Computer Audiophile Discussion (split from Gungnir Multibit Not Impressed thread)

woah, just discover this freeware windows player called Winyl(latest version is update on Feb 2016) that wins over musicbee and foobar in terms of system resource consumption, ease of use and (subjectively) better sound quality, has support for ASIO and WASAPI:
http://vinylsoft.com/

how it looks like:


Friends, do give it a try if you are on Windoze. Also do remember to change from default setting of directsound to either ASIO or WASAPI for better sound quality.

 

Awesome, thanks for the heads up on that!

 

I have to question any impressions you've ever given if you think a different player, still using ASIO and WASAPI sounds better. Please explain how it could possible sound better? I beg you, enlighten us with this magic!

 

Much of the "magic" is described here:

http://thewelltemperedcomputer.com/Intro/SQ/MediaPlayer.htm

Also worth reading:
http://archimago.blogspot.sg/2013/05/measurements-bit-perfect-audiophile.html



http://archimago.blogspot.sg/2013/06/measurements-part-ii-bit-perfect.html

 

There are more things in heaven and earth, JewBear,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

That means keep an open mind, dude. Open it wiiiide.

100% CPU overhead from filling a buffer? What is it being filled with, the internet?

 

That graph compares ASIO and KS, not the same bit perfect protocol. Asio from Foobar and Asio from whatever will be identical unless one of the programs is messed up. Do you honestly believe Foobar, the most popular audiophile program isn't handling ASIO and Kernel Streaming correctly?

Even Archimago, whose article you referenced disagrees with you:
"One possible scenario is where the last 8 bits got flipped from LSB to MSB, thus causing the LSB signal to show through at a higher level.

Bottom line: With a reasonably standard set-up as described, using a current-generation (2013) asynchronous USB DAC, there appears to be no benefit with the use of JPLAY over any of the standard bit-perfect Windows players tested previously in terms of measured sonic output. Nor could I say that subjectively I heard a difference through the headphones. If anything, one is subjected to potential bugs like the 24/48 issue (I didn't run into any system instability thankfully), and the recommended Kernel Streaming mode utilizes significant CPU resources when buffer size is reduced (which the software recommends doing). I imagine that CPU utilization would be even higher if I could have activated the DirectLink (1-sample buffer) setting."

 

I think he might be refering to real-time cpu overhead:

emphasis on 4m:20sec of the video:

 

I'm not sure I understand how these links support the argument that different players sound differently. The first link concludes:
"Do bit-perfect Mac audio players sound the same? Yes, as far as I can measure and have personally experienced."

The second link also comes to the same conclusion:
"Bottom line: With a reasonably standard set-up as described, using a current-generation (2013) asynchronous USB DAC, there appears to be no benefit with the use of JPLAY over any of the standard bit-perfect Windows players tested previously in terms of measured sonic output. Nor could I say that subjectively I heard a difference through the headphones. "

The graph you pasted shows a difference between kernel streaming mode and ASIO for one of the tests after the author uncovered a bug in kernel streaming mode. Quoting again: "My suspicion is that JPLAY isn't handling the last 8-bits in the 24-bit data properly... One possible scenario is where the last 8 bits got flipped from LSB to MSB, thus causing the LSB signal to show through at a higher level."

 

@JewBear beat me to it

 

Today I Invited some friends over to make a little shootout.
Dacs were the Schiit Gungnir Multibit, Hegel HD12, micromega duo bs2, counterpoint da10.
Music was for the most part classical, some jazz and some acoustic guitar.
I tried everything with the Gungnir Multibit (SE as advised above and XLR) but I guess I just picked the wrong dac.
The Micromega (what a surprise!) and the Da10, I like'em both better. But the real winner for my taste was the counterpoint. It painted the music as it portraited a delicate dawn. Expansive and deep layered soundstage. So effortlessy engaging!
The micromega was a bright and sunny midday, maybe it overdid a little with lushness. And the soundstage was the narrower.
The Schiit didn't fare bad, but it lacked, stealing words from purrin considered I suck at describing, "textural and timbral density". I would add, don't know if it's the right way to say, lushness and harmonic richness. Nonetheless the Gungnir Multibit shared the same absence of any hearing fatigue. But the DA10 provided more pleasure to me.
The HD12 was fully broken in... well I think It was not bad at all but resulted more polished and brighter, but not in a good sense, without much grace. His capacity to point out volume changes in music (micro & micro dynamic?) seemed better the the schiit, which is no soft or flat dac but in comparison we get that impression. This dac looked like it wanted to be the star among the others. It seemed to provide better detail and separation. But at the expense of "organic sound". I guess there are people who favor this more than other qualities. Not me.

