Here's my post on the Unified Drivers Blog and their response:
"When running the Asus Drivers there is an ASIO control panel that allows setting the bit depth at 16, 24 or 32. Since I’ve been running your wonderful drivers I exit out all the Asus stuff. What happens to bit depth in this case? Does it run at the last selected setting?
I run all our audio through JRiver Media Center 17. It also has a bit depth setting. Any idea how this all ties together and how the final bit depth is determined?
Thanks again for all your efforts.
Rod"
"CarvedInside
January 5, 2012 at 7:02 pm | #75
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Yes, the bit depth for ASIO is saved to the registry and loaded in the driver so no need for Asus or Cmedia Audio Panel to actually run.
Maybe JRiver Media Center has a audio bit depth related to Direct Sound and not ASIO, just like foobar has, and if you use ASIO as output then the ASIO bit-depth is used. But anyway, set both the same level, might not work with 32, so I think 24 is enough."
So for the Unified Drivers he is suggesting to set both to 24 bits. His drivers are a modified version of the Asus drivers, but I don't know how applicable his response is to the pure Asus drivers.
I do need to thank you jesseinsf for your post here as it got me looking into this. I had the ASIO Panel set for 16 bit so have probably been losing out on quite a bit - or should I say lots of bits!
Rod