Recording music playing on laptop

[MACH1]

A fairly basic question: I have set up my laptop to record music playing in another application. If I am playing either a WAV file or a FLAC file - ie lossless audio, is the quality of the recording also lossless - or is it somehow downgraded by running through the laptop workings?

[kozikowski]

I have set up my laptop to record music playing in another application.

Depends on how you did it. If you did it with analog cables or the older technique of re-directing the soundcard pathways, you're going to get all the "dip to analog" distortions along with any format conversions.

If you used one of the bitstream capture techniques, the quality "should" be the same.

Windows may send your captured sound through the housekeeping system and that will give you volume controls and all the other Windows effects, corrections and enhancements.

I have set up my laptop to record music playing in another application.

I can't think of a reason you would want that. What's the reason? Games, maybe?

Koz

[MACH1]

I am using the Windows WASAPI setting on Audacity - so capturing the music on the same laptop without any cables. What woud this mean with respect to the quality of the sound recording?