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

Discussion in 'Computer Audiophile: Software, Configs, Tools' started by Madaboutaudio, Mar 2, 2016.

  1. lm4der

    lm4der A very good sport - Friend

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    The audiophool's lament:

    1) Until you hear a difference, you will never believe that there is a difference.
    1a. You may find yourself irritated with those who insist that they are hearing what must be an imaginary difference.​

    2) If you do hear a difference, you will never believe any explanation as to why such a difference could not possibly exist.
    2a. You will likely be quite irritated with those who insist that the difference is imaginary.​
     
  2. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    Oh god, Audiostream :eek: :eek:.

    I managed a handfull of quotes. none of them are reasons, and, as already mentioned, none of them are technical. They are marketing soundbytes, intended to further sales.

    The closest we get to honesty is mention of EQ, dithering, and that stuff. Yes, throw "bit-perfect" down the toilet and do some DSP. In which case, of course it sounds different. Where's the banging head against wall smiley?

    :drunk:


    .
     
  3. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    It occurs to me that writing the core function of a media player, ie playing music, is not particularly difficult. You need some stuff for the user to select the file to play; you need to feed the contents of the file to an audio driver. You manipulate data in and out of buffers accordingly. I can visualise that, albeit in a somewhat hazy sort of way. I think most of us who have any basic computing technical know how could knock one up, albeit basic and buggy.

    Now compare DSP. Take a look at the curve on a piece of parametric-EQ software with a groovy interface. Twiddle some "knobs." Watch the curve change, listen to the sound change. Now... try to visualise the code that is making that stuff work. Not the least clue? Neither have I. No idea whatsoever, except that I know I wouldn't even understand the maths, let alone how to code it.

    So, If a media player sounds different, you can be sure that somebody, in at least one of them, has done a huge amount of work to make it sound different. But forget bit perfect: you're listening to tone controls!
     
  4. SSL

    SSL Friend

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    I don't have any experience building an audio player, but I do write code as part of my job; also working towards a CS degree and all that noise. Given a standardized API like WASAPI or AISO, the designer of an audio player would likely need to go out of their way to make their implementation sound different. At which point I have to wonder if their "enhancements" are actually beneficial, given how applicable Sturgeon's law is to computer software.

    An argument made in this thread is that no single person could possibly understand all the factors affecting the sound of digital audio. That begs for the question, how would an audio player designer even begin to control the sound of their product across multiple platforms, much less deliberately tune it? If audio player sound signature is actually a thing, it seems like there would be generally accepted low-level programming strategies known to affect sound signature.
     
  5. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    Was it really? Good grief, what idiocy! I'd have just given up if I realised that the thread had reached those depths!

    Anyway, I suppose it is the lore... Anything that is associated with playing music at home must be mystified, and that mystery must my magnified until it cannot be understood by anyone. Then people can say all the crazy stuff, because no single person can call it out.

    OK, I understand very little about computers. Very little indeed. I learnt that while working with, in, and around them for about 15 years. In other words, I know, somewhat, what I don't know --- and I don't turn that into some dream stuff. I know that they are very prosaic things. I have an informed sense of the bounds of reality. As in life generally, I struggle to keep it real
     
  6. drez

    drez Acquaintance

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    There is a lot going in with computer audio. A lot of the stuff out there will do little to improve things or make the sound worse. If in doubt and assuming system is resolving enough, I can recommend some changes that will make the sound much worse without causing dropouts. The most obvious is to change the windows clock settings. Software and drivers are designed to work with certain clock settings, and not surprisingly if you force a different setting this will hamper the ability for things to work normally. Generally with tweaks I find it is easier to make things sound obviously worse than it is to improve things. It's actually easier to hear these dis-improvements as well. Stuff like throwing a whole bunch of ferrites on any cable, changing windows processor scheduling, timer and clock settings (eg "useplatformclock 1" etc) should all make things noticeably worse, assuming the sound quality is high enough to begin with.

    To be clear I don't actually recommend messing with any of those things, but they give some idea of how stuff can go wrong or be sub-optimal without necessarily dropping out.
     
  7. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    I don't say that there are no tweaks that work, in fact my Linux system has some audio tweaks built
    That's an interesting experiment. It is easy to assume that, given any particular parameter, if changing it one way makes stuff (generally) worse, then changing it the other might make that stuff better. Occasionally one might pick a winner, but often, the parameter is at optimum already or is part of a delicately-balanced set of parameters.

    But it is absolutely my experience that messing with stuff always makes a difference. Even when it didn't o_O
     
  8. lm4der

    lm4der A very good sport - Friend

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    Heh, well said.
     

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