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Topic: WASAPI 32-bit @ 192000 Hz vs ASIO 32-bit @ 48000 Hz (Read 9708 times) previous topic - next topic
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WASAPI 32-bit @ 192000 Hz vs ASIO 32-bit @ 48000 Hz

Hello everyone,

I have an ASIO capable card and I use foobar2000 for playback along with resamplers like the SoX ported from lvqcl.

The question is pretty simple:

ASIO can reach up to 32-bit and resample up to 48000 Hz.

WASAPI can reach up to 32-bit and resample up to 192000 Hz.

According to the specifications stated, is WASAPI better under these circumstances although the card is ASIO able? Furthermore note that I can have Latency down to 10 ms for ASIO via its panel, but I do not have access to such options for WASAPI. In addition both WASAPI and ASIO cannot have their "Buffer Length" bar reduced to less than 50 ms in foobar2000, if that is related somehow.

If anyone can tell me what thinks is the best and why, it would be much appreciated!

PS: Also; does anyone know what "tone/sweep sample rate" is and whether it should be in compliance with the sampling rate or not? I did investigate on this and found some information - but I am completely ignorant on such matters therefore it is difficult for me to understand how I should set this up.

Thanks in advance!

WASAPI 32-bit @ 192000 Hz vs ASIO 32-bit @ 48000 Hz

Reply #1 –
I don't believe wasapi can go above 24/96. Read the following from a mainstream digital equipment maker, Cambridge Audio:-

http://www.cambridgeaudio.com/assets/docum...SBAudio_ENG.pdf

As you will also see they consider ASIO as superior to WASAPI as it bypasses the Windows kernal mixer. I am just taking their word for it as they know much more than I ever will.

As regards the other FB2k aspects, I'm sure others will respond.

WASAPI 32-bit @ 192000 Hz vs ASIO 32-bit @ 48000 Hz

Reply #2 –
Quote from: Fabulist on
ASIO can reach up to 32-bit and resample up to 48000 Hz.
WASAPI can reach up to 32-bit and resample up to 192000 Hz.
According to the specifications stated, is WASAPI better under these circumstances although the card is ASIO able?

Define "better". Both settings are complete overkill for music playback, since it is yet unproven that 16 bit / 44.1kHz output is insufficient. There could be reasons to resample when using sound cards with known bad resamplers (e.g. old Creatives), but generally there is no need for that.

Quote from: Fabulist on
Furthermore note that I can have Latency down to 10 ms for ASIO via its panel, but I do not have access to such options for WASAPI.

Latency is completely irrelevant for music playback, unless you want to record instruments and voice alongside it or something. Even then you should probably be using a Digital Audio Workstation.

Quote from: Fabulist on
In addition both WASAPI and ASIO cannot have their "Buffer Length" bar reduced to less than 50 ms in foobar2000, if that is related somehow.

The buffer should be set high enough to avoid glitches and dropouts during audio playback. A low buffer is very discouraged, though some dodgy output devices seem to crave for low buffers.
It's only audiophile if it's inconvenient.

WASAPI 32-bit @ 192000 Hz vs ASIO 32-bit @ 48000 Hz

Reply #3 –
Quote from: Fabulist on
PS: Also; does anyone know what "tone/sweep sample rate" is and whether it should be in compliance with the sampling rate or not? I did investigate on this and found some information - but I am completely ignorant on such matters therefore it is difficult for me to understand how I should set this up.
You can just ignore that option unless you have a reason to use the built-in test tone/sweep generator. It is irrelevant for regular audio playback.

WASAPI 32-bit @ 192000 Hz vs ASIO 32-bit @ 48000 Hz

Reply #4 –
Thanks to everyone for taking their time responding to this!

@ johnrxx99

I am just telling you guys what I see on foobar2000, the plugin gives me the option to define "Output format" up to 32-bit - now if this is a huge lie, I would not know.

Now until I carefully read this, would you say ASIO is still superior even though it cannot upsample more than 48 kHz?

@ Kohlrabi

Well higher quality is 'better' for audio people too is it not? 

I have no idea what do you mean by that, for example ASIO sounds better to me than what default playback does, so that would be how I define better. My new THX speakers sound better than my old cheap ones. I guess that is better for me?

