EQ APO not working using USB to DAC on Win10
A system-wide equalizer for Windows 7 / 8 / 8.1 / 10 / 11
Brought to you by:
jthedering
Menu
▾
▴
Hello,
I have searched through this forum and Google without any success on my issue. I have a Win10 PC using Musicbee for the player and going to the DAC/AMP using USB but Equalizer APO does not affect the headphones. Using Peace I can see the volume bar moving and if I try the "headphone test" I can hear the tones. When I try to play music through Musicbee, Foobar, Win Media Player or Youtube through Chrome, I get sound but Equalizer APO does not change the sound. I have re-installed everything including the device drivers, used troubleshooting and tried both EFX and MFX but neither work. In MusicBee the only device options that play sound through the DAC/AMP is WASAPI (shared). If I keep it on WASAPI (Shared) and use Coax to a set of speakers Equalizer APO works. So it seems it is something to do with the USB. In the sound properties, there is no option for audio enhancements for the DAC or the Digital Output for Realtek. So I am at a loss.
Any ideas? Thank you in advance.
That's an issue which is quite odd. If MusicBee is using WASAPI shared and Equalizer APO is working then everything usually works as the others apps also uses WASAPI shared mode. But MusicBee "outputs" through Coax to the speakers. Is that Coax connected to the USB DAC? And can it be manipulated by Peace? Could it be that the headphones output on the DAC is a separate audio device on which there's an issue? I'm not sure how things are wired to which part of the DAC and computer audio jacks.
Hi Peter,
I did a little more testing and it is a limitation to using USB. I first switch to a USB 3.0 port, re-installed the DAC driver, but still would not be controlled. I then tried TOSLINK and it is function like the speakers are, but I am going through the REALTEK digital output, not directly to the DAC as the SPEAKER output. So not sure why APO cannot control the USB sound.
Last edit: Fryboy 2022-07-18
Which DAC is it in question?
Some DAC's may prefer driver modes which bypasses Windows audio features. Did you try with not installing the DAC specific drivers (Windows tries to use its own generic USB audio drivers then).