So here we have a little game. 4 FLAC files - each containtng 2 samples, one recorded with an SSL2+ ASIO audio interface, the other with native Windows Audio (not the Realtek ASIO driver, just plain ol’ Windows Audio).
They were recorded seperately in GP using their respective outputs (the SSL2+ outputs for the ASIO and the Headphone Jack output of my laptop for the Windows) and sent to my workstation PC captured through a Tascam US16x08 then recorded in Cakewalk.
Playback and recording both done @48 kHz. No post processing was done, other than to create the FLAC files with both ASIO and Windows comparisons together (ie: each file has an ASIO & a Windows Audio performance).
Which parts of each of the 4 files are ASIO output, and which ones are Windows Audio output?
I’ll take a crack at it: City of Love and Yours is No Disgrace are Windows Audio.
Without any audio glitches I wouldn’t expect much in the way of quality difference @48kHz anyway—all about latency and feel.
Oops! I should have read more clearly…
Here are my guesses:
Rhodes: part 1 ASIO, part 2 Win Audio Yours Is No Disgrace: part 1 Win Audio, part 2 ASIO And You and I: part 1 ASIO, part 2 Win Audio City of Love: part 1 Win Audio, part 2 ASIO
Wow, almost the opposite of @edm11’s picks!
I didn’t consider if loudness differences influenced things. But on my headphones I really thought I heard one of the clips lacked in frequency response vs the other.
Clip 1: Part 2 preferred
Clip 2: Part 1 preferred
Clip 3: Part 1 preferred
Clip 4: Part 1 preferred
Oh this is very interesting…I love the different comments justifying why someone feels one clip sounds better than the other.
If nothing else, this exercise shows that, while no one out there will dispute ASIOs overall superiority to Windows (Realtek) HD drivers, there are instances (even professional ones) where the sonic output of the Windows Audio is more than acceptable!
To answer @npudar in his request for the hardware of the laptop used for this experiment:
HP Pavillion / Win 11 / i7 (11th Gen) / 64 GB RAM / 1 TB M.2 NVMe SSD
Once we get a few more participants I will disclose what was what
Yes, most home consumer audio is based around this very premise (at least for the Windows realm). The biggest drawbacks to Windows Audio are latency, lack of timecode synchronization, and of course the usual lack of input/output options on the interface itself.
Your examples are good, they do show how you can get good quality sound using Windows Audio. One could certainly get away with using Windows Audio for small recording purposes. For your own purpose, you’ve stated that the latency issues don’t affect your live playing experience. For anything percussive, that level of latency is unplayable (for me) live. Vocals also require less latency than Windows Audio can provide me.
I based my guess partly on the reproduction of the highest frequencies but more on the clarity of the sound stage. Those I’m guessing are the ASIO takes sounded like they had a wider more stable and clear stereo image than the WIN takes. That I would be putting down to the difference in the quality of the converters in your laptop chipset and those in the SSL2+ interface. However, in a live gig situation I would defy anyone to detect any audio difference.
I imagine having heard a slight diffrence, but i can’t tell which is which… talking about nuances.
In every example there was one piece that somehow sounded a bit more “open”, “brilliant” or “transparent” compared to the other half… it’s like the separation of the diffrent frequency ranges was a bit better.
Presuming the music world’s wide spread opinion that Windows Audio is always the bad boy and ASIO is the good girl, then i would tend to this conclusion:
