[HPiper]

Shows what I knew, I thought that lossless meant lossless, but obviously it really doesn't. Makes me wonder what it does mean then. That dbpoweramp looks very good and lets face it, $40 isn't a whole lot of money.

 

[sfrancis]

Interesting thread. Seems a lot of discussion about bit perfect but I think one thing that is important is jitter. When comparing a standalone cd player with built in DAC and a computer based playback system that consists of squeezebox 3 with external DAC, i find that CD player easily beat the other for me personally, by a large magin. Mind you the cd player I am using is not even a dedicated cd player but a cheap DVD player. The only explanation I have for that is that jitter from SB3 into DAC is pretty bad, since source or transport is separated from DAC, whereas in CD player there is one master clock for both transport and DAC.I had a feeling that in order to get a similar sound quality as a CD player, one has to spend quite a bit to improve the jitter, hence the new asynchronous USB DAC, and various reclocker and good transport. I have been using the SB3 streaming setup for quite a few years and my recent experience with the cd player makes me go back completely to CDs.I am for now adopting a wait and see attitude towards the computer playback system. Maybe grab a better cd player while waiting.

 

[StudioSound]

Aftermarket players like Amarra, Audirvanna, and Pure Music do have significant influence on the sound.  Configured well, they better optimize how the computer sends data to the DAC, and IMO offer a very audible improvement over basic iTunes - even with asynchronous DACs.

They "optimize" how the computer sends audio to the DAC by making sure that it isn't resampling the audio.

You can do this yourself by setting the system output to 44100.0Hz 2ch-24bit in the "Audio MIDI Setup" app on OS X.
Or under Control Panel > Sound > Device Properties > Advanced > 24 bit, 44100Hz (Studio Quality) on Windows.

Note: increasing bit-depth from 16-bit to 24-bit has zero effect on the sound - it is literally just adding zeros to the data.

However, if you were to use a digital volume control - whether in the PC (not recommended) or if your DAC is using a digital control, there are some cases where outputting 24-bit rather than 16-bit could potentially sound better. But in properly designed hardware, it should make no difference. It will never harm audio quality to output 24-bit rather than 16-bit, so you might as well just to be safe.


The difference is that with these other players, if you are playing a mixture of CD-quality audio and others such as DVD Audio (24/48) "HD" downloads (24/96 and above) etc. then many players such as iTunes will automatically downsample everything to whatever your system output is set to. (i.e. 24/44)


You will also see that these applications advertise things like 64-bit volume control. Well 64-bit internal precision can be useful if you are doing complex audio processing (EQ/DSP) but a 64-bit volume control is basically worthless, because the result is going to be truncated to 24-bit to actually go out to your DAC anyway. (possibly 32-bit now, with some of the very newest DACs)

And if you aren't using a digital volume control or DSP, then as long as the output is at least 16-bit it makes zero difference to playback of CD quality lossless files what the bit-depth is.

Interesting thread. Seems a lot of discussion about bit perfect but I think one thing that is important is jitter. When comparing a standalone cd player with built in DAC and a computer based playback system that consists of squeezebox 3 with external DAC, i find that CD player easily beat the other for me personally, by a large magin. Mind you the cd player I am using is not even a dedicated cd player but a cheap DVD player. The only explanation I have for that is that jitter from SB3 into DAC is pretty bad, since source or transport is separated from DAC, whereas in CD player there is one master clock for both transport and DAC.I had a feeling that in order to get a similar sound quality as a CD player, one has to spend quite a bit to improve the jitter, hence the new asynchronous USB DAC, and various reclocker and good transport. I have been using the SB3 streaming setup for quite a few years and my recent experience with the cd player makes me go back completely to CDs.I am for now adopting a wait and see attitude towards the computer playback system. Maybe grab a better cd player while waiting.

Are you comparing the analog output from the DVD player to the Squeezebox going through a DAC? What if you run the DVD player through the same DAC?

 

[HPiper]

Yeah that is one good thing about getting a cd player, everything is made (one hopes) to work as a whole. I have seen some really well made cd players, but without error correction of some kind, there is a chance, especially with older cd's, to get some missing data. I don't know, the appeal of a stand alone cd player is nice, it is so convenient to just toss a cd in and listen but based on the conversation here, if you want the last word in high quality audio files, a cd player isn't quite going to cut it (but it can get real close).
 

