Windows sound vs. ASIO vs. WASAPI

There was a time when windows sound drivers sucked. Big time. That's the reason why ASIO was popularized, to get away from the terrible (and I'm being kind here) Windows Kmixer kernel that mangled sound like a testicular vice.

Steinberg developed ASIO (Audio stream I/O) to bypass the truly terrible Windows NT 5.x Kmixer kernel. When ASIO was released the pro audio community jumped on ASIO not only because it was capable of direct bit perfect delivery, but also because it supported 24 bit sampling (Win only managed a max of 16 bit at the time).

But Windows has come a long way since the days of Kmixer, which was discontinued for the Win Vista release. And people seem to have forgotten how clunky ASIO really is. Current iterations of native windows sound are as robust as ASIO, less clunky in implementation, and perfectly capable of supporting "audiophile" setups.

So what's the huge advantage in running ASIO or WASAPI over native windows drivers? Surely it's not because of remarkable improvements in sound quality as touted by some hypemongers in reviews (please don't take a ride on that hype train!). The only advantage is this: if you don't want irritating system noises to intrude when you are listening to your music why then WASAPI exclusive mode bypasses them.