The way things are now, everything gets converted to the native format of 44.1k/16 when it comes out of the DSP process. The internal format is frequency and bit depth flexible (set by the codec), so a lot of the code just doesn't care about it. It is *possible* to output other formats, but right now everything past the DSP (playback, PCM buffer, hardware drivers) expects the native format in order to function properly. With all that said, given hardware/driver that accepts other formats (and adequate RAM for buffering), I see nothing at first glance that would prevent a fairly trivial rewrite that would allow basic playback of deeper formats. Some things (crossfade comes to mind) would require a lot more RAM, but could be disabled or limited in function to allow the PCM buffer to expand adequately. You might also need to give up some DSP effects that may choke on high data rates. Some codecs might be capable of decoding high res audio correctly without significant modification but then cause underruns due to high data rates. It's hard to say for sure until it's tried.