 

[Hi Rez]

Quote:

They "optimize" how the computer sends audio to the DAC by making sure that it isn't resampling the audio.
 

That is a little simplified.  The better after market players such as Pure Music (this example) have configuration options such as pre-staging music files in memory (to avoid disk i/o while playing), running in "hog" mode (audio tasks run at higher operating system priorities), and sending the data to the DAC in Integer Mode (data is passed to the DAC in native integer format instead of the usual floating point).  With this configuration, the player can minimize background processing that can interfere with the timing of the data sent to the DAC.
 
Probably somewhat system dependent.  But there is even a noticeable improvement in music quality with the MacBook Pro / Pure Music combination using only the Pro's internal DAC and speakers....

 

[StudioSound]

That is a little simplified.  The better after market players such as Pure Music (this example) have configuration options such as pre-staging music files in memory (to avoid disk i/o while playing)

Because normal players are streaming the data off the disk instead of decoding the audio and keeping it in memory...

Disk IO has no impact on sound unless you are using analog out of a particularly bad onboard sound card. (does not apply to an external DAC)
On-board sound is terrible. Even on my relatively new P67 motherboard, I can hear when I am using devices through the Realtek chip. (e.g. moving the mouse around)

running in "hog" mode (audio tasks run at higher operating system priorities)

Pointless. Decoding audio is trivial today. Playing back CD-quality lossless files uses less than half of one percent on one core of my CPU. (which has four)
Converting DSD to PCM or downsampling DXD, which is about as complex as you can get, uses about four percent.

and sending the data to the DAC in Integer Mode (data is passed to the DAC in native integer format instead of the usual floating point).

I don't know of any DACs that will accept floating point values. On Windows, and presumably OS X, the system mixer will accept floating point values and convert them to integer though. (or pass them on to the driver to do it) If you are outputting WASAPI on Windows, you can't even send the device formats that it can't play - it won't accept them - so you know it isn't passing through the system mixer first.

And if you do as I said, and set the system output to 24/44.1, you have the same thing.

And only lossy formats should be decoded to floating point, the only reason for lossless files to become floating point at any stage is if you are doing DSP on them.

With this configuration, the player can minimize background processing that can interfere with the timing of the data sent to the DAC.

The only "timing" problem that could occur would be a break in the audio stream that would be heard as silence or pops/clicks.

Probably somewhat system dependent.  But there is even a noticeable improvement in music quality with the MacBook Pro / Pure Music combination using only the Pro's internal DAC and speakers....

If it sounds different, it's doing some kind of DSP and is no longer bit-perfect. Or your system settings were not configured for bit-perfect output, and it has done that for you.

 

[Golfnutz]

Here's a link to an article that I believe is more about what I was referring to - http://www.hifi-advice.com/PC-audio-versus-CD-info.html
 
I'm using EAC and Foobar for ripping and play back.
 
Maybe Studio, your system isn't that revealing to hear the differences.

 

[StudioSound]

Maybe Studio, your system isn't that revealing to hear the differences.

I am not saying they can't sound different. I am saying that if you have a secure rip, and have your output configured correctly, the PC is outputting exactly what is on the disc.

If a high end CD player sounds different (to some, "better") then it is not accurate to the original recording.

If I want to deviate from the original recording, I would rather do that through EQ or some other DSP where I know what is happening to the sound. The transport, DAC, and amplifier should be neutral. ("transparent")


That article is full of fuzzy terms like "involvement", "musicality" and a "digital" sound. To some degree, people hear what they want to. If certain people know that they are listening to a PC as the source, and not a CD player, then it's definitely going to have a "digital" sound.

 

[HeatFan12]

Quote:

I am not saying they can't sound different. I am saying that if you have a secure rip, and have your output configured correctly, the PC is outputting exactly what is on the disc.

If a high end CD player sounds different (to some, "better") then it is not accurate to the original recording.

If I want to deviate from the original recording, I would rather do that through EQ or some other DSP where I know what is happening to the sound. The transport, DAC, and amplifier should be neutral. ("transparent")


That article is full of fuzzy terms like "involvement", "musicality" and a "digital" sound. To some degree, people hear what they want to. If certain people know that they are listening to a PC as the source, and not a CD player, then it's definitely going to have a "digital" sound.

 
 
Nice...I see StudioSound is at it again....You go sir and wreak havoc....lol...JK of course....

