BitPerfect (was: Audirvana Alternatives)

[agentsim]

Nope, this sounds like a perfectly valid bug. Can you send a sample MP3 to support@bitperfectsound.com so we can take a look?

 

[wisemanja]

Quote:

Nope, this sounds like a perfectly valid bug. Can you send a sample MP3 to support@bitperfectsound.com so we can take a look?

 
I just wanted to post here to indicate that after sending the data to BitPerfect support, they identified the problem as being in the Snow Leopard interface that BitPerfect has to use (iTunes uses its own internal algorithms that work correctly). Apparently This has been fixed in Lion,
 
So for Snow Leopard users wanting to playback mono tracks, you need to put the word "monophonic" into the information field of the audio file in iTunes so that it plays out both channels instead of just the left one.

 

[ZenocideZ]

Hi Agentism,
 
I'm a new user of bitperfect from Malaysia and bought it at full price $10 at mac app store . I think I'm the only reviewer (or perhaps user) in this country and 5 stars was given on mac store. 
 
My current pc hifi setup: iMac 27 2009 , retina macbook pro 2013, B&W mm1, Fiio E07k , iPhone 4, iPad 4, senheiser IE8, HD 555 and upcoming UE 6k . 
 
I often listen music while sitting on bed from far distance. I'm trying to make itune working with plex or xbmc together with bitperfect. is there a possible way to integrate three? If not, may I suggest that bitperfect show song playback notification while changing songs? It would be a very useful function.  
 
Thanks

 

[agentsim]

Quote:

Hi Agentism,
 
I'm a new user of bitperfect from Malaysia and bought it at full price $10 at mac app store . I think I'm the only reviewer (or perhaps user) in this country and 5 stars was given on mac store. 
 
My current pc hifi setup: iMac 27 2009 , retina macbook pro 2013, B&W mm1, Fiio E07k , iPhone 4, iPad 4, senheiser IE8, HD 555 and upcoming UE 6k . 
 
I often listen music while sitting on bed from far distance. I'm trying to make itune working with plex or xbmc together with bitperfect. is there a possible way to integrate three? If not, may I suggest that bitperfect show song playback notification while changing songs? It would be a very useful function.  
 
Thanks

I'm not familiar with iTunes integration in Plex or Xbmc. My understanding is that these are both standalone player software that can perhaps monitor iTunes in some way to play your music. If I'm right about that, then they perform an analogous function to BitPerfect which would prevent BitPerfect from working with them.
 
As for a song change notification, BitPerfect doesn't emit anything like that mainly because it should always be doing whatever iTunes is doing and iTunes has those notifications already.
 
The "obvious" way to control iTunes (and thus BitPerfect) from a distance is with the remote app on an iPhone or iPad, or I guess, a wireless keyboard

 

[ZenocideZ]

I'm not familiar with iTunes integration in Plex or Xbmc. My understanding is that these are both standalone player software that can perhaps monitor iTunes in some way to play your music. If I'm right about that, then they perform an analogous function to BitPerfect which would prevent BitPerfect from working with them.

As for a song change notification, BitPerfect doesn't emit anything like that mainly because it should always be doing whatever iTunes is doing and iTunes has those notifications already.

The "obvious" way to control iTunes (and thus BitPerfect) from a distance is with the remote app on an iPhone or iPad, or I guess, a wireless keyboard

Thanks for the advices. Now I really want to blame apple for removing cover flow and front row.

I'm also using boom, an app that boost volume in Mac. Would that affect sound quality in itune with the bloom plug in installed or sound output in bitperfect selected to it, even I turn the EQ and volume boost off in boom?

 

[agentsim]

I believe Boom is a virtual sound card, like Soundflower. If you tell BitPerfect to play through Boom, then the sound quality will be affected by the quality of Boom's equalizers and other effects. In general, the more steps that sound has to go through before you hear it, the more degraded it will be.
 
If you select a different output device in BitPerfect, then you will circumvent Boom, avoiding any potential degradation, but also not getting any of the volume boosting or EQ effects Boom provides.
 

 

[ZenocideZ]

I found it interesting that with boom set as output sample rate can be set to 192k 32bit, far more beyond the 96k 32bit physical limitation internally. althought playback without any problems, I cannot notice any sound differences so far. I think it should be an unnecessary and extra pass through.
 
I browsed back the previous post, noticed that you are using rmbp too. Personally speaking, I found the headphone jack output on rmbp sound more details and powerful than previous iMac 2009, and even more superior than E07k and the headphone output on MM1. I know both mac I have use same DAC, the difference could be retina macbook pro have better amp chips build in. I'm trying to find the evidences on iFix tear down but they didn't have any information on that. Do you have any clues ?
 
Also, what are the next big features you are going to put in bitperfect ?

 

[agentsim]

Quote:

I found it interesting that with boom set as output sample rate can be set to 192k 32bit, far more beyond the 96k 32bit physical limitation internally. althought playback without any problems, I cannot notice any sound differences so far. I think it should be an unnecessary and extra pass through.

 
The virtual sound card can take input sample rate the programmer chose to implement, but it will still need to be downsampled to 96k for output, and will probably use a lower quality downsampler, like CoreAudio instead of SoX.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by ZenocideZ /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
I browsed back the previous post, noticed that you are using rmbp too. Personally speaking, I found the headphone jack output on rmbp sound more details and powerful than previous iMac 2009, and even more superior than E07k and the headphone output on MM1. I know both mac I have use same DAC, the difference could be retina macbook pro have better amp chips build in. I'm trying to find the evidences on iFix tear down but they didn't have any information on that. Do you have any clues ?

