Dacshave different sound characteristics. Some analytical, some cool, some warm etc etc.
In audacity when recording from an internal source (otsav dj pro in my case, output configuration set as external dac connected and legacy mode because audacity does not have asio support)i choose te wasapi loopback for the shortest path. External dac has exclusive rights in sound manager.
As i understand from research the wasapi loopback is completely digital, no conversions are made along the path, and the exclusive mode prevent windows from interfering with the signal.
If the stream going into the DAC is external, like an S/PDIF source, I would expect the recorded sound to be coloured by the analogue characteristics of the device, but I have no experience of trying that.
Audiophiles rarely use scientific-engineering terms like noise, distortion, or frequency response, or anything that that can be clearly identified or measured. See [u]Whaddya Mean The Sound Is Fluffy?[/u] and [u]Audiophoolery[/u]
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