Overall I don't think this Gungnir Multibit is fully broken-in so take this with a grain of salt. One of my friends heard it at around 80 hrs and today at 125 hrs and he agreed there was a big improvement and it was less "dry". I don't know how much it can improve. Sure imo there's still something to squeeze but I'm not interested. This is not the sound I'm looking for. And for the record had I not known the sound of vintage dacs I'd take the Gungnir Multibit over a lot of modern D\S dacs with analytical nature.

Oh man... you spoiled my next thread, whose title was gonna be "Purrin his pure audio evil and sbaf is Schiit's brainwashing marketing office". Well... maybe next time (just joking)

Thank you all guys, I'll return the Gungnir Multibit, hoping to find some sh deal on a good oldie.

 

Music players don't require real-time playback, so no. Latency doesn't matter. If a situation arises where the buffer is too small to allow the CPU to pre-buffer data in order to keep music playing during an interrupt, the buffer size can simply be increased. This is clearly stated in the video as well.

And even then, nowhere in the video does it state that filling a buffer incurs "100% CPU overhead". Rather, it requires that no other device be using 100% of available CPU overhead.

So to summarize: people need to stop comparing "audiophile" music playback with real-time audio editing.

 

There's plenty of things going(dpc latency, hardware interupts, software bugs, driver bugs/performance issues, emi/rfi ground plane noise, jitter) on in the world of computing software and hardware which no single person would have the knowledge to know why this or that affects sound quality when in theory: "bit should be bits" or foobar wasapi should sound exactly like any other player with wasapi.

I would suggest SBAF(@Hands) to experiment with the freeware Musicbee wasapi vs foobar wasapi vs Winyl wasapi at your next audio meetup and see if you guys can hear any kind of differences between the players and share your findings with all of us. This is like mythbusters kind of territory.

 

I mean, when you make an assertion like that it's easy to shut down a whole avenue of discussion. Fortunately, this is a forum; so we're not dealing with any "single person".

I'm sorry, but this kind of logic is lost on me. What if Hands et al just can't hear a difference that is there for people more adjusted to hearing these kinds of differences? I don't see how "myth busting" is possible with just listening alone; anyone making these kinds of claims is just listening, too. You can't prove that someone didn't hear something, only that they couldn't have heard something.

 

To echo someone else's sentiments on software, for Mac users Audirvana Plus in Exclusive Access, Direct Mode, Integer mode with no upsampling works best for me. Reading about Windows users struggles to wrestle the OS away from messing up their music stresses me out haha.

As for the Gungnir Multibit vs Counterpoint DA10, it's a very audiophile thing to be like 'actually, this thing that they don't make anymore that's quite hard to find and only used is definitely better than the new semi-affordable American made product" haha. Maybe we should do a DAC shoot-out for stuff that's currently still being produced?

 

I'll do it, my headphone system is Win based and running foobar.

 

[QUOTE="pavement714, post: 37837, member: 1363" Reading about Windows users struggles to wrestle the OS away from messing up their music stresses me out haha.
[/QUOTE]

If you have not done any tweaking to your Mac OSX then you have no idea how it messes up Audirvana +. (EDIT: Just kidding,it sounds fine, but can sound even better) I will say A+ makes it easier with the options to turn off certain things automagically within A+. Win is a bit more of a pain, but not really that bad to tweak and really (audiophile hyperbole intended) improve sound.

 

Agreed, someone is out there pimping remastered HD downloads that are pure crap in most cases, made form 2-3 gen backups since many of the older masters are long gone. And as for DSD, I have not heard one mainstream album that I preferred to RB. Just something wonky about the upper end. Maybe it is the way the filter is on my dac, but I have heard DSD on other systems and feel the same way.

Yes, the challenge is to playback Redbook and to be happy listening. Not that hard from what I have experienced.

As for the Gungnir Multibit. I have heard it in many systems and there is not a contest for my ears while listening to usb direct vs a good USB spdif bridge. The Bridge brings a welcome increase in fidelity to my ears.

Ans while I do not have a Gungnir Multibit here, I will be posting impressions of 3 good bridges including the Mutec 1.2 on my blog in a week or two.

Sorry for the 3 posts but the editor for multi quotes is leaving things out.

 

Please elaborate how it can make it sound better? Are you talking about turning off system processes? Why post something so vague?

 

Yes, there are many things that can be done in the os like turning off processes, clearing caches, repairing permissions, etc. all found via a simple internet search.

Sorry you feel it was vague, it is, er was. I am not going to write a book about it here, it is all out there on the internet if you feel like trying some things. Here is a link to get you started. http://www.co-bw.com/Audio_OSX_Optimal_Audio.htm


And there are hardware things to do on the mac as well to tweak and yes that is out there, but a few tweaks are keep all the usb ports open except your dac, kill bt, wifi, power setting mods, etc.

And if you don't think any of this will make a difference, then don't waste your time,

 

Lol there's some insanity in that page you just posted. But thanks for the link.