- By default, Windows audio quality can be technically inferior as has been shown in this measurement.
- ASIO drivers or similar can improve audio output significantly by bypassing Windows resampling and other not-so-well implemented audio processing stages.
This post arose as a consequence of testing the USB-input of H-DAC. Its PCM2707C-circuit is capable of “only” 48 kHz / 16-bit audio so I was not expecting superb measurement results but was still amazed how bad they actually were. This is purely a technical inspection but the differences are significant so I can easily imagine some golden ears can spot the difference.