Maarten de Boer wrote:

I looked at the direct_loop code in the alsa-lib/test/pcm.c example.

Now I want to run do the audio processing asynchronously. The async_direct_loop in the example does this, but I was wondering: is there any advantage to using snd_async_add_pcm_handler over using a simple pthread?

No; the async handler is neither portable nor recommended. That test program ist just for testing the API.

Regards, Clemens