Hi, my DAC now keeps playing in ALSA and I was wondering why it switched from its initial ASIO to ALSA and how (assuming there would be advantages) to switch back to ASIO.
My set up consists of Roon core on Windows 11 Dell laptop playing into a touch-screen Raspberry Pi4 then into my Holo Audio Spring 3 KTE. DAC
Any advice around converting back to ASIO and/or on the benefits thereof would be truly appreciated.
My guess is you had the DAC plugged into the PC first. The method used depends on what device the DAC is plugged into. Generally speaking, ALSA is used by Linux which the Pi runs. ASIO is used by windows. Plug the DAC back into your PC and see if it then shows up as ASIO again.
I would say that you probably won’t hear a difference. But, as most things in audio, try them both and then use which sounds best for you.
Many thanks Daniel, I’ll try it out this weekend.
Oh yes, I just meant to ask, is ALSA bit perfect?
I was told that ASIO is bit perfect but there was uncertainty if you could say the same thing for ALSA.
Many thanks in advance.
Yes, as long as you don’t adjust volume. Keep it fixed.
There isn’t really any uncertainty. If there was it would become obvious quite quickly because it would break things like MQA. My experience switching from Windows 11 ASIO to Linux with ALSA on the same box was that it was much more reliable. If I power the DAC down, when I restore power it is always there in Roon. That was not always the case in W11. A lot of that is down to driver quality which can be quite variable in Windows.
Many thanks Henry.