Add Non Exclusive Mode

Hello,

i understand that Exclusive mode is a must-have for “critical listening” but it would be nice to have non exclusive mode in addition to this

if for example you wanna play background music and at the same time be able to hear a podcast/gamesound or any other audio source at the same time, even if it means degradation of sound since this would be a better option than using another music player

or maybe audirvana can stream all windows sounds to the playersoftware? (so audirvanas internal upsampling can handle things instead of the crappy windows up/down sampler?)
i actually would even prefer this more since it probably sound better to use audirvana + vst plugins than EqualizerAPO, so Audirvana could be used as global DSP too
sort of as a alternative “audio engine” to windows internal one

Hello to all,

I totally support the request :slight_smile: It would be nice to have the option to disable the non-exclusive mode like in the Qobuz app. I’m trying the Audirvana software which is amazing but the fact that for example I can’t receive an audible notification for an email or listen to an album in the background during a conference is a blocking point.

Screenshot 2023-03-07 at 13.18.33
Like with this switch?

I don’t see it in Audirvana for Windows (not in WASAPI, ASIO and Kernel streaming). Maybe a Mac-only thing?

The screen shot below is for ASIO mode and it differs a bit for the other modes, but I do not see ‘exclusive mode’ in the other modes too. Also ‘integer mode’ is not available on Windows (must be a Mac-only thing too). Maybe @Antoine can give some extra information about this?

In the ‘info’ in Windows I see exclusive access mentioned though. Maybe this info screen does not make a distinction between the Windows and the Mac version?

That’s very likely… apologies.

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No worries. Because of your post I learned something (just found out myself by trying to find it in Windows :smile:).

Strange though that the info explains it, but there’s no on/off option? Is it just because us Mac users are more likely to multitask!

Maybe it is a bit more complicated to implement in Windows because of the three different modes?. I know ASIO is exclusive by definition, but WASAPI and Kernel streaming can also be used in ‘non exclusive’ mode in Windows. Audirvana does not seem to provide it at all.

I must admit that it does not bother me, because I use a dedicated NUC for music. All the other stuff (gaming, receiving messages etc) I do on different machines. But I can imagine that for a lot of people it can be convenient.

The problem with ‘non exclusive mode’ though is that you bypass the Audirvana sound quality/engine and let Windows do all the sound processing. This defeats the reason why I bought Audirvana in the first place. In this case you just as well could use the built in Windows Media player (or many other free music player apps) with the same SQ results.

But it does not hurt to have a choice.

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It can be done with 2 soundcards. Most of the users have a dac, right? And many mainboards (if not all) have an integrated audio chip (usually Realtek). If have both enabled you can use your dac with Audirvana and all other sounds will go to the Realtek chip for example. I did this and didn’t notice a difference in Audirvana SQ.

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The Integer mode is a Mac Only thing :stuck_out_tongue:

The ‘info’ windows in the app are not OS specific, which is why you see this note even if you are using a Windows computer.

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Having non-exclusive mode would be very useful for many different use cases.
For me personally, the two situations where it would benefit me is 1. When I’m in Voice/Video calls and want to listen to my Library/Streaming. 2. When I’m playing video games and want to hear the music and my game’s dialogue. 3. Hearing notifications from my browser or certain software

I understand that sound quality will be compromised, however Audirvana is far more convenient to use than Foobar2000 or similar.

P.S. I’d like to thank Antoine for adding LastFM support to Audirvana. I know I was a bit abrasive in that topic and I apologise.