Does Windows default format upsample?

[alex98uk]

Windows has the option to change the default format under sound manager properties. I currently have it set to 24bit/192khz. Does this effect any music under that sample rate, does Windows attempt to upsample music?

 

[Ham Sandwich]

Yes, Windows will upsample or downsample as necessary to match the sample rate you have set in sound manager properties if you are running the sound card (audio interface) in shared mode.  That is one reason why it is advised to use ASIO or WASAPI and run the audio interface in exclusive mode.  In exclusive mode the audio application (Foobar or whatever) has control of the audio interface and can set the sample rate and Windows will not mess with it.

 

[AlfBaxter]

Set it to 24bit, 44.1khz. In that case any music that is 16bit, 44.1khz (i.e. most music) won't be resampled, it will just be padded up to 24bit. But that process is transparent, and in fact helps if you are using any kind of digital attenuation later in the chain. Or like the previous poster said, just use ASIO, which will bypass the Windows mixer.

 

[alex98uk]

Yeah, I have some 24bit Vinyl rips so i'll set it to 44.1/24 bit. I am running via Optical Out off my motherboard which goes to my DAC, then amp, however, the audio device is set to "allow application to take exclusive control of this device" and "Give exclusive mode applications priority". Would WinAmp take exclusive control and therefore set the sampling rate? 
 
Is WASAPI something I need to setup? I tried ASIO a few times previously but it didn't integrate well with WinAmp and caused issues when tracks ended/started. 

 

[AlfBaxter]

I'm not too familiar with WASAPI because it doesn't work properly with my X-Fi Prelude, but if you can get WASAPI to work in exclusive mode you won't need to worry about the sample rate, and your audio will be passed through at its native SR. The sample rate you set in preferences just tells it what rate to use when it's mixing several different sources together, i.e. when it's running in shared rather than exclusive mode. If Winamp has a WASAPI plugin, then it should work in exclusive mode. I know Foobar2000 has a plugin, and people who don't have X-Fi cards have reported that it works in exclusive mode.

 

[Ham Sandwich]

Yes, WASAPI exclusive mode is something you would need to specifically setup.  And it is something that your media player application would need to support.  You would need to setup the WASAPI support in your media player application.
 
I took a quick look at WinAmp.  They have an ASIO plugin but don't seem to have a WASAPI plugin.  I don't know if WinAmp can do WASAPI.  I don't think it currently can.  Even MediaMonkey, which uses the WinAmp audio engine, can't do WASAPI yet as far as I know.
 
Try Foobar (free) or J River Media Center ($50 but has a trial period).  Both can do WASAPI properly.  WinAmp and MediaMonkey are just fundamentally flawed and don't seem to be able to do proper gapless playback in ASIO and cannot do WASAPI as an alternative.
 
Also be aware that there is a WASAPI shared mode.  In shared mode WASAPI can still resample when necessary to do digital mixing from two applications.  For example to be able to play the audio from a YouTube video playing in your browser while also playing audio from your media player.  Shared mode would allow for that sort of mixing.  Exclusive mode would not and only one application would be able to play audio at a time.