WASAPI (Exclusive) Bit Rate.

[Keaxihr]

I've been trying to find out the bit rate is on WASAPI Exclusive mode is and I can't find any info on this or at least consistent info on this, on WASAPI shared mode I can set it to 32-bit but on exclusive, there's no option to change it or any indication of what the bit rate is. Mainly because my sound card supports 32-bit and I want the best sound quality for it, but I'm assuming there's something with the exclusive mode that I don't know about, that would give you better sound quality, if not why would this mode exist kind of thing.

[frankz]

Pretty sure it would be the bit depth (not rate FYI)  of the source.

You don't gain quality by converting 16 bit to 32. You can't create information that isn't there.

[sveakul]

Yep like frankz said you're talking about bit depth, not bit rate.

Lossless files like FLAC have a fixed bit depth that depends on how they were mastered, normally 16, sometimes 24 or other.  Lossy files like MP3 have a "floating" bit depth so the specification really doesn't exist there.

Wasapi Exclusive will pass the file to your audio device with whatever bit depth, sample rate, and bit rate the actual file possesses.  It won't get messed with by the Windows Mixer.  Wasapi Shared ends up at the Windows Mixer.

And also as already said, your file will only sound as "good" as its original specs are.  Altering the stream's bit depth or bit rate or anything else will never make it sound any "better" and usually degrades it.

[Keaxihr]

Ok so if Wasapi exclusive does that then, what's the recommended way to download songs? Usually, I use this site https://www.saveclipbro.com/ to convert the songs from youtube to Wav files and I change the audio bit depth to 32 and frequency to 96K. You said Flac files, which I'm not familiar with, are those better than Wav files? And should I leave the audio bit depth to unchanged or does it even do anything but open more channels that aren't being used, also the same question with the frequency.

Yep like frankz said you're talking about bit depth, not bit rate.

Lossless files like FLAC have a fixed bit depth that depends on how they were mastered, normally 16, sometimes 24 or other.  Lossy files like MP3 have a "floating" bit depth so the specification really doesn't exist there.

Wasapi Exclusive will pass the file to your audio device with whatever bit depth, sample rate, and bit rate the actual file possesses.  It won't get messed with by the Windows Mixer.  Wasapi Shared ends up at the Windows Mixer.

And also as already said, your file will only sound as "good" as its original specs are.  Altering the stream's bit depth or bit rate or anything else will never make it sound any "better" and usually degrades it.

[sveakul]

Some googling on audio file formats will help answer your questions;  for example, there is a basic guide here:

https://www.tomsguide.com/us/what-are-audio-codecs,review-4469.html

FLAC is lossless like WAV, which means the source quality is preserved;  FLAC however uses compression, which makes them take up a LOT less space than WAV, and they are easily taggable.

This is outside of this thread's intention, but If you want to download audio from songs posted to YouTube, you're better off downloading what was originally posted on YouTube instead of trying to "convert" them.

[frankz]

Usually, I use this site https://www.saveclipbro.com/ to convert the songs from youtube to Wav files and I change the audio bit depth to 32 and frequency to 96K. You said Flac files, which I'm not familiar with, are those better than Wav files? And should I leave the audio bit depth to unchanged or does it even do anything but open more channels that aren't being used, also the same question with the frequency.

Why are you performing these tasks if you don't know what they do?

Just download the files and listen to them in their native format. Any processing you do will only make them sound worse, and converting them to wav does nothing but make them take up 10x the space they should.

We probably should not be trading piracy tips here, either.

[Roby]

On youtube there is a lot of drm free music