Yes.

I was using ASIO4ALL until I discovered that my sound card had its own ASIO output device which I could select directly through foobar2000. Check yours, you may not need ASIO4ALL at all.

Also, if you're running Vista you could alternatively use the new WASAPI output device and avoid an additional software component in the replay chain.

Can someone explain what you would use ASIO for? The ASIO4ALL website contains this singularly unhelpful and snotty response to my question: "If you don't know why you would need an ASIO driver then chances are that indeed you don't need one and came here by mere accident."

Nope, not an accident. I have a Creative Labs "SoundBlaster Live!" soundcard running in Windows XP. So can someone help me understand how I find out if installing ASIO4ALL is possible on my PC, what benefits I might expect, and how to replace it with my current driver if ASIO4ALL doesn't work out?

ASIO (Audio Stream Input/Output) is a digital audio protocol originally designed for low-latency when multi-track recording.

It accomplishes this by bypassing all of the Windows components that normally would handle the digital stream, and instead allows the audio application to communicate directly with the soundcard.

As a side benefit, and the part we like, is that the soundcard sees the data as it originally existed; i.e., the bit stream is bit-perfect.

Once you install an ASIO driver, ASIO capable applications (like Foobar) will contain an option as to whether to use it or whatever other drivers are installed on the system. If you don't like the ASIO driver for some reason you can simply choose another or uninstall it using Add/Remove programs just like any other Windows application.

Quote:
ASIO (Audio Stream Input/Output) is a digital audio protocol originally designed for low-latency when multi-track recording.

It accomplishes this by bypassing all of the Windows components that normally would handle the digital stream, and instead allows the audio application to communicate directly with the soundcard.

As a side benefit, and the part we like, is that the soundcard sees the data as it originally existed; i.e., the bit stream is bit-perfect.

Once you install an ASIO driver, ASIO capable applications (like Foobar) will contain an option as to whether to use it or whatever other drivers are installed on the system. If you don't like the ASIO driver for some reason you can simply choose another or uninstall it using Add/Remove programs just like any other Windows application.

Elk,

This is correct but ASIO4ALL is an ASIO emulator that provides the ASIO interface to an application such as Foobar but sends the digital data coming through that interface to the soundcard's WDM (Windows Driver Model) driver using Windows Kernel Streaming.

As you say using the ASIO driver provided by the soundcard manufacturer will completely bypass Windows audio functions and IMO is the best choice for Computer Audio but using ASIO4ALL will add another layer of software between the application and the soundcard and may not offer any advantage over using the Windows Kernel Streaming or Direct Sound interfaces offered by the soundcard.

Dave

Thanks, Dave!

This is great to know. I didn't know that ASIO4ALL itself was an interface rather than an actual driver but it makes sense, it is not hardware specific.

I really appreciate your jumping in.