Running music program software partially or fully

[Light Dependant Resistor]

Hi
A point I think that may (or may not be) be of interest is thinking a sound based file at a lower bit rate is going to use less available processing power., from what I observe it takes more processing power to convert the sound based file to this lower rate, than had you just enjoyed it at its higher range of values.

There seems to be a improvement of sorts with other processing my computer does where 24 bit is selected with Flac based files rather than selecting or putting up with them at 16 bit that is the default.

[Stratmangler]

It depends on which OS you're using, which media player you're using, how the player is set up, and whether or not the media player can utilise ASIO or WASAPI drivers (these drivers are Windows only).

Use Foobar on a Windows machine, use the WASAPI drivers, and it will play data reduced files as native (ie unprocessed), so long as the playback hardware can cope with it.
If it can't then the file doesn't play.
Many media players do not support ASIO or WASAPI drivers, so DSP will be utilised by default to try and enhance playback.

If you want to reduce your processing overhead use something that plays with ASIO or WASAPI.