I see you've got Windows installed on your PC as well. As much as I would like to refrain from discussing such nonsense(?) as one operating system sounding better than another, I can't help but hear a difference. Don't you think Windows sounds better than Linux? To me, JRMC/Winyl > WASAPI > ODAC on Windows outdoes Deadbeef/Clementine > ALSA > ODAC on Arch Linux. Windows sounds sharper, kind of hi-res — just right — while Linux sounds fuzzier and as if the music was downsampled to 32khz. That is one of very few reasons making me keep Windows on my hard drive. Maybe there's an option in ALSA's configs that makes it tamper with the sound in some way?
eimis,
What you describe is certainly not my experience with Linux. I hear no
fuzziness or
downsampling effects in any of my Linux media players. I don't use Clementine. While I prefer Ubuntu Linux, I have tried several Ubuntu derivatives (like Mate, Mint, Kubuntu), as well as Antergos (an Arch based distro), Sabayon (Gentoo based), Red Hat Fedora and a few others, sonically, they all sound the same to me. Ultimately, there are simply too many variables that factor in to what you or I ultimately hear in our respective systems.
For about a year or two, I dual booted Win7 with Ubuntu Linux to compare the two OSs for music playback. It was during this period of music playback testing that I finally switch to Linux permanently because I felt Linux was sonically as good as Windows and maybe better. During the test period, I used my licensed copy of JRMC as well as Foobar2000 for Windows bit perfect music playback. For Linux I used: gmusicbrowser, guayadeque, Quod Libet, and Deadbeef (these are the players capable of bypassing Pulse Audio for direct bit perfect playback via ALSA without resampling. All the music files consisted of my entire CD collection ripped, over the years to FLAC, using a combination of EAC (Exact Audio Copy), JRMC and dbpoweramp under WinXP, Win 7 and for Linux using "Asunder" and WINE/Crossover for running dbpoweramp. When set up for bit perfect output, I heard no perceptible differences and none of the kind you describe. The very minor differences I "thought" I heard were not worth mentioning as they were not repeatable.
Bottom line: to the best of my limited knowledge while your ALSA config files can be tweaked, it shouldn't be necessary if Deadbeef is properly setup to bypass PulseAudio and the Linux resampler which is better than the Window's resampler, but still leaves much to be desired. In my setup I have Deadbeef's "Preferences > "Sound" Tab set to:
Output plugin: ALSA output plugin
Output device: 32bit 384kHz DSD Interface, USB Audio
Direct hardwdare device without any conversions
For me, the device in question is my W4S DAC-2seDSD, and I would add that there are 12 different variations for the same "output device" so you have to be careful which one you pick. Pick the wrong one and you won't get bit perfect stereo output.
Under Deadbeef: Preferences > Plugins > ALSA output plugin > Configure button :
Uncheck "Use ALSA resampling
Check "Release device while stopped"
Finally, I'm not familiar with your ODAC, but if it has a front panel display of the incoming music data file, or perhaps an led that lights up, you should be able to tell if the audio files you are playing via Deadbeef are being output and received as bit perfect 16/44.1 or 24/96 or 24/192 files and not resampled to a different rate.
P.S. I recently purchased ($150) Signalyst's HQ Player for Linux (also available for Windows and Mac). It does sound interestingly different. It's available for a free 30 day trial with no limitations in use (except under Linux it only works for 20 minutes at a time. Not sure why). The GUI is poor and need much work as it is designed for a tablet and not a desktop machine.
