[m-i-c-k-e-y]

Yes it is. It is very dependent. As to equipment, setup, sound preferences.

One must audition for him/herself and make his/her choice.

 

[leeperry]

i do prefer KS more above ASIO because it has a bit more presence and dynamics.

Yep, IME KS sounds much better than anything else, including both flavors of WASAPI. I really wouldn't be happy if KS didn't exist.

 

[castleofargh]

I really don't hear anything (except that asio takes more time to start when I switch, so I feel like it's different somehow after the longer delay). tried on 2 dacs and really nothing.
 
as said before, instead of being competing techs, they all were developed to solve problems. be it that some windows OS wouldn't work with one or some audio sound card/drivers would not be compatible. but they have the same purpose and there can only be ultra small differences from a working system. I really don't expect audible changes unless something is wrong.
 
the differences in the signal from using 16bit or 24 or 32 should be more important than the way to obtain bitperfect, and even that shouldn't really be audible unless you abuse the computer volume control+replaygain+EQ.
but there I could understand something ending to be audible. as I said asio by default will use the maximum bit depth available for a given DAC, while wasapy will go all 32bit floating point if the system is ok, else it will just give back whatever is asked from it. and KS from memory was also able to use 32bit floating point, but looking it up, it seems that they disabled that feature because too many soundcards weren't actually able to handle it while pretending they could and created distortion.
(if someone is a pro in this plz butt in, I'm not 100% sure if my assumptions are right and up to date).
 
so if your DAC max output is 24bit, asio will pick that, and if you have 24bit on wasapi and KS, they should all sound exactly the same. is what I'm trying to say ^_^.
 
don't know what part is placebo, what part is because of different settings from asio/wasapi/ks, and what part is from driver/gear compatibility troubles. but the differences you guys talk about shouldn't happen on well set nicely working gear without compatibility problems.
 
 
edit: I just found this http://archimago.blogspot.fr/2013/06/measurements-part-i-bit-perfect.html
it's probably more interresting than my ranting ^_^

 

[leeperry]

I force 0.5ms invariant TSC FWIW, default is 10ms in foobar IIRC.
 
Even nwaguy said that RMAA was useless for high accuracy measurements such as jitter.

 

[Chodi]

I seem to recall that asio was created for the recording industry and is said by experts to have no inherent benefit/advantage for audio playback. KS is an old standard that did not play well with windows before later version s of Windows 7. Wasapi Event is simply a workaround designed to bypass the windows mixer. Still, the particular version of each driver might produce different results on your particular system. These drivers are usually supplied  by whoever is selling the dac. Some of those companies have great software people and some are totally dependent on third party software companies for their drivers. Many dac suppliers use Thesycon drivers for xmos based systems, but Thesycon only provides a development package for the vendor to customize. That leaves room for variation with results between brands. Some companies without in house software ability just use the basic Thesycon defaults because they have no knowledge to modify. In my experience the quality of the drivers are  critical to the end result.

 

[mindbomb]

Wasapi exclusive mode and asio are pretty similiar for the most part. There are some contrived differences with asus sound cards though, where ASIO will disable volume control, hardware mixing, and hardware resampling. Asus soundcards also have gx mode, which allows directsound to communicate directly with the hardware, making directsound also on par with wasapi exclusive mode and asio. Kernel streaming is also very similiar to wasapi and asio, but is rare to see nowadays.

 

[castleofargh]

  I force 0.5ms invariant TSC FWIW, default is 10ms in foobar IIRC.
 
Even nwaguy said that RMAA was useless for high accuracy measurements such as jitter.

as soon as your DAC reclocks by itself there is zero point in looking at jitter on the computer side. but even without buffer/reclocking from the DAC, the audible differences on most common computers/tablets/smartphones are yet to be clearly demonstrated as audible as jitter most commonly impacts the signal with noise below -100db.
I'm guessing he measured something because he was asked to, as jitter is so "trendy" ... again.

 

[wigglepuff]

theres no difference in sound or quality in my experience, probably just on the algorithm on how they decode/encode bit data from digital data to analog signal and vice versa. Kernel and ASIO are both very unstable in my system WIN7 x64.
 
I really dont get why people claim ASIO is better because its used by studio pros for recording and yada yada, in playback its encoding recording/editing capabilities wont even come to use nor will it matter that much compared to what gear you are using, crappy gear = crappy sound, crappy driver = unstable system, use whats stable and not listen to unproven mumbo jambo.
 
@castleofargh - true, it wont matter what your system does, when it sends the data the dac and amp does the actual work (thats beyond your systems control), the end result comes from the dac amp not the computer and of course your head gear which provides that result.
 
 
 

 

[leeperry]

 
as soon as your DAC reclocks by itself there is zero point in looking at jitter on the computer side. but even without buffer/reclocking from the DAC, the audible differences on most common computers/tablets/smartphones are yet to be clearly demonstrated as audible as jitter most commonly impacts the signal with noise below -100db.
I'm guessing he measured something because he was asked to, as jitter is so "trendy" ... again.

