Which sample rate should I use w/ Xonar STX? Better performance at 96?, [was “Which default sample rate for my sound card ?” in General Audio] Options

[extrabigmehdi]

Hello,
before I was doing in my dsp chain in foobar:
sox set to 96 khz , followed by a big vst chain of dsp tweaked to my taste.
But I've realized that overall my dsp were performing worse than with 44.1 khz.

So now it's more like :
big dsp chain followed by sox set to 96 khz.

Why upsampling ?
My reasoning:

- the default sample rate of xonar stx after install is 96 khz

- I imagine that if I use different software, with different sample rate, they must be mixed to a single sample rate at one moment.
So I rather set a big sample rate on soundcard, and play music at that sample rate.

- the measurements at tech report website, indicate that the xonar stx perform better at 96 khz , than 44.1 khz.
for 44.1 khz : http://techreport.com/articles.x/17256/8
for 96 khz: http://techreport.com/articles.x/17256/9

- if I don't upsample , and set the default sample rate to 96 khz, I imagine that the upsampling
would be either handled by the windows mixer or the driver of sound card ?
So I rather use something that is well tested like sox.
I'm not sure if wasapi would bypass resampling by system.

- I can hear differences, but if you ask me to verify such claim, I don't know how it could be ABX ed.

Here are sample rate supported by soundcard:
44.1 khz, 48 khz, 96 khz, 192 khz

So which sample rate would you use , and why ? Since even tech report website indicate that the xonar stx perform better at higher sampling rate, is is pertinent to upsample using sox "on the fly" while playing music , or should I leave this work to the driver/soundcard/ windows mixer/ I don't know .
Does wasapi allow to bypass upsampling if the the sample rate set on soundcard doesn't match sample rate of played music ?

thanks

[skamp]

I'm not sure the "Stereo Mix" feature makes the audio go through the DAC and the ADC? I.e. did RMAA actually measure the sound card?

This post has been edited by skamp: Jun 30 2012, 09:56

[uart]

I'm not sure the "Stereo Mix" feature makes the audio go through the DAC and the ADC? I.e. did RMAA actually measure the sound card?

I would have been concerned about the same thing - what exactly is stereo mix - however his results certainly look consistent with having been through the DAC-ADC chain. Traditionally the soundcard's "stereo mix" is an analog mix of the DAC output and any other available analog sources, including line-in, mic-in and possibly the synthesizer output. Personally I prefer to use an external cable (line-out to line-in).