 
Let's take this a tad higher in the disc chain....DVD-A....What would your opinion be on listening to a dvd-a on a player vs. a ripped dvd-a on PC...24-96?...Would the sound representation differ making it more "digital" if you knew you were listening on a PC?  Obviously we'll stick to 2 channel audio since we're using headphones, instead of the 6 (5.1).
 
Not to take the thread off-topic for the OP, I still love the good ol' CDP...
 
My nightstand
 

 
 
 
 
 
Cheers!

 

[sfrancis]

Are you comparing the analog output from the DVD player to the Squeezebox going through a DAC? What if you run the DVD player through the same DAC?

I did try that and it is not good. The dac is maverick tube magic version 1, it is bought for headphone amp but I tried its DAC. Not very good I guess. I also tried a Cambridge dac magic from a friend and did not see too much difference.

 

[sfrancis]

Here's a link to an article that I believe is more about what I was referring to - http://www.hifi-advice.com/PC-audio-versus-CD-info.html

I'm using EAC and Foobar for ripping and play back.

Maybe Studio, your system isn't that revealing to hear the differences.

Good article. The part about musical hit it on the nail. I think for computer audio to sounds musical you will have to spend a fortune.

 

[StudioSound]

Good article. The part about musical hit it on the nail. I think for computer audio to sounds musical you will have to spend a fortune.

"Musical" is a nothing term that doesn't mean anything. What it probably means is that the high-end player is rolling off the high frequencies and/or boosting the low end a bit.

You can turn a "digital" or "clinical" computer source into a "musical" source via EQ if that's what you want. But any EQ/DSP you want to run should be the only thing that is changing the frequency response between the data on the disc and your headphones. Your DAC/Amp/Transport should not impart anything on the sound.

If the CD player is not giving you the audio as it is stored on the disc (i.e. as it was mastered) then it is not a very good CD player.

Let's take this a tad higher in the disc chain....DVD-A....What would your opinion be on listening to a dvd-a on a player vs. a ripped dvd-a on PC...24-96?...Would the sound representation differ making it more "digital" if you knew you were listening on a PC? Obviously we'll stick to 2 channel audio since we're using headphones, instead of the 6 (5.1).

Sorry, I'm not too familiar with the ripping process of DVD-A, or the formats they are encoded with. (is it just Dolby/DTS as you have with feature films?)

 

[hodgjy]

Very find post indeed.
 
Quote:

"Musical" is a nothing term that doesn't mean anything. What it probably means is that the high-end player is rolling off the high frequencies and/or boosting the low end a bit.

You can turn a "digital" or "clinical" computer source into a "musical" source via EQ if that's what you want. But any EQ/DSP you want to run should be the only thing that is changing the frequency response between the data on the disc and your headphones. Your DAC/Amp/Transport should not impart anything on the sound.

If the CD player is not giving you the audio as it is stored on the disc (i.e. as it was mastered) then it is not a very good CD player.
 

 

[HeatFan12]

Quote:

Sorry, I'm not too familiar with the ripping process of DVD-A, or the formats they are encoded with. (is it just Dolby/DTS as you have with feature films?)

 
 
For DVD-A the audio is in MLP (Meridian Lossless Packing) format.  The equivalents for software to EAC for CDs are DVDAExplorer & DVD Audio Extractor.  The latter has more features as it also lets you rip the audio from concerts/movies as well.  Both are great and you can rip and then encode to FLAC/2ch etc....

 

[Hi Rez]

Quote:

"Musical" is a nothing term that doesn't mean anything. What it probably means is that the high-end player is rolling off the high frequencies and/or boosting the low end a bit.

Please don't reuse the standard Sound Science argument that the only reason high end players sound better is that they depart from a flat frequency response.  Have you actually looked at measurements of most DACs?  The all measure pretty similarly - generally perfectly flat in the bass and down .4 or .5 db at 20 khz.  Here are two examples:
 
http://www.stereophile.com/content/benchmark-dac1-usb-da-processor-headphone-amplifier-measurements
http://www.stereophile.com/content/msb-technology-platinum-data-cd-iv-transport-amp-diamond-dac-iv-amp-da-converter-measurement
 
Which one has the flatter frequency response?  The high-end MSB.  Oh, and by the way, even the ODAC is down .4 db at 20 khz.