Also, you said "...it is yet unproven that 16 bit / 44.1kHz output is insufficient..." - however, I can clearly understand the difference between 44.1 kHz and 192 kHz, especially in video games, lower than 48 kHz makes certain sound effects unclear and others not 'deep' enough. So I do not really understand what you mean by this.

In addition, yes it may be overkill for listening to music / playing games / watching movies, however I was surprised with the difference ASIO made from Direct Sound, therefore I am willing to further increase my output quality if possible.

As for the buffer; I thought the lower the better (for sound quality) if you are not getting "glitches and dropouts" as you said.

Is this incorrect?

@ foosion

I have no idea how to use the built-in test tone/sweep generator nor what it is, but if you say I should not worry for standard playback it is good enough for me!

I somehow was very certain it is somehow connected to playback.

-

Again thanks everyone, I hope you will find the time to further clarify my new inquiries.

In any case, thanks again!

WASAPI 32-bit @ 192000 Hz vs ASIO 32-bit @ 48000 Hz

Reply #5 –
Quote from: Fabulist on
@ Kohlrabi

Well higher quality is 'better' for audio people too is it not? 

I have no idea what do you mean by that, for example ASIO sounds better to me than what default playback does, so that would be how I define better. My new THX speakers sound better than my old cheap ones. I guess that is better for me?

Also, you said "...it is yet unproven that 16 bit / 44.1kHz output is insufficient..." - however, I can clearly understand the difference between 44.1 kHz and 192 kHz, especially in video games, lower than 48 kHz makes certain sound effects unclear and others not 'deep' enough. So I do not really understand what you mean by this.

In addition, yes it may be overkill for listening to music / playing games / watching movies, however I was surprised with the difference ASIO made from Direct Sound, therefore I am willing to further increase my output quality if possible.

As for the buffer; I thought the lower the better (for sound quality) if you are not getting "glitches and dropouts" as you said.
[/size]
Please go and read #8 of Hydrogenaudio’s terms of service, to which you agreed upon registering your account. Your claims about sound quality are unfounded and therefore unwelcome here. Please either (1) take the time to test them for yourself and probably learn a lot of (possibly rather humbling) things in the process or (2) at least stop posting them here.

To elaborate and emphasise: Upsampling does not increase quality. Different output methods do not differ in quality. The limits set by the CD audio standard, i.e. 44.1 kHz and 16 bits, are more than adequate for the hearing of humans in almost all cases, and you almost certainly cannot hear anything beyond them. You’ve probably fallen victim to the placebo effect due to your testing being sighted. Hydrogenaudio is not a place for subjective opinions, and ridding yourself of those might be very informative or even helpful, certainly for your membership here but perhaps also in life on a larger scale.

WASAPI 32-bit @ 192000 Hz vs ASIO 32-bit @ 48000 Hz

Reply #6 –
Quote from: db1989 on
Please go and read #8 of Hydrogenaudio’s terms of service, to which you agreed upon registering your account. Your claims about sound quality are unfounded and therefore unwelcome here. Please either (1) take the time to test them for yourself and probably learn a lot of (possibly rather humbling) things in the process or (2) at least stop posting them here.

To elaborate and emphasise: Upsampling does not increase quality. Different output methods do not differ in quality. The limits set by the CD audio standard, i.e. 44.1 kHz and 16 bits, are more than adequate for the hearing of humans in almost all cases, and you almost certainly cannot hear anything beyond them. You’ve probably fallen victim to the placebo effect due to your testing being sighted. Hydrogenaudio is not a place for subjective opinions, and ridding yourself of those might be very informative or even helpful, certainly for your membership here but perhaps also in life on a larger scale.


What claims have I made that are unfounded and therefore unwelcome here? Switching the sound modes in Windows from 16 bit 48000 Hz (or whatever Windows 7 have as default) to 24 bit 196000 Hz absolutely makes a difference in various games and I am not the only one noticing that.

Are these Windows settings considered upsampling? If yes, do other system factors come into play when using a higher Hz rate that could be what makes a difference? I do not know, and that is why I asked.

In addition, in regard to placebo effects and upsampling; WASAPI does sound closer to ASIO when set in 48 kHz (the maximum my ASIO can handle for some reason I do not understand), while the sound does in fact change when I upsample via the SoX module in foobar2000.

That is why I asked "which is better" here. I am not saying WASAPI makes it better nor that ASIO is all-around better, I am just wondering what matters come into play with these functions that could produce a differentiation, it could be foobar2000, my system, SoX, my speakers or something I do not have the knowledge to identify since you claim upsampling is not the cause.

