Still at ST, I had to back off my "Creative Z stereo direct"-emulation under Linux. Eventually there was stutter, still using upsamling though:
src-sinc-best-quality
s24le
96000
and
4 buffer fragments of 25ms each, now the last stutter seems gone. And it still sounds extremely good, but so does the ST at default 44.1kHz too. Hard to say if anything really is better or even different. Linux upsampling is very resource hungry, it's clearly more efficient in Windows. The research goes on ...
edit. changed again, have to find optimal settings when comparing with The Z:
speex-float-10
s24ne
96000
8
20
Well, well

edit2. Now I'm through with the settings for the ST to start the competition with the Z, the upsampling thing WAS a bad idea even if it works. After some serious listening I can confirm that there's no doubt ST sounds best WITHOUT upsampling. As was to expected from the start, but I was woed by Creatives "Stereo Direct"-setting. It may work with the Soundblaster Z and it's own drivers, depending on how the card is made, but it is futile with the ST. SO, final settings in Linux:
speex-float-10
s24ne
44100
8
20
Oh, and of course the cpu-load from sampling now is totally gone, 0% cpu-utilization for pulseaudio

edit3. I bypassed pulseaudio completely:
Quote:
In most music players in the preferences
you can change the default sink from Pulseaudio to Alsa.
and to change the output device to hw:2,0.
I use the wonderful, nostalgic, Clementine
and there the two changes are made in Tools/Preferences/Playback.
NOW the ST can take on the Z
Edited by xeizo - 2/5/13 at 12:55pm