Hi, Is there any point to running my M-Audio Audiophile Firewire at 24 bit 96khz when the files I'm using are 16 bit 44.1khz?
My experience is that the soundcard, or the system running the soundcard, automatically sets itself to what is being played through it. One normally only sets sample rate and bit depth for recording.
Perhaps with the more recent versions of Windows, Windows might resample to match some output expectation instead of letting through what is -- totally the wrong thing in my view.
As far as any advantage from resampling: NO.
This being an external sound card, maybe it has hardware switches to set the sample rate (the bit depth is irrelevant here). If so, and if Windows does not resample before passing the output along, your sound might be peculiar unless the unit has a resampling DSP chip inside it.
Hi, Is there any point to running my M-Audio Audiophile Firewire at 24 bit 96khz when the files I'm using are 16 bit 44.1khz?
No. The best that you can expect from vinyl is more like what you can digitize with 30 KHz, 10 bit sampling, so 16/44 is overkill. And to head off a likely rejoinder, vinyl can reproduce signals up to 30-40 KHz, but not with low distortion. There may be signals in that range that appear during the process, but they were probably not a useful part of the recording used to make the original master disc.
My experience is that the soundcard, or the system running the soundcard, automatically sets itself to what is being played through it. One normally only sets sample rate and bit depth for recording.
Perhaps with the more recent versions of Windows, Windows might resample to match some output expectation instead of letting through what is -- totally the wrong thing in my view.
Windows 7 has sample rate + depth setting in a Playback Device configuration so I guess this is what the Windows mixer works with and ultimately sends to the sound-card (at least when two applications output sound at the same time and use different sample rates). There is, however, a check-box like "allow programs to take control of device" or something like that, which might allow a program to set the output parameters directly and/or bypass the mixer (I don't know for sure). This likely depends on what API (and how) a particular program uses for sound output.
AFAIK the WASAPI exclusive mode is what changes sample rate according to source since Vista, but there are devices that don't accept this or even resample again to the output set in their control panels. IIRC the Xonar HDAV was like that, probably all of them.