[Olias of Sunhillow]

I downloaded BitPerfect 0.29 from the App Store last night. It's exactly what I've wanted to find -- uses my existing iTunes library but sounds better, automatically switches sample rates, and runs in the background.
 
One problem I've encountered, though... After I play two tracks of a particular album, at the end of the 2nd track, the player switches back to the beginning of track 1 for about half a second, then moves on to track 3. It's a short blip, but it's noticeable and happens consistently? A buffering issue?

 

[iamoneagain]

Quote:

I downloaded BitPerfect 0.29 from the App Store last night. It's exactly what I've wanted to find -- uses my existing iTunes library but sounds better, automatically switches sample rates, and runs in the background.
 
One problem I've encountered, though... After I play two tracks of a particular album, at the end of the 2nd track, the player switches back to the beginning of track 1 for about half a second, then moves on to track 3. It's a short blip, but it's noticeable and happens consistently? A buffering issue?

Sounds like you have the exact problem I have.  I found a nice workaround of just using playlists instead of the main music library.  You can even make a playlist with all your music, use the column browser, and use the same as you would your main library.
 
For some reason, when using the main music library, iTunes provides the wrong sort order (alpha order instead of album order) for the way BitPerfect performs gapless playback.  I'm not sure why only certain people have this problem.  But if you play music from a playlist, playback is perfect.  Perfect gapless playback and never a blip.  
 
I believe the developer was trying to find a fix for this by working with Apple.  I've worked with him on a test build trying to find a solution and this workaround is as far as we've gotten.  Not sure if upcoming future builds have some other fix.
 
 
 

 

[Kristian Harley]

I have also downloaded BitPerfect a few days ago and so far it seems like a very nice piece of software. I have been trying out PureMusic and didn't care much for its interface and in general I did not find it to run very smoothly.
Compared to PureMusic BitPerfect seems to be more what I was looking for. Especially if you don't need the extra functionality provided by PM.
 
A little more functionality would be nice in BitPerfect though For instance it would be great, if you were able to decide on the actual bitrate and sampling frequency when upsampling rather than just an option saying "Upsample". Also I have a few albums in 24bit/192kHz but with BitPerfect I'm unable to listen to them in my current setup because my DAC only accepts up to 96kHz. PureMusic did an automatic downsampling to 96kHz in that case which was a nice feature.
 
Another feature that is high on the wishlist is to create a memory play option where BitPerfect would load an entire album to the RAM whereafter the software would turn off the harddrive for lovering the noise from the computer. I am using an iMac 27" as music server and the only slight noise this machine emits comes from the harddrive. Under Energy Saver in OSX it was possible to make the machine turn off the HDD after a minute using PM, but the HDD would naturally spin back up as soon you would change the song. It would be really great if you were able to load an entire playlist or just the current cd to the RAM and then turn off the HDD instantly.
 
But anyway - Thanks for a great piece of software so far. I'm looking forward to see how it evolves

 

[agentsim]

Quote:

A little more functionality would be nice in BitPerfect though For instance it would be great, if you were able to decide on the actual bitrate and sampling frequency when upsampling rather than just an option saying "Upsample". Also I have a few albums in 24bit/192kHz but with BitPerfect I'm unable to listen to them in my current setup because my DAC only accepts up to 96kHz. PureMusic did an automatic downsampling to 96kHz in that case which was a nice feature.

BitPerfect already automatically downsamples. It will try by a factor of 2 (for highest quality), if that fails then it will use the high supported rate from the DAC.
 
Quote:

Another feature that is high on the wishlist is to create a memory play option where BitPerfect would load an entire album to the RAM whereafter the software would turn off the harddrive for lovering the noise from the computer. I am using an iMac 27" as music server and the only slight noise this machine emits comes from the harddrive. Under Energy Saver in OSX it was possible to make the machine turn off the HDD after a minute using PM, but the HDD would naturally spin back up as soon you would change the song. It would be really great if you were able to load an entire playlist or just the current cd to the RAM and then turn off the HDD instantly.

 
BitPerfect could do that, but it would not stop HDD activity due to iTunes. If PM are able to get iTunes to stop playing that would be interesting and I'll look into that. Honestly I've found that HDD activity makes little to no difference to SQ.

 

[jhwalker]

Quote:

BitPerfect already automatically downsamples. It will try by a factor of 2 (for highest quality), if that fails then it will use the high supported rate from the DAC.
 
 
BitPerfect could do that, but it would not stop HDD activity due to iTunes. If PM are able to get iTunes to stop playing that would be interesting and I'll look into that. Honestly I've found that HDD activity makes little to no difference to SQ.

 
Yes, that's one of the claimed benefits to Pure Music over Amarra.  Amarra leaves iTunes playing in the background, but just mutes / hogs the output - Pure Music actually stops iTunes from playing and only updates the iTunes interface during PM playback.
 
 

 

[agentsim]

Quote:

Yes, that's one of the claimed benefits to Pure Music over Amarra.  Amarra leaves iTunes playing in the background, but just mutes / hogs the output - Pure Music actually stops iTunes from playing and only updates the iTunes interface during PM playback.
 
 

That's interesting, I'll see about doing that for a future version.

