Why USB to SPDIF and not optical?

"Hey Steve.

Why is Kernel Streaming better than ASIO for KMixer avoidance?"

Because at least with XP, every ASIO plug-in that I have tried sounds different. I dont trust them anymore. Unmapping has a clarity that ASIO just does not delivery IME.

Steve N.

Dtc - it turns-out that hardware upsamplers are mostly inferior to software upsamplers. Makes perfect sense. There are limitations to what you can do in hardware and how long it takes to do it. It usually a compromise.

Software on the other hand is more flexible for editing and integrating the latest algorithms, and for file re-writes (such as R8Brain and Adobe Audition), the S/W can take all night to do the upsampling task, and it often does. More time to do it equals better quality. Not all upsampling algorithms are equal either.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Steve - I agree in principle. The comparison here is between the real time up sampling from 44.1 to 48 done by XP versus the up sampling done by my DAC. I would prefer to not use the XP upsampling because I do not think it adds anything to the chain and depending on how it is done may degrade the sound - although probably only slightly. Once I can bypass the upsampling I can try it both ways and see if I can hear any difference.