In Reply to: Computer Audio Basics posted by Charles Hansen on September 16, 2017 at 23:55:37:
" If you want the best fidelity, you should play the music at the native sampling rate. To do this in Windows you go to the Sound section of the Control Panel (I'm still using Win7, so this may be out-of-date) and under the "Advanced" tab of any connected audio device "Properties" there are two check boxes, one for "Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device" and "Give this application priority"If you check them both, whenever you run your music player (say Foobar, or maybe even a web browser), the music will be played at its native rate and all other sounds will be blocked until you exit the application that is making sound."
Hi Charles. I thought that this did not seem right ( aside from other sounds being blocked) so off I went and checked it on my system using both my local file media player ( JRiver) and an internet radio station (BBC Radio 3).
As expected my DAC did not receive the native rate from the computer for either but that set in the Windows audio processor (I selected 24/176.4 to test). I would have expected the same with Win 7 and 8.1. except that at the time I had them they did not cater for rates higher than 24/96.
To get native rate audio in Windows you either need to have prior knowledge of it and select this in the Win audio player so that they match and switch of all other DSP functions or use a WASAPI or ASIO session or use kernel streaming. Fortunately both of my main computer music applications, JRiver and Qobuz, provide for WASAPI. I also happen to know that the Beeb run their internet stations as 16/48.
Edits: 09/17/17
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Follow Ups
- RE: Computer Audio Basics - PAR 01:44:10 09/17/17 (3)
- Thanks for filling in the information gap - Charles Hansen 12:16:15 09/17/17 (0)
- RE: Computer Audio Basics - oldmkvi 07:25:15 09/17/17 (1)
- RE: Computer Audio Basics - PAR 07:46:02 09/17/17 (0)