Again, that is why asked here, hopefully to find an absolute, clear and factual answer like: "ASIO is".

And according to what you said and what johnrxx99 said via linking to Cambridge Audio, I imagine ASIO is in fact better since resampling does not matter? If I got that right.

Also, making personal attacks and being anonymously offensive on people you do not know for no reason whatsoever will also affect your life on a larger scale, and evidently it already has.

Thanks for the reply regardless.

WASAPI 32-bit @ 192000 Hz vs ASIO 32-bit @ 48000 Hz

Reply #7 –
Quote from: Fabulist on
What claims have I made that are unfounded and therefore unwelcome here?
In addition to the portion of your previous post that I already quoted for exactly this same reason of identifying such claims, meet these examples from your latest post:
Quote
Switching the sound modes in Windows from 16 bit 48000 Hz (or whatever Windows 7 have as default) to 24 bit 196000 Hz absolutely makes a difference in various games and I am not the only one noticing that.
(Your not being the only one to make such a claim is wholly irrelevant.)
Quote
In addition, in regard to placebo effects and upsampling; WASAPI does sound closer to ASIO when set in 48 kHz (the maximum my ASIO can handle for some reason I do not understand), while the sound does in fact change when I upsample via the SoX module in foobar2000.
I hope that answers your question.

Quote
Also, making personal attacks and being anonymously offensive on people you do not know for no reason whatsoever will also affect your life on a larger scale, and evidently it already has.
Excuse me?
When did I make a personal attack?
In what way do you manage to misrepresent as offensive my attempts to perform my function as a moderator by enforcing the rules of the forum?
Come to think of of it: What gives you the right to cast aspersions on me and my life? And doesn’t that kind of passive-aggressive nonsense make you the one who is “making personal attacks and being anonymously offensive”?

Reconsider your style of posting, or I will simply consign this thread to the Recycle Bin for violating #8 and possibly also #2 of the terms of service.

WASAPI 32-bit @ 192000 Hz vs ASIO 32-bit @ 48000 Hz

Reply #8 –
Quote from: db1989 on
(Your not being the only one to make such a claim is wholly irrelevant.)


So that is what bothered you?

Yes you are absolutely right, I should have supported this with various evidence. However I had no idea this was unusual as I assumed it to be something commonly known. And the "I am not the only one noticing that" was based on various observations me and other people made on games over the years, but of course this is not scientific evidence, but again as I said I thought it was something factual.

Nevertheless I came here looking for answers and not trying to give them. So from your negative response I must assume that kHz settings from Windows control panel are also a method of upsampling?

Quote from: db1989 on
I hope that answers your question.


No it does not, I am stating what I witness in front of my monitor, I am still uncertain and have yet to receive a confirmation; again according to what you are saying and what johnrxx99 said; ASIO should be superior regardless of the fact I cannot resample higher than 48 kHz. This is still an assumption I have made in relation to what has been said so far.

Quote from: db1989 on
Excuse me?
When did I make a personal attack?
In what way do you manage to misrepresent as offensive my attempts to perform my function as a moderator by enforcing the rules of the forum?
Come to think of of it: What gives you the right to cast aspersions on me and my life? And doesn’t that kind of passive-aggressive nonsense make you the one who is “making personal attacks and being anonymously offensive”?

Reconsider your style of posting, or I will simply consign this thread to the Recycle Bin for violating #8 and possibly also #2 of the terms of service.


Attempts to enforce regulations on an aggressive manner can be considered offensive to some.

Yes I probably misinterpreted, but so would others in my position. Or so I claim without any evidence.

And you are more than welcome to exercise your authority based on regulation #8 & #2 and recycle this post and take any further necessary action.

Thanks for your time.



WASAPI 32-bit @ 192000 Hz vs ASIO 32-bit @ 48000 Hz

Reply #9 –
Quote from: Fabulist on
Well higher quality is 'better' for audio people too is it not? 
An amp that goes up to eleven is not necessarily "better", it just goes higher.

Quote from: Fabulist on
I have no idea what do you mean by that, for example ASIO sounds better to me than what default playback does, so that would be how I define better.
Your test was probably neither double-blind, nor did you level-match your outputs, right? You're free to believe anything you like about WASAPI, ASIO and so on, but please don't expect me or others to support your beliefs about perceptible benefits of either. Most, if not all, audio quality claims about alternative output methods probably are due to the audio not being level matched properly.

