I asked you an hour ago, but you might have been busy with other replies, with which settings you use studio?
You are right, I might have been not concentrated enough when I asked you the question.
And I was confused maybe by your previous posts with screenshot regarding the great playback that you get.
Nevertheless, could you tell me please with which settings you use AS?
Damien announced during the Facebook presentation that r8brain mode was an improvement to SQ for the Mac version. And he announced kernal mode as an improvement to the SQ of the PC version.
So, I thought that the r8brain mode was exclusive to the Mac version of AS, was I wrong?
The original release version, AS 1.0.0, on my system, which responds very well to upsampling, blew me away. Since version 1.1.0 everything is sounding too much like Audirvana 3.5, which is great and even superior to Roon or Roon + HQPlayer, but under these conditions I ask myself: why, oh god, why would I adopt AS if it is sounding almost identical to its older brother?
There is nothing else, for me who only cares about SQ and minimal functional stability (which AS still doesn’t have, by the way), that drives me to rent AS.
So you have a ‘less than perfect’ setup working for you.
Makes me wonder why a more ‘robust’ set-up doesn’t appear to work for other users? Especially those with a local library.
Unfortunately, despite what the Audirvana website states, this forum would appear to be not the place to find answers. Rather antagonism.
Have posted a couple of snips from my log file(s), and also my assumptions from these log files (rightly or wrongly).
No response.
Are the devs actually interested in solving these problems, or has the $$$ offered by subscription blinded them to the real-world problems of their existing customers?
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r8Brain is also available on my Windows AS version. As far as I know r8Brain (the open source library) works on Mac and Windows.
Is there any way to make r8brain work together with Audirvana 3.5 (OSX Catalina)?
Thank you, I was sure that this upsampling mode was only available on macOS.
I got crackles both in r8brain and SoX modes with AS 1.3, but I played these modes played without crackles in the previous versions of AS.
For me AS in r8brain mode sounded better than SoX mode, but I could not compare to A3.5 with SoX mode, because I don’t have it.
As far as I know r8Brain offers a ‘pro’ (not free) VST plugin for DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations). Audirvana 3.5 also can use VST plugins. I do not know however, if this VST is supported by 3.5.
Ok, thanks, I will certainly give it a try.
There is a bit of a debate about that.
Below you will find a quote from a post from Audio Science Review.
The Quote below is from a developer who has written 2 ASIO drivers himself (of course that does not make him infallible, but what he says does make sense)…
---- start quote ----
Kernel Streaming is lowest ‘audio’ layer in Windows: Why go through more layers (=WASAPI) if direct access is possible?
This is wrong. WASAPI Exclusive also (typically) gives you direct access to the hardware audio buffers. The difference between WDM-KS and WASAPI is that the former has a lower-level interface for enumerating and configuring devices. But when it comes to the audio buffers themselves, both should provide direct access to hardware memory (if applicable).
both ASIO & WASAPI require memory copy operation per design
I’m not sure what this statement is supposed to mean. ASIO, WASAPI and WDM-KS can all provide direct access to hardware memory buffers, which is typically what is meant by “zero-copy” operation. Maybe WDM-KS has a way of telling the audio driver to get the data directly from a user-space buffer, which would indeed remove one copy operation, but that would be the first I hear of it. Also, I don’t see the point of discussing copies: copying data can affect performance (although not significantly), but it can’t affect audio quality, since it’s bit-perfect.
Buffer size – it has been established from experience that various Buffer sizes can have sonic impact with smaller values sounding ‘better’ for most.
That’s an extraordinary claim, and it would take extraordinary evidence for me to believe it.
----- end quote ----
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I’m not familiar with PC, and all this is a quite confusing for a Mac user, since we need no drivers for the DACs.
On Mac we have a single mode at the present that is called “Core Audio”. Audirvana players were able to use another mode that was called “Direct mode” and that performed better with Audirvana players. But this possibility was lost with the latest versions of macOS.
As I configure, as a side project, for the fun, a PC for audiophile playback, I was told by PC members of the forum that ASIO provided better sound than Wasabi… It seems to be what the people I know think.
Neverthless, iFi provides for the DACs that I use only ASIO drivers and no Kernel drivers. I don’t know if you need a kernel driver to use kernel mode with AS.