 

[JIGF]

Quote:

Sounds like you have the exact problem I have.  I found a nice workaround of just using playlists instead of the main music library.  You can even make a playlist with all your music, use the column browser, and use the same as you would your main library.
 
For some reason, when using the main music library, iTunes provides the wrong sort order (alpha order instead of album order) for the way BitPerfect performs gapless playback.  I'm not sure why only certain people have this problem.  But if you play music from a playlist, playback is perfect.  Perfect gapless playback and never a blip.  
 
I believe the developer was trying to find a fix for this by working with Apple.  I've worked with him on a test build trying to find a solution and this workaround is as far as we've gotten.  Not sure if upcoming future builds have some other fix.
 

I have the same issue. In addition to another one in which when I play a song, the player skips it.
 
I will try the playlist tip and let you know if it works.
 
Hope they workaround this. I am loving the sound and simplicity of the player.

 

[Olias of Sunhillow]

Quote:

Sounds like you have the exact problem I have.  I found a nice workaround of just using playlists instead of the main music library.  You can even make a playlist with all your music, use the column browser, and use the same as you would your main library.  

Thanks for the suggested workaround. I will try this tonight.

 

[JIGF]

Quote:

I will try the playlist tip and let you know if it works.
 

It works!
 
Still hope they get this fixed though.

 

[Kristian Harley]

Thank you for your reply,
 
 
Quote:

BitPerfect already automatically downsamples. It will try by a factor of 2 (for highest quality), if that fails then it will use the high supported rate from the DAC.

 
The thing is that I use a M2Tech HiFace over USB > Coax SPDIF which then transferes the signal to the DAC. This means that BitPerfect only recognizes the limitations of the HiFace (192kHz) and not the DAC. It would therefore be great if you were able to manually adjust the downsampling.

 
Quote:

Originally Posted by agentsim /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
BitPerfect could do that, but it would not stop HDD activity due to iTunes. If PM are able to get iTunes to stop playing that would be interesting and I'll look into that. Honestly I've found that HDD activity makes little to no difference to SQ.

 
I don't think that the HDD activity itself makes much of a difference, but it is clearly audible during quiet passages. But I guess a workaround will be to just let OSX turn off the HDDs when they aren't needed - or install a quieter drive.

 

[agentsim]

 
Quote:

The thing is that I use a M2Tech HiFace over USB > Coax SPDIF which then transferes the signal to the DAC. This means that BitPerfect only recognizes the limitations of the HiFace (192kHz) and not the DAC. It would therefore be great if you were able to manually adjust the downsampling.

 
Wow, I didn't realize that could happen. Just so I understand, the M2Tech supports only 96kHZ, but the HiFace does 192kHZ. BitPerfect sees 192 as the maximum and so it sends that to the HiFace... what does the HiFace do, just swallow the sound?
 
Quote:

I don't think that the HDD activity itself makes much of a difference, but it is clearly audible during quiet passages. But I guess a workaround will be to just let OSX turn off the HDDs when they aren't needed - or install a quieter drive.

 
Now that I know Pure Music does this I'll see if I can't match them

 

[Kristian Harley]

Sorry for the confusion - let me clarify a bit
 
My signal chain is: iMac > M2Tech HiFace (thats only one device) > KRK Ergo (room correction, crossover, preamp and DAC) > Amp.
 
The M2Tech HiFace reduces jitter compared to the the output from the optical out on the iMac. Also the Ergo need a coax SPDIF since it doesn't have optical inputs.
 
You understood the problem correctly though BitPerfect does not see the Ergo (which is 96kHz max) but only the M2Tech HiFace which can handle 192kHz.

 

[agentsim]

Quote:

You understood the problem correctly though BitPerfect does not see the Ergo (which is 96kHz max) but only the M2Tech HiFace which can handle 192kHz.

Ok, in that case there's nothing smart BitPerfect can do. I'll just add the manual max sample rate option in a future version... probably 0.31, although my TODO list is getting long now!

 

[jhwalker]

Quote:

Ok, in that case there's nothing smart BitPerfect can do. I'll just add the manual max sample rate option in a future version... probably 0.31, although my TODO list is getting long now!

Audirvana has a setting for handling this exact scenario, so it's certainly not uncommon.
 

 

[olor1n]

Just purchased BitPerfect. It seems to be working but I'm hearing some popping sounds with settings at default. I have SL and a Core 2 Duo (which I believe defaults to 32bit on boot). Device details below:
 
Name: TE7022 Audio w/ SPDIF
UID:AppleUSBAudioEngine:GFEC ASSPigiHug USB Audio:3d100000:2,3
Device Id: 258
Default: YES
Selected: YES
Complex DAC: NO
Integer Mode Capable: YES
Frame Buffer Sizes: 14 - 1024
Current Frame Buffer Size: 1024
Supported sample rates: 8.0 kHz  16.0 kHz  32.0 kHz  44.1 kHz  48.0 kHz  96.0 kHz  
Left Channel: 1    Right Channel: 2

Audio Streams:
Stream ID: 260
Stream Number: 0
Starting Channel: 1
Total Channels: 2
Total Physical Formats: 25
 
 
Edit: Disabling Integer Mode seems to have fixed it. What exactly does that option do?