Quote from: Fabulist on
My new THX speakers sound better than my old cheap ones. I guess that is better for me?
I can believe that, speakers are most always the weakest link in an audio playback chain, and differences are quite obvious. Though there is also a bit of personal preference with regard to the frequency response characteristics and some expectation bias in such a statement.

Quote from: Fabulist on
Also, you said "...it is yet unproven that 16 bit / 44.1kHz output is insufficient..." - however, I can clearly understand the difference between 44.1 kHz and 192 kHz, especially in video games, lower than 48 kHz makes certain sound effects unclear and others not 'deep' enough.
Games might use higher sample rate audio files or upsample audio because they do a lot of mixing and digital sound processing. Maybe the option to choose audio sample rate in the game implies that the games upsamples to the given sample rate prior to the actual audio processing, which in turn very well might sound different depending on the chosen sample rate. Or it just lets you choose the output sample rate, which should not affect quality unless they use a very, very bad resampler.
This is quite different from music playback, where you most certainly don't mix multiple tracks. And if you use DSP components in foobar2000, it might be advisable to upsample for processing, but there is no benefit in outputting audio with higher sample rates than 44.1kHz, unless when using known bad hardware.

Quote from: Fabulist on
In addition, yes it may be overkill for listening to music / playing games / watching movies, however I was surprised with the difference ASIO made from Direct Sound, therefore I am willing to further increase my output quality if possible.
The biggest improvement in perceived audio quality can almost always be achieved through better speakers or headphones.

Quote from: Fabulist on
As for the buffer; I thought the lower the better (for sound quality) if you are not getting "glitches and dropouts" as you said. Is this incorrect?
This is a incorrect. Buffer length will for example affect you if you switch DSPs during playback, where the new DSP will only kick in after playback buffer reaches the newly DSP'd samples. So, yes, it is advisable to not use a too huge buffer during playback, but it will not at all affect audio quality.

I feel like you need to free your mind from the claims which were planted in your head, and just start to enjoy the music.
It's only audiophile if it's inconvenient.

WASAPI 32-bit @ 192000 Hz vs ASIO 32-bit @ 48000 Hz

Reply #10 –
Quote from: Fabulist on
I am still uncertain and have yet to receive a confirmation; again according to what you are saying and what johnrxx99 said; ASIO should be superior regardless of the fact I cannot resample higher than 48 kHz. This is still an assumption I have made in relation to what has been said so far.
I have never said any such thing in any context, especially with regard to quality.

Quote from: Fabulist on
Attempts to enforce regulations on an aggressive manner can be considered offensive to some.
I fail to see where I was aggressive. Perhaps some readers interpret those who don’t go out of their way to write in a cuddly manner as being aggressive, but that’s the reader’s problem and not the writer’s. Something I wish frequently is that people would address what is written/said rather than how it is written/said.

So, thank you for doing so in your latest post! I hope that you find this thread, and anything that you might learn from it, to be educational. We’re not trying to slap you down, but you can understand that we have a set of rules in place for specific purposes and that we want them to be followed for that reason.
 

WASAPI 32-bit @ 192000 Hz vs ASIO 32-bit @ 48000 Hz

Reply #11 –
Quote from: Fabulist on
Hello everyone,

I have an ASIO capable card and I use foobar2000 for playback along with resamplers like the SoX ported from lvqcl.

The question is pretty simple:

ASIO can reach up to 32-bit and resample up to 48000 Hz.

WASAPI can reach up to 32-bit and resample up to 192000 Hz.

According to the specifications stated, is WASAPI better under these circumstances although the card is ASIO able? Furthermore note that I can have Latency down to 10 ms for ASIO via its panel, but I do not have access to such options for WASAPI. In addition both WASAPI and ASIO cannot have their "Buffer Length" bar reduced to less than 50 ms in foobar2000, if that is related somehow.

If anyone can tell me what thinks is the best and why, it would be much appreciated!

PS: Also; does anyone know what "tone/sweep sample rate" is and whether it should be in compliance with the sampling rate or not? I did investigate on this and found some information - but I am completely ignorant on such matters therefore it is difficult for me to understand how I should set this up.

Thanks in advance!


Can you tell where did you get the information that ASIO is limited to 48khz? I couldn't find it anywhere on the web.