[kalston]

 
wasapi being in exclusive mode has nothing to do with the player you use. it's a configuration matter.
I don't really see the perk of bit perfect on videos when most of them use lossy audio(and then I use digital voume controls all the time), but that's me.^_^

Hum, did you misread me? What does this have to do with what I said? I said WASAPI exclusive isn't good enough for me and I need ASIO. And you're wrong, not all players support WASAPI out of the box, even foobar needs a plugin (unless this has changed in recent versions but I doubt it). JRiver is the only video player I know that supports ASIO, with MPC-HC you could only use WASAPI (and that required Reclock on top of it...)
 
And the reason I bother with this for video playback is because I watch blu-rays (so lossless audio) and never use digital volume control. 

 

[castleofargh]

 

 
wasapi being in exclusive mode has nothing to do with the player you use. it's a configuration matter.
I don't really see the perk of bit perfect on videos when most of them use lossy audio(and then I use digital voume controls all the time), but that's me.^_^

Hum, did you misread me? What does this have to do with what I said? I said WASAPI exclusive isn't good enough for me and I need ASIO. And you're wrong, not all players support WASAPI out of the box, even foobar needs a plugin (unless this has changed in recent versions but I doubt it). JRiver is the only video player I know that supports ASIO, with MPC-HC you could only use WASAPI (and that required Reclock on top of it...)
 
And the reason I bother with this for video playback is because I watch blu-rays (so lossless audio) and never use digital volume control. 

I'm not saying you're wrong in your choices. everybody's free(at least most of us who can write stuff on the net, are) and you seem to go all the way to make use of bit perfect. nothing wrong with that, I was only stating my own situation. 
 
but wasapi in exclusive mode should bypass the soundcard driver, else it's de facto not in exclusive mode. you probably weren't really using wasapi(bug or improper settings) or you had it in "shared". that's what I was saying.

 

[kalston]

 
I'm not saying you're wrong in your choices. everybody's free(at least most of us who can write stuff on the net, are) and you seem to go all the way to make use of bit perfect. nothing wrong with that, I was only stating my own situation.







 
but wasapi in exclusive mode should bypass the soundcard driver, else it's de facto not in exclusive mode. you probably weren't really using wasapi(bug or improper settings) or you had it in "shared". that's what I was saying.

 
Nope, WASAPI exclusive does not bypass the Asus Xonar mixer/resampler. I'm 100% about that and it's very easy to check. For example, setting WASAPI to 5.1 while Xonar is set to 2.0 > sound is downmixed to 2.0. Changing the sample rate setting in the Xonar control panel while music is playing back > loud pop indicating the change. And I am certain that it is exclusive because it blocks all other sounds just like it should (browser, games etc). It is a known behaviour of the Asus Xonar drivers (at least the older ones but I kinda doubt anything changed)

It's completely different with ASIO which works as it should.

You can read about it here for example http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=78291.0

 
Bottom line : WASAPI behaves differently with different soundcard drivers. It's not as reliable as ASIO.

 

[Jokanok]

Hi
I bought very recently the Audio-gd NFB-11 mainly because I wanted to use my laptop as a music server.  I also have an Airport Express (AEX) (A1264). I was hoping that using this DAC connected via USB could be a major sound improvement compared to an optical connection (Toslink) from the AEX using iTunes limited to 16bit/44Khz.
As a replacement for iTunes I decided to give JRiver MC20 a try because it seemed very complete and I liked its user interface. I installed the necessary ASIO drivers and setup JRiver with  ASIO output, "internal volume" and volume at max for bitperfect transfer. When you hover with your mouse over the DSP-button (right upper corner of JRiver), you can see the details of the "audio path" (signal processing ). Mine gave the following information: "No changes are being made" and "direct connection". So the transfer to my DAC should be bitperfect.
Sound seemed at first OK. However, when I was playing some music I know very well (Nick Cave, The Boatman's call) I found that it did not sound right. So I played the same record using iTunes via AEX/optical at max volume (also bitperfect). To my surprise this sounded much better. Via Toslink the soundstage was wider, the music had more detail, was cleaner and more precise.
I spent hours making the same comparison playing the following records (Nils Forgen, Acoustic Live; Kaki King, Everybody loves you; Mick Harvey, Intoxicated man; ...) some at 16/44 others at 24/96 or 24/192; and I always came to the same conclusion. The toslink input on this DAC was way better than the USB input. 
This was a huge disappointment for me and I even considered selling my two weeks old "new" NFB-11 because of its seemingly substandard USB input.
Then I thought I will give Foobar a chance not really believing this could make any difference. I was at first instance discouraged by its GUI and its steep "learning curve". I set up Foobar with the appropriate ASIO plug-ins and made sure all the settings were for bitperfect transfer.
To my surprise the USB  connection sounded now similar as the Toslink via AEX. I even had the impression that somehow the background had less noise using the USB connection. The time had come to really try some higher resolution tracks (Muddy Waters, Folk Singer). And yes, now the USB connection was clearly superior to the Toslink. For me this was a great relief.
I know my experience goes against mainstream ideas (saying "bits are bits" and that each audio player that is capable of bitperfect restitution sounds the same).   I really hesitated a long time before sharing this.
I have no reasonable explanation why in my setup Foobar sounds much better than JRiver, and I have not the technical knowledge nor the means to research this further in a more objective way.
I just felt the urge to share this and invite others to make their own investigations.  I thought this thread is the most appropriate to post my findings. I made a similar post in “Audio-GD NFB-11.32 & NFB-11 (2014) (Delivery & Impression Thread)!!! “ because I think that it could be of particular interest to other NFB-11 users.  I am just too curious to know if someone else has had a similar experience.
Thank you for reading this long post!