Help / Troubleshooting

ASIO is greyed out in the output list

You went to choose ASIO as your output mode and found it greyed out. That is not a fault on your machine, and no driver you install will change it. Here is the honest position.

The short answer

ASIO is not in the current build of Vesari Stylus. In Settings, under Audio Output, the Output mode list does show an ASIO entry, labelled ASIO - not available in this build, and it cannot be picked. ASIO output is planned rather than dropped, and when it arrives it will be part of the Lifetime tier. Until then, the two modes the app can actually deliver are Shared and WASAPI Exclusive.

Why installing a driver will not help

ASIO support sits behind a build option, and the release builds we ship are produced without it. The code that would talk to an ASIO driver is not in the copy you have, so the app never goes looking for ASIO devices in the first place. The list it can return is empty by design, whatever is installed on your PC.

That means none of the usual remedies apply. Reinstalling your DAC's ASIO driver, installing a generic ASIO driver, running the app as administrator, or reinstalling Vesari Stylus will not make the option selectable, because nothing on your machine is what is missing.

You will still see the word ASIO in two places, and neither means it is available:

Settings, Output mode. ASIO is listed, greyed out, with the note that it is not in this build. It appears so you can see the mode is planned, not so you can choose it.
Devices. The Audio Engine row on the Devices page lists all three engines. Its Shared and WASAPI Exclusive buttons are live and really do switch the output mode, as does the WASAPI Exclusive on/off row underneath them. The ASIO button is the odd one out: it is greyed out there and does nothing, whatever build you are running. The Output mode picker in Settings is the one that spells out why.

If your settings still say ASIO

An older or hand-edited settings file can hold ASIO as the stored output mode on a build that has no ASIO in it. The app does not pretend otherwise. It shows a line under the picker saying ASIO is not included in this build and that playback runs in Shared mode instead.

Nothing stops. Your library plays as normal on the Shared path while that setting sits there. If you would rather tidy it up, pick Shared or WASAPI Exclusive and start playback again so the app opens the device in that mode.

What to use in the meantime

Shared is the safe default and works with any device. Windows handles the mix, so system sounds and other apps play alongside your music.
WASAPI Exclusive is the direct route most DAC owners want. Vesari Stylus takes sole use of the device and steps around the Windows mixer, so nothing else on the PC plays through it while you listen. It is a Lifetime feature.

For a USB DAC or an audio interface, Exclusive is the closest thing available today to the directness people usually reach for ASIO to get. If Exclusive refuses to start on your hardware, that is a separate and well understood situation covered in its own article.

When ASIO lands

It will arrive in an app update, as part of the Lifetime tier. We are not putting a date on it here, and we would rather say that plainly than promise a month and miss it. Keeping Vesari Stylus up to date is how you will get it when it ships.

If ASIO is the only reason you are looking at Lifetime, that is worth knowing before you buy: see Free, Pro & Lifetime - what each tier includes for what a Lifetime licence covers today.

If the problem is really a missing device

This article is about the ASIO mode being unavailable. If instead your DAC or headphones are not showing up in the device list at all, that is a different problem with different answers. Start with The output device changed on its own, or No sound - or DTS / AC-3 / TrueHD plays silent if the device is listed but silent.

Still convinced something is wrong? See Is this a bug? How to report it and tell us what you selected and what happened.

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