 
Took me a while to find this again: http://larryho.tumblr.com/
There are headphone jack measurements of various Apple products, spolier, the rMBP doesn't look so good!
 
Quote:

Also, what are the next big features you are going to put in bitperfect ?

 
BitPerfect isn't a feature driven program, the goal is to keep it simple and sounding good. BitPerfect 1.1 will have a better audio engine which should improve sound quality a little, and a plug-in system to allow me to build more features without bogging down the core software by making any extra features entirely optional.

 

[wisemanja]

I have an issue that threw me for a while until I saw what was happening. On an iMac running Snow Leopard and iTunes 11.0.2, when I turn on Bit perfect, the Pause/Play symbol in iTunes is always shows Play. When not playing, if you click on it, it switches briefly to the pause symbol and then immediately back to the play symbol even thought the music is now playing (i.e., it should now be showing the pause symbol). If you click on it again, it will again briefly switch to the pause symbol and then immediately switch back to show the play symbol as the music is now put on pause.
 
If I disable BitPerfect, the symbol will start toggling correctly. If I re-enable BitPerfect, the earlier behavior returns.
 
Has anyone seen this behavior? Is it just another bug in the Apple interface that BitPerfect must use?

 

[dogwan]

Quote:

I have an issue that threw me for a while until I saw what was happening. On an iMac running Snow Leopard and iTunes 11.0.2, when I turn on Bit perfect, the Pause/Play symbol in iTunes is always shows Play. When not playing, if you click on it, it switches briefly to the pause symbol and then immediately back to the play symbol even thought the music is now playing (i.e., it should now be showing the pause symbol). If you click on it again, it will again briefly switch to the pause symbol and then immediately switch back to show the play symbol as the music is now put on pause.
 
If I disable BitPerfect, the symbol will start toggling correctly. If I re-enable BitPerfect, the earlier behavior returns.
 
Has anyone seen this behavior? Is it just another bug in the Apple interface that BitPerfect must use?

Yes, same for me on my MBPro with Mountain Lion. I just ignored it. It's only mildly irritating. Only started doing that with latest upgrade of iTunes and BitPerfect.
 
When will I learn.... never upgrade iTunes. It just messes something up!

 

[agentsim]

Quote:

I have an issue that threw me for a while until I saw what was happening. On an iMac running Snow Leopard and iTunes 11.0.2, when I turn on Bit perfect, the Pause/Play symbol in iTunes is always shows Play. When not playing, if you click on it, it switches briefly to the pause symbol and then immediately back to the play symbol even thought the music is now playing (i.e., it should now be showing the pause symbol). If you click on it again, it will again briefly switch to the pause symbol and then immediately switch back to show the play symbol as the music is now put on pause.
 
If I disable BitPerfect, the symbol will start toggling correctly. If I re-enable BitPerfect, the earlier behavior returns.
 
Has anyone seen this behavior? Is it just another bug in the Apple interface that BitPerfect must use?

 
Sounds like you have "Minimize iTunes Interaction" enabled. In that mode, BitPerfect keeps iTunes in the paused state so that it doesn't attempt to play the file, but since iTunes is paused, the Play/Pause button will always display the play icon.

 

[wisemanja]

Quote:

 
Sounds like you have "Minimize iTunes Interaction" enabled. In that mode, BitPerfect keeps iTunes in the paused state so that it doesn't attempt to play the file, but since iTunes is paused, the Play/Pause button will always display the play icon.

 
I thought once before that that might have been the issue but when I turned it off, stopped BitPerfect, and restarted it was still there so I just assumed that wasn't it. I just now repeated this with the same behavior. However, when I shut down iTunes and BitPerfect and restarted them the behavior did go away with the Minimize iTunes interaction disabled.
 
I think I understand the advantages of leaving the mode enabled (BitPerfect seems to try and keep iTunes from doing anything while BP is running audio). Are there any other side effects (other than the play/pause symbol behavior) that using this mode might present?

 

[agentsim]

Quote:

I think I understand the advantages of leaving the mode enabled (BitPerfect seems to try and keep iTunes from doing anything while BP is running audio). Are there any other side effects (other than the play/pause symbol behavior) that using this mode might present?

 
None that immediately come to mind. Since the quality of the interaction between BitPerfect and iTunes can be system dependent, turning the option on or off and sometimes make general functionality better. Overall it is probably a more buggy option, but if it works for you and you can hear a difference, then go for it.
 
Note, if you use iTunes remote with minimize iTunes mode, you'll get the same play/pause button problem.
 

 

[ZenocideZ]

Quote:

 
The virtual sound card can take input sample rate the programmer chose to implement, but it will still need to be downsampled to 96k for output, and will probably use a lower quality downsampler, like CoreAudio instead of SoX.
 
 
BitPerfect isn't a feature driven program, the goal is to keep it simple and sounding good. BitPerfect 1.1 will have a better audio engine which should improve sound quality a little, and a plug-in system to allow me to build more features without bogging down the core software by making any extra features entirely optional.

 
Bro, how about adding profile setting ? I am swapping to use different DACs sometime and should be more convenient with some pre-set combo settings in save.

 

[Mediahound]

Quote:

BitPerfect 1.1 will have a better audio engine which should improve sound quality a little, and a plug-in system to allow me to build more features without bogging down the core software by making any extra features entirely optional.

 
Let me know if you need a beta tester