 
You're in a subjective subsection of the forum about what sounds best to its users, for all surrounding opinions we have a "sound science" forum.
 
If everything sounds the same to you, you should consider yourself a very lucky man...which makes me wonder why you would waste your time explaining others that you know what they hear better than they do themselves

 

 

[castleofargh]

  You're in a subjective subsection of the forum about what sounds best to its users, for all surrounding opinions we have a "sound science" forum.

should I have to stop trying to understand things and give way to my animal instincts just because I'm roaming out of sound science?
I just added the link to archimago's post because I thought people might find it interesting. I stumbled upon it after posting while googling for KS as my knowledge of it was from years ago and I was unsure what I was saying was still accurate today. I wasn't trying to make a point or anything. if archimago had found noticeable differences I still would have posted the link.
 

If everything sounds the same to you, you should consider yourself are a very lucky man...which makes me wonder why you would waste your time explaining others that you know what they hear better than they do themselves

 

I never pretend to know what you guys hear, I'm curious about the reasons why if anything.  mindbomb talks about asus soundcards behaving in a special way, someone else talked about OS versions of windows. I'm genuinely curious and interested(when something takes my interrest I want to know all about it, that's who I am for better or for worst). I tried messing around a little with a few settings, but all I get is working ok and seemingly sounding the same, or not working at all but I only tried in 24bit as I don't see the point to output to 16bit when the dac can deal with 24(whatever the file resolution). maybe the media player also has a role in this? I've been using exclusively foobar since I stopped using winamp3 and making my own ugly skins, that's how long it's been ^_^.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by castleofargh /img/forum/go_quote.gif
don't know what part is placebo, what part is because of different settings from asio/wasapi/ks, and what part is from driver/gear compatibility troubles. but the differences you guys talk about shouldn't happen on well set nicely working gear without compatibility problems.

here I was saying that theory should make them all subjectively sound the same, and was making my own list of reasons why it might sound different to others, placebo not excluded but not the only possibility either.
I think you misread my posts and my intentions.

 

[Jam Boy]

I used ASIO4ALL when I had Vista SP2.

I tried Wasapi (in exclusive mode). Although Wasapi was louder, it sounded muffled and less precise than ASIO4ALL.

I installed Windows 7 a few weeks ago. I thought I was just imagining that something didn't sound quite right. Played with all my settings, checking and rechecking EVERYTHING.

Today, I decided to try Wasapi again. The clarity and soundstage are back! A marked improvement to my ears.

Not sure why this was the case, I switched back and forth several times and it definitely sounds better in Wasapi exclusive mode than ASIO4ALL.

So to reiterate what several people have said... Try both out and keep the one you like.

 

[leeperry]

A4A is a kludge and that's what it sounds like IMHO.

 

[Jam Boy]

A4A is a kludge and that's what it sounds like IMHO.

 


That was what I read when I tried it out in Vista.

Results were very different in 7.

 

[nightskyraven]

When I first started out utilizing computer audio with audiophile gear, I got introduced to ASIO as well. WASAPI is a function strictly limited to Windows Vista and above, so if you happen to be using Windows XP, WASAPI is not an option for you.
 
What I didn't fancy with using ASIO though, was that every time I played a song in foobar via the ASIO device, the ASIO plugin used to take over complete control over the sound card ( no other system sounds were being processed at all, just the song being played ). All fine and dandy with me, whenever I listen to a song, I don't usually care about other system sounds, but even if I paused the song, the ASIO device used to retain control over the sound card and did not allow any other sound to be processed. I had to STOP the song in order for ASIO to step back and the sound card to return to its usual state.
 
WASAPI doesn't have that problem at all, and I highly doubt that you're gonna be able to hear a substantial difference between those two.

 

[castleofargh]

  When I first started out utilizing computer audio with audiophile gear, I got introduced to ASIO as well. WASAPI is a function strictly limited to Windows Vista and above, so if you happen to be using Windows XP, WASAPI is not an option for you.
 
What I didn't fancy with using ASIO though, was that every time I played a song in foobar via the ASIO device, the ASIO plugin used to take over complete control over the sound card ( no other system sounds were being processed at all, just the song being played ). All fine and dandy with me, whenever I listen to a song, I don't usually care about other system sounds, but even if I paused the song, the ASIO device used to retain control over the sound card and did not allow any other sound to be processed. I had to STOP the song in order for ASIO to step back and the sound card to return to its usual state.
 
WASAPI doesn't have that problem at all, and I highly doubt that you're gonna be able to hear a substantial difference between those two.

I happen to have the exact opposite of what you're describing on my laptop. pause with foobar+asio will let a video play with sound, but not pause with foobar+wasapi ^_^.
that's why we're saying to try and use what works best for you guys and don't mind what it is, or if the noise floor is at -125db instead of -123db or whatever. I happily give away 2db of noise if what I use stops being a bother.