Hi watchpocket,   gstreamer is never bit-perfect. Stick with alsa with mpd in bit-perfect mode, eg, using hw:x,y alsa output device names in mpd.conf.   No voodoo required .. a little prayer around christmas never hurts though.   Regards, Ronald

Jack is middleware aimed at (semi-)professional usage and aims for troublefree and "realtime" routing of multiple audio streams, like pulseaudio is middleware targeted towards desktop users providing them a seamless plug-n-play experience.   Those layers settle for one single fixed sample rate...

Hi bcschmerker4®,   Whether the interface is balanced (IEC 60958 Type I using XLR) or not (IEC 60958 Type II using RCA/coax) is of no importance to the symptoms. Both interfaces carry computer generated SPDIF-signals with all problems related to it. Those subtle problems in sound quality are...

Great PC, I build exactly the same a few years ago, based on the "Leise Vorschlag" of the excellent German CT-magazine.    I don't agree; any SPDIF computer output, be it electrical (coax or USB), or optical, suffers from the symptoms described. Of course the sound quality depends on the...

Unfortunately I'm not. The audible effects I wrote about in my previous post are there even using the best external USB Audio Class (UAC) 2 asynchronous DACs with proper USB-receiver isolation and dedicated highest quality linear power supplies.   The theory behind this is that all the...

The fact that system load alters the output signal of a (digital) audio interface connected to that system is as unfortunate as inevitable. Bit-perfectness should be about minimizing that effect. First by bypassing plug-and-play stacks which alter the sound on purpose (for example by resampling...

  Dear ssedlmayr,   It's sad to read about your unfortunate crash. Nice though that you're endeavors led to the queen having a proper sound system, I guess it's rather hard to fill up her not too modest surroundings with majestic sound.    Maybe this sheds some light on your questions.   ...

Readers may find the script I created useful for yay101 's excellent newbie guide.   With a single command, it lists all the hardware addresses for digital output interfaces of any soundcard (inclusing USB DACS) known by alsa, regardless of the existance of pulseaudio.   You can read about...

You're right, jack isn't bit perfect and isn't supposed to be. Jack its "middle ware" connecting the input and output of "user applications" to those of "backend" libraries and drivers, like alsa, oss and portaudio.   Jacks reason for being is (low-latency) recording and playback and (sample...

  You can now installing and use SSRC (from Shibatch) as easy any other tool if you're using Debian or Ubuntu, see Shibatch SSRC Packages available for Debian and Ubuntu.   Regards, Ronald

  For (future) reference: the newer native HDTracks Downloader for Windows and Mac can be made to work on Linux using wine or crossover; see my article Using the Jriver HDtracks downloader on Linux (Ubuntu/Debian).   Regards, Ronald

UPDATE 2013-11-05: replaced `file' command with `soxi' command   Quote: Purging Pulseaudio on a modern Linux system can cause all kinds of troubles; my advice is to disable it using the config files.     My goal was to bypass any conversion done in software. You could achieve that...

UPDATE: 2011-11-05: Updated link to Pulseaudio bug, which page doesn't exist anymore.   Quote:   Default pulseaudio with alsa configurations perform on the fly bit depth and sample rate conversion for ensuring a pop and crackle free “plug-n-play” experience (see pulseaudio ticket #930...

UPDATE 2013-11-05: made commands more robust and applicable to S24_3LE as well as S32_LE formats. Updated the link to the newer and simpler article.    Quote:   An easy way to determine which alsa stream to watch is by grepping the desired format recursively in /proc/asound while playing...