I couldn’t help but notice when updating my set of SDL libraries that WASAPI is the new default on Windows.
What I’ve also noticed is that the sound is pretty loud compared to using DirectSound. A good bit louder than normal listening volume compared to everything else playing audio on my machine.
I also can’t observe the same behaviour when using other (non-SDL) applications switching between WASAPI and DirectSound.
What does come to mind is that Flash Player, on the rare occasion it gets its use, is also very loud compared to everything else. It may be using WASAPI as well if I had to guess. Other applications don’t have this issue with it though, so I’m not sure why this happens.
I already offer volume control in my application and setting the driver to DirectSound also works fine of course (am I missing out on anything with that?). It would a pretty loud default volume, though.