[Ilovebeef]

My usual googling skills have failed me on this occasion.
When I set the volume extremely low in foobar, I hear a weird sort of hissing noise/distortion whenever a note is audible in the music. Turning the volume up either removes this noise or drowns it out – either way it becomes inaudible (for me at least).
It’s not the recording – I’ve tried many tracks from many albums.
It’s not any DSP – I’ve got none enabled.
It’s not foobar – I’ve loaded songs as samples into different programs using ASIO and it still appears.
The odd thing is using other output options such as KS, WASAPI, or ASIO4ALL instead of ASIO (I have no idea what the difference is, but Renoise has options to use both ASIO and ASIO4ALL while foobar only lets me choose ASIO) fixes the problem. Dithering fixes it in foobar though I’m not sure why.
I’m using a Xonar STX with the latest drivers.
Am I missing something? A brain?
 
EDEET: I've since found out this is quantization error noise which is obviously why dithering fixes it. What I don't understand is why I'm getting this noise when I'm testing 16-bit files with 16-bit setting in the driver. If I set it to 24 it goes away... HMM.

 

[Chs177]

You can use KS - on many setups this output better than an ASIO.
ASIO is a pretty good option but sometimes KS better, just try on a high volumes what sound better for you.

 

[jiiteepee]

Try by closing all input ports (mic, line-in's, etc.).
 
jiiteepee
 

 

[Ilovebeef]

Quote:

You can use KS - on many setups this output better than an ASIO.
ASIO is a pretty good option but sometimes KS better, just try on a high volumes what sound better for you.

KS doesn't work very well for me. The volume slider on foobar seems to lag behind when I change it which is annoying.
 
Quote:

Try by closing all input ports (mic, line-in's, etc.).
 
jiiteepee
 

No difference. As I said in the edit it's quantization noise rather than interference.

 

[Chs177]

You can try a unixonar driver. This is not an official driver but it works.
 
Quote:

KS doesn't work very well for me. The volume slider on foobar seems to lag behind when I change it which is annoying.