Head-Fi.org › Forums › Equipment Forums › Sound Science › Foobar - Low or High buffer, what is better for sound quality?
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Foobar - Low or High buffer, what is better for sound quality?

post #1 of 5
5/3/11 at 5:35pm
Thread Starter 

as title states

 

curious, trying to get the best out of my music

Reply
post #2 of 5
5/4/11 at 9:35am
Quote:

To protect playback from glitches during heavy system load or file access lag, resource-heavy operations such as decoding and DSP are always performed ahead of currently heard sound (this is not unique to foobar2000, all or nearly all media players behave this way). This setting controls the distance between decoding/DSP and output.

  • High buffer sizes offer stronger protection against glitches but introduce side effects such as long delay between changing DSP settings (eg. adjusting equalizer bands) and changes in sound output.
  • Low buffer sizes allow faster responses to DSP configuration changes at cost of higher risk of stuttering during high system load / file access lag / etc.

WARNING: Setting too low buffer length may cause certain visualizations to stop working correctly. Use of buffer lengths below 500ms is not recommended.

see HA/foobar2000 wiki

Reply
post #3 of 5
5/12/11 at 7:44am

More related to actual transports,

 

USB Transport, 50ms would be perfect imo.  Setting the buffer higher usually results in pops and glitches

 

Sound Card Transport,  Skys the limit, but I found setting the buffer under 500ms could sometimes result in some pops or unstable sound.

 

Don't understand why they are opposite, but they just are.

Reply
post #4 of 5
5/16/11 at 1:30pm

usb and sound card buffering works exactly the same in all my rigs..... the higher the buffer the less pops, clicks and signal loss,....... and the longer the delay....

 

I've not been able to hear a difference in sound quality between 100 and 2000 (which is where I usually leave it.) 

 

In very limited comparisions I don't think I can hear a difference between 100 and 16000 either.

Reply
post #5 of 5
5/16/11 at 2:07pm

It all sounds the same to me, I would just leave it at the default. 

 

EDIT: Using USB, I've never had any problems.

Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
  Back to Forum: Sound Science
Head-Fi.org › Forums › Equipment Forums › Sound Science › Foobar - Low or High buffer, what is better for sound quality?