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

[extrabigmehdi]

Yeah I meant that the RMAA test was a bit unreliable .

Each time I've set to same values the sample rate & bit depth :
1 - on xonar panel
2 - on playback device used , from windows mixer
3 - on recording device used, from window mixer
4 - the rmaa test , itself

@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?

I don't know, maybe I've done something wrong ? Should I reconfigure
the recording device each time to match the sampling rate & bit depth ?

Here's how I 've done connection: between headphone output
and "line in". The xonar stx use the same connector for line in & mic.



@uart

I notice that you're recording the "stereo mix", so another other sounds (eg synth or un-muted mic or line-in) would cause a problems. The one-off 78dB measurement certainly looks like an anomaly.

I noticed before other anomalies, and I've redone few tests.

Also regarding the cable I used for loopback, I'm not sure if it is good. In both end of cable I've added a jack adaptor.

[uart]

Here's how I 've done connection: between headphone output
and "line in". The xonar stx use the same connector for line in & mic.

Also regarding the cable I used for loopback, I'm not sure if it is good. In both end of cable I've added a jack adaptor.

Ok, I see you actually have made an external loopback connection. In this case you must select "line-in" instead of "stereo mix" as your recording source. If you use "stereo mix" then you don't actually need the loopback cable (the loopback is actually internal to the card).

I noticed before other anomalies, and I've redone few tests.

While using "stereo mix" can still work (at least on some cards), as you've found it can also record extraneous sounds which totally spoils the test. You need to get the external loopback cable sorted out and select line-in as the source.