USB Audio 2.0 Class Driver in latest Windows 10 RS2

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The latest Microsoft Windows 10 Creators Update (a.k.a. Redstone2 or RS2) includes a new USB Audio 2.0 class driver, usbaudio2.sys.  This driver is an alternative to supplier-provided drivers for USB DACs.

 

I've tried running a few of my USB DACs with this OS and driver and they all seem to work properly, though unlike many supplier-provided drivers, the MS USB Audio 2.0 class driver does not appear to expose any user controls, such as buffer size.  When running a USB DAC with this inbox driver, I noticed there is an extra USB endpoint device, typically named "<DAC name> DFU".  For example, with my Cambridge Audio DACMagic XS, a "CA DFU" device shows up in Device Manager with a yellow bang.  I'm pretty sure this is a USB endpoint intended to support firmware updates (DFU = device firmware update) and can be safely ignored, though having a perpetual yellow bang device in Device Manager is a nuisance.

 

I have yet to do sonic comparisons between supplier-provided driver and this MS inbox USB Audio 2.0 class driver for the same DAC HW, but hope to get to this soon.

 

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2 hours ago, Dr Tone said:

What formats did you try?  PCM, DSD DOP etc?

Using the Microsoft USB Audio 2.0 driver with my Holo Audio Spring DAC, I successfully played PCM up to 384K, and up to DSD256 DoP..  I tested with HQPlayer in WASAPI mode, since this driver has no ASIO functionality.

 

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Win10 Creators  Update is expected to become downloadable from Windows Update starting on April 11.

 

I've successfully completed the OS update manually for several PCs, but on my ultrabook, access to files on a mapped network drive over wireless got badly messed up. I rolled back to Win10 RS1 to restore the functionality.  Not sure why only one PC was affected though.