Weird interaction between REW and Qobuz?

[cvanc]

(This is a Win11 laptop btw)

If I am streaming Qobuz and open REW, it always pauses the stream. No big deal, I just go to the Qobuz app and toggle the play button twice. The music returns but I swear it sounds different!

Please tell me I'm crazy and this is impossible, but I've repeated this several times and each time I'm left with the strong impression that the music changed. Would love someone else to try this on their rig. Thanks.

 

[John Mulcahy]

If Qobuz uses the same output as REW Windows might be switching it to WASAPI shared mode using whatever the default format is for the output in shared mode.

 

[Keith_W]

Sounds like Qobuz is outputting through WASAPI Shared. I don't use Qobuz, so I don't know if there is an option to use WASAPI Exclusive or ASIO. You want either of these, you don't want WASAPI Shared. WASAPI Shared does not guarantee bit perfect reproduction. All sorts of horrible things happen to your signal, the worst is that notification beeps might get mixed in with your music. You don't want to be relaxing to some calm beautiful music and suddenly get a "TA DAAAA" notification sound, do you?