card will resample the signal no matter what *cough*Audigy 2*cough*, but any software resampling would be bypassed.

ASIO4all is made to provide low-latency audio i/o to sound cards that do not support ASIO. In most cases, it will not bypass all software resampling, because it is required to make ASIO work on a sound card that does not support ASIO.

So, ASIO4all is not going to do much for SQ. At least this is how I've heard it explained here before.

 

[craiglester]

I'd agree with # 2 above. I'd say if you need to use asio4all because your sound card doesn't have proper ASIO drivers, then chances are it's not going to do a lot for the sound quality, ie the sound card probably isn't that great if the manufacturer cant be bothered to put out ASIO drivers.

 

[smeggy]

As far as I've been able to determine, you don't need ASIO to get bit perfect sound and as long as everything can and is setup to do bit perfect it won't sound any better/different to KS, Wave or DS.

 

[craiglester]

Quote:

Originally Posted by smeggy /img/forum/go_quote.gif As far as I've been able to determine, you don't need ASIO to get bit perfect sound and as long as everything can and is setup to do bit perfect it won't sound any better/different to KS, Wave or DS.

Exactly, I find Asio uses too much processor time on my Indigo, so I use Directsound, and it doesn't sound any worse. I'm only using analog anyway, so bit-perfect isn't that much of a big deal. If I want bit perfect I can use asio or Ks, but there's little if any difference to me. I don't need low latency to listen to some music in foobar.

Otherwise I use the soundcard drivers I got with my AV710, and they're bit perfect (I use DTS a lot), without using Asio

 

[pheonix991]

ASIO4ALL is crap for me on vista. I use kernel streaming because ASIO4ALL took out all the dynamics for me. It made the music lifeless, and had no dynamic range. It sucked. Use Kernel streaming.

 

[smeggy]

Real ASIO and KS essentiall do the same thing soundwise as far as playback is concerned but ASIO4ALL is not the same thing so may not do what people think it does as was pointed out to me a while ago.

The latency thing ASIO is good for is largely irrelevant for music playback, it's designed as a recording aid where low latency is advantageous. Way too many here put too much emphasis on ASIO as the second coming of playback when in reality few soundcards actually support it properly and many consumer cards resample to 48k internally via hardware anyway.

 

[EnOYiN]

Quote:

Originally Posted by smeggy /img/forum/go_quote.gif The latency thing ASIO is good for is largely irrelevant for music playback, it's designed as a recording aid where low latency is advantageous. Way too many here put too much emphasis on ASIO as the second coming of playback when in reality few soundcards actually support it properly and many consumer cards resample to 48k internally via hardware anyway.

Since when is resampling a bad thing? When done correctly there is nothing wrong with it.

I think the main advantage ASIO or KS are giving (for playback) is that you will bypass the kmixer. If the audio content will get resampled by the hardware that shouldn't be so much of a problem. (depending on how this is done obviously)

 

[smeggy]

I didn't say it was necessarily bad, just that it happens.