the audio stream is completely bypassed by the Windows Audio subsystem and then decoded by the built-in Syba DAC. For this to work you need to install an end-to-end driver that can be downloaded from the Syba website. HOWEVER, the driver is out of date and cannot be installed on my Windows 10 Pro x64 system. The manual tells you to go to "http://www.drivers-download.com" for the latest drivers, but there are no new drivers. Not to mention that I won't be installing anything from that dubious website (Chinese spyware. hello?) anyway. Audio improvements as the digital to analog conversion is still done by the Windows PC's audio subsystem. Checking this is easy: move the Windows volume slider up/down and if you hear the volume change, the control is in Windows. With audio passthrough enabled, adjusting the volume in Windows has NO EFFECT because Windows streams the digital stream over the USB connection to the end device (such as this Syba Sonic DAC) to be decoded and converted to analog audio that we can hear. TL;DR If you're using Windows 10, the built-in Syba DAC won't do anything for you; The decoding is done by Windows. This is due to an outdated software driver from Syba that is not installed on Windows 10.
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