Driverless USB DACs

[Labarum]

I note that there are a number of USB DACs that work without drivers.

 

I thought to get the best out of any DAC fed from a windows machine steps are needed to prevent resampling, and to switch out the Windows Mixer - that means using ASIO in Windows XP and WASPI in Vista - ie extra software.

 

What am I missing?

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Brian - I believe the "driverless" USB devices use native windows or Mac OS X drivers. So the term "driverless" only means no additional drivers need to be installed for the DAC to function.

 

Hopefully one of the many DAC manufacturers here on CA will jump in and correct this if I'm wrong.

 

[Labarum]

Understood, but unless you take positive action with Windows XP and Vista - ie install non-native drivers the data delivered to the DAC will not be bit perfect. That is my point.

 

[BobH]

Hi Brian,

 

I think there is a distinction to be drawn.

 

The USB Dac being driverless means that it is 'Plug & Play' - stick the lead in, Windows will interrogate it and be able to recognise what it is and set it up for use by the system an as available soundcard. All automatic and pain-free.

 

ASIO/Wasapi etc are alternative 'sound-stream' drivers, that is the ones used by your media player to stream the audio to the dac.

 

So the 'drivers' the manufacturers are talking about are the hardware ones and the others are the software ones. Different things doing different jobs.

 

Hope this clears it up.