[Andrew_WOT]

Starting with Windows 10, release 1703, a USB Audio 2.0 driver is shipped with Windows.
Is there any advantage of continuing using proprietary DAC manufacturer supplied drivers except occasional and mostly broken ASIO support.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/audio/usb-2-0-audio-drivers

 

[bfreedma]

Starting with Windows 10, release 1703, a USB Audio 2.0 driver is shipped with Windows.
Is there any advantage of continuing using proprietary DAC manufacturer supplied drivers except occasional and mostly broken ASIO support.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/audio/usb-2-0-audio-drivers

None that I see other than exceptions as you describe.

With USB 2.0 drivers native in Windows now, I doubt many vendors will be updating their proprietary drivers. Given that, it's probably better to use the Win driver as it will continue to be updated if/when necessary.

I suspect many of the manufacturer supplied drivers use the same Thesycon driver that Microsoft has licensed and released for current Windows versions.

 

[dunring]

I just use the Windows drivers and wasapi pull/event except if there's a problem like some have a weird skip problems in foobar unless the driver is installed.

 

[Andrew_WOT]

Uninstalled OEM drivers for 3 DACs I have. So far so good, USB connectivity stability looks probably even better, DSD works, few issue I've found.
- In device manager I can see under Other devices things like "AURALIC DFU" and "YULONG Audio 384K DSD DAC", which I guess some proprietary device service features like FW flash.

- When going to Sound/Configure option to setup speaker configuration the Audio Channels selection is not available, could be because it sees it as Stereo only and do not let you select anything else, still weird.

- Default Format for audio device only list 32 bit available as bitrate selection. Makes sense as WASAPI use 32 bit internally.

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[GotNoRice]

I guess it all depends on what you want from your audio device. I prefer more than a super stripped-down basic output which is one of the reasons why I still use a soundcard in my computer and then run Toslink to my external DAC instead of just using USB directly to the DAC.

 

[Andrew_WOT]

Not sure how is it related to the original question but SPDIF is much more jittery interface due to dependency on source clock that needs syncing, modern Async USB receivers should be much better in that regard, of course if DAC implementation is subpar or based on old receiver, TOSLINK can be a better choice, I have used USB/SPDIF converters with older DACs myself in the past.