In terms of difference. Comparing the Qobuz App and the Sony Music Center, both using the TA-ZH1ES as an DAC and the MDR-Z1R as headphone, i can hear absolutely no difference at all.
I always use the Sony Music Center when using my Computer as i like the interface and use it to rip CDs but in terms of sound quality.
So i think as long it supports Exclusive Sound Output, it doesn't matter what player you use as it should always just use the Windows or Linux API to push the sound to the device.
Does anyone know if these claims are actually true? I've been running my hi res music collection off of foobar for two years now and the sound through my dac's asio driver has always been amazing. Does the software actually have an influence over the sound?
Well you could try it for yourself. Most of the players I've suggested are free. Maybe try playpcmwin, or junilabs player. If you hear a difference, enjoy! If you don't, that's fine as well.
I have pretty much settled on xxhighend and wtfplay for my listening, and hence haven't found much to update this thread.
Well you could try it for yourself. Most of the players I've suggested are free. Maybe try playpcmwin, or junilabs player. If you hear a difference, enjoy! If you don't, that's fine as well.
I have pretty much settled on xxhighend and wtfplay for my listening, and hence haven't found much to update this thread.
I belive audirvana would have had nice optimizations in their studio version, but I haven't tried it yet. I tried only the earlier audirvana using the trial duration, the new one supports kernel streaming. I have exhausted my trial duration on my earlier trial so I'm not sure if I will be able to try the studio version now. Maybe you could try and let me know how it sounds in kernel streaming mode.
I cant detect a difference when using asio on any player i feel like the loss of quality comes down to whether a setting is configured incorrectly on the software.
Almost all of the comparisons done in this thread were done after ensuring bit perfect playback - no dsp, and either asio or wasapi set up properly. The only exception would be xxhighend which has the option of a custom interpolator (so it will make 352.8khz or 768khz files out of 44.1khz files before sending to dac). Even in xxhighend there is the option to disable this custom interpolator, so I have checked that too!
I cant detect a difference when using asio on any player i feel like the loss of quality comes down to whether a setting is configured incorrectly on the software.
This is IMO/FWIW/YMMV but I've been using Foobar/ASIO on a cheap Windows 7 netbook for years and it sounds great (via USB). CD rips and 16/44 files sound at least as good as CDs played on my CD transport (via S/PDIF) and DSD files and SACD rips sound at least as good as they did when I had a SACD player (I've since ripped all my SACDs and retired my SACD player, but that's a different story). It also sounds at least as good as several different Linux setups I've messed around with. So I guess I agree with you.
I don't love Windows, and have been looking for a replacement for Foobar that runs on Linux almost from the day I installed it but I like the UI and I haven't found anything that sounds better so I stick with it.
I don't love Windows, and have been looking for a replacement for Foobar almost from the day I installed it but I like the UI and I haven't found anything that sounds better so I stick with it.
Have you tried Musicbee - i used to use Foobar but found Musicbee to be easier to work with and it has all the add-ons (I wanted) that Foobar had. It is difficult to say if it sounds better but it is enjoyable.
Have you tried Musicbee - i used to use Foobar but found Musicbee to be easier to work with and it has all the add-ons (I wanted) that Foobar had. It is difficult to say if it sounds better but it is enjoyable.
I like Foobar, its Windows that I have the problem with and Foobar is Windows only (like Musicbee). In a perfect world someone would port Foobar to Linux and I could run it on a Raspberry Pi, but I understand why that isn't happening.
One update, I installed Winyl yesterday and gave it a workout. It didn't sound any better than Foobar, but I can't say it sounded exactly the same either. The differences were small (at best) but it seemed like some files sounded a little better with one and others with the other. I played files from 16/44 to 24/192 (my DAC sounds best without oversampling, either software or hardware so that wasn't a factor). Winyl doesn't do DSD AFAIK so it is a nonstarter for me but it is interesting that it sounded (even a little) different than Foobar.
At one time (and maybe still) there was a category of SW for windows that supposedly improved upon the sound. Given that Foobar, JRiver, etc. can be set to be bit perfect the only reasonable conclusion is that the improvements are not bit perfect. Some kind of processing is going on.
Reminds me of the uproar of JPlay which was an add on for JRiver. JRiver eventually had to remove support for JPlay as it was causing a problem.
I am unable to hear a difference between JRiver, Foobar, and iTunes for the same files. Sure the lossless format might change (ALAC for itunes, FLAC for the others) but the uncompressed files are the same.
The problem with PC audio has nothing to do with bit perfect playback or not. Any player supporting wasapi or asio will be bitperfect. No one is claiming that foobar or itunes are flipping bits. Digital audio is more nuanced than that.
It makes sense to me that the differences between players has more to do with buffering schemes, cpu prioritization, cpu scheduling, memory handling, etc. The actual mechanics of how the packets of data are handed off from the hard drive to the cpu to the usb reciever to the dac. Electrical noise and jitter seem to modulated by all of these things.
Upsampling adds a whole other layer to this mess, and that seems to depend a lot on the design of the dac in question as to the benefits.
Whether or not you can hear a difference or believe that these things matter is for you to decide. No one else can tell you what you can and can’t hear and what it’s worth to you.
And an update. I upgraded my computer and for some reason WTFplay no longer runs. Need to contact the dev and see if he knows what’s up. In the meantime i’ve been playing around with HQ player again, more specifically the new DSD filters and modulators and I’ve actually been enjoying it a ton. I didn’t spend enough time with dsd upsampling the first go round as i think i was pretty turned off by the change in tonality.
Well, some people after reading others ideas about slightly unproven or esoteric concepts like to take the easy way out and say it’s all worthless. The style of post makes them seem to rise above (invalidating the information).
Still some people seem to not hear timing and pace issues exasperated by noise. As far as bit perfect goes it’s a real thing that many have found works better with Foobar2000, though I’m pretty sure now it’s included in Foobar2000 and not an afterthought add-on?
It’s quite simply some feel they can get computer audio to sound different. Different use of optical out bettering USB. Or using different programs to make a computer sound significantly better in daily use. If anyone has tried Winamp then they probably know each program CAN sound different?
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