[alsa-devel] USB audio devices on Audio 4DJ and similar

[Takashi Iwai]

At Wed, 11 Apr 2012 18:00:11 +0100,
Alan Horstmann wrote:
> > From what I know, PortAudio is just a thin layer on top of ALSA and
> > other sound APIs to ease the pain of cross-platform development of audio
> > applications, right? What's wrong with letting ALSA convert the samples
> > for you then?
> 
> That has been my perspective too, to use 'plughw' but some audio users believe 
> the plug layer will necessarily give worse latency etc, and always want to 
> get "as close as possible to the hardware".

The plughw doesn't influence on latnecy, at least, if it's only about
the format conversion.  If the rate conversion is included, it may
have some influence because of the period size constraints.


Takashi