Basically the Mac uses drivers too, but those are provided by Apple and are hidden for the user. This is because Apple has the control over it’s own hardware and software.
Basically Windows (and also Mac) have different interfaces for programmers, called API’s (Application Programmer Interface).
In Windows the situation is a bit more complicated, because Microsoft has no control over the hardware which is used with the system (because MS only makes the OS and not the myriad of different devices/hardware that can be connected).
In Windows the following interfaces for audio are available (and Damian has to use those too in Audirvana).
The most important interfaces for Windows are:
- WASAPI (Windows Audio System Application programmers interface): This interface gives the programmer direct access to the sound hardware and bypasses the Windows audio system/mixer/volume control etc. (if used in exclusive mode).
- WDM-KS (Windows Driver Model Kernel streaming). This interface gives the programmer also direct access to the sound hardware just as WASAPI does, but with some minor differences (nothing to do with sound). The existence of those 2 interfaces (WASAPI and Kernel streaming) has more to do with historical reasons than with technical differences.
- ASIO (Audio Stream input/output) Drivers are external drivers written by third parties and the protocol is defined by a company called Steinberg. This is used for a low-latency connection with external sound cards and other equipment. ASIO Drivers typically use WASAPI or Kernel-streaming as well (under the hood) to provide this interface,
As said on a Mac there are also API’s available for sound programming (and Damian has to use those for the Mac).
There is no magic involved:
- On Mac Damian uses the low level Audio API’s provided by Apple to bypass the Mac sound system and deliver bit-perfect output.
- On Windows Damian uses the low level Audio API’s (mostly WASAPI and Kernel-streaming) and it is debatable if there is a difference between those two on Windows, because both provide basically the same low level (bit perfect) output and bypass the Windows sound system.
EDIT:
Also to answer your question: WASAPI and Kernel mode are already built-in Windows by Microsoft. So no external drivers are needed for those. A lot of DACS can not access WASAPI and/or Kernel streaming directly. In that case ASIO drivers are proviced (by the manufacturer of the DAC) and those have to be installed in Windows by the user. But basically an ASIO driver uses WASAPI or Kernel Streaming (behind the scenes) to interface with Windows.
Sorry for this technical story. I did not mean to get it this long and complicated, but I could not help myself 
I hope I did not confuse you more instead of clarifying things.
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Your explanation was very good, and only now I have a clear idea about what happens on the PC.
Thank you.
EDIT
Since AS is released both for PC and Mac, I learned on this forum in few weeks a lot of things about the PC that I ignored completely. I use the Mac since the late 80s, but I was never interested in the PC and I used it only when I had no choice.
I’ve never seen a message board with so many posts withdrawn by author, or posts flagged by community.
This place is bonkers!
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I appreciate your explanation. Now I understand better the difference between ASIO, WASAPI, and Kernel streaming, and why some DAC manufacturers provided their own ASIO drivers for Windows.
I am sorry but my post above was withdrawn by me because I was answering the wrong person 
No pun intended.
Someone is trying to be a moderator without being a moderator, but is giving the real moderators a headache in the meantime, because now the real moderators have to read all the flagged posts to see if moderation is warranted. I don’t know if Damian is moderating himself, but I am sure he has more important things to do than moderating pointless flags.
Bonkers indeed 
.
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Tell me if I’m wrong AndyLubke, but according to the information in the Steinberg Development Kit, ASIO drivers do not depend on the Windows audio architecture (WASAPI or Kernel-streaming). ASIO drivers are developed by the audio card manufacturers and interface directly with the applications to get the best performance (high data throughput, synchronization, low latency and is not bound to any fixed number of input and output channels). In order to use an ASIO driver, applications must be able to support this interface, which is the case with Audirvana.
You can be right. There is a long history behind ASIO (it was basically developed to reduce latency for musicians and sound engineers to access the hardware directly). In those times in the ancient Windows versions WASAPI and Kernel streaming did not exist yet, so Steinberg provided a way to bypass the Windows sound system (and get to the hardware) directly.
Times have changed and I can remember reading somewhere that now (in the modern days) there also are implementations of ASIO drivers which use Kernel-streaming/WASAPI, because those enable you to access the hardware directly too.
I can be wrong though…
Hallo Johnnystar,
I agree with you.
The sound is more natural and it is more detailed and somehow “richer”.