Try this experiment to hear for yourself.
Most MP3 music files, Youtube videos, and streaming audio web sites contain audio sampled at 44.1 kHz. When your Windows 7 speaker output is set to 48 kHz software must convert the sample rate. Software under Win 7 usually does a poor job of sample rate conversion, introducing distortion and digital noise.
Audio sounds cleanest when there is no sample rate conversion, so setting your Windows 7 speaker output to the same sample rate as most of the audio you listen to will sound best.
Note that DVDs usually contain audio sampled at 48 kHz, while Blu-ray may contain a wide variety of audio sample rates. If you want to keep using 48 kHz and make the SoundWire Server warning go away, set the environment variable SOUNDWIRE_SERVER_NOWARN_48K to 1 on your Windows 7 PC.
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