[zalive]

Ok Luke, but either when you do know, it has to be someone which opinion you highly trust to matter. Being acquinted doesn't mean much.
And even then...it's their setup and listening room that decides the outcome. In your system it may sound different.
I've heard opinions of few people which opinion I highly regard, but still in my system it was different.
My opinion is that your personal experience should matter most. Only if your level of personal confidence in what you hear and discern in sound is low, only then you should trust certain someone else more than you however, people you trust can indeed save you some valuable time with their advices, so you don't waste it on what's definitely not worth it.

 

[bfreedma]

Windows operating system is the weakest link in computer audio story. High latency and hungry for resources which are not justified for audio processing purpose.
Try a PC with something like Daphile or Volumio or similar linux based optimized environment installed on it, and you'll hear the difference, no matter which player is used under Windows, or how optimized the environment or player are.
The difference will be smaller, however, if there's good reclock implementation somewhere after receiving the USB data.

Unless you’re running very old hardware, the latency and resource issues you raise no longer apply and haven’t for quite a while. And if one really wants to avoid the Windows media stack, just use WASAPI. The fallacy that one operating system “sounds” better than another is not based on any objective data.

The lengths and expense some go through to buy optimization software, run Server OS to “not have unneeded processes”, or manually disable Services is technically unjustifiable. If you’re running Windows and think there are OS related issues, run Task Manager and/or Resource Monitor and see just how little CPU and disk activity audio playback actually generates. And how few resources Windows is consuming for other tasks.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

Windows operating system is the weakest link in computer audio story. High latency and hungry for resources which are not justified for audio processing purpose.
Try a PC with something like Daphile or Volumio or similar linux based optimized environment installed on it, and you'll hear the difference, no matter which player is used under Windows, or how optimized the environment or player are.
The difference will be smaller, however, if there's good reclock implementation somewhere after receiving the USB data.

That doesn't matter since there are essentially no manufacturer Linux drivers for any audio devices. Sure, they seem to work somewhat in a small minority of cases but most of the time you have no idea what's going on in Linux's layers and layers of crapware.

Don't get me wrong, I hate Windows and don't use it except for playing audio since it does that better than any other desktop "OS" given nobody is writing dedicated drivers for anything else. But I hate Linux too. It's just too much of a pain in the ass to use for video or audio.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

I thought Roon was supose to be top of the line

It's not. It's just a UI to your music collection. It has some nice convenience features but it is mostly about helping you waste time on your audio files more enjoyably

 

[starence]

asio4all is just a wrapper and not a real asio driver, fyi . Your dac manufacturer may have a real asio driver and that should be used. Wasapi event can be used for those dacs that don't have an asio driver with nice results.

FYI @gimmeheadroom , I was a long term foobar fanboy/ user for Win. One thing to try if you have not is the ram playback plugin. Nice sounding upgrade when you load an album into a playlist.

Then I finally tried Jriver, after dismissing it many years ago on the Mac platform. It really is a very good sounding Windows 10 player and to my ears does sound better than foobar. And there are some tricks to get it to sound better than stock once you try it.

What kind of tricks?

 

[jologskyblues]

I had a 90-day free Roon trial that came with the KEF LS50W I purchased earlier this year. I think I just used it for a couple of times then I just went back to Jriver and Foobar. I guess I just didn't need the slick UI and the features.

Anyway I use Jriver for mainly for music on my PC as well as video playback on my Mac. I use Foobar2000 as a secondary music player when I don't feel like re-configuring the sound settings in Jriver to another audio output like wireless headphones and such.

 

[bixby]

What kind of tricks?

I thought you used spotify? In any case, do you use upsampling, eq or volume control in Jriver? If not pm me and I can give you a few settings to try.

 

[zalive]

That doesn't matter since there are essentially no manufacturer Linux drivers for any audio devices. Sure, they seem to work somewhat in a small minority of cases but most of the time you have no idea what's going on in Linux's layers and layers of crapware.

Don't get me wrong, I hate Windows and don't use it except for playing audio since it does that better than any other desktop "OS" given nobody is writing dedicated drivers for anything else. But I hate Linux too. It's just too much of a pain in the ass to use for video or audio.

All UAC2 (plus older UAC1) compliant devices should work well, this should be vast majority of USB DAC's on the market.

There are bypass solutions in case DAC uses some proprietary USB communication and is not UAC2 compliant, or supported with own driver in popular Linux based audio solutions. Either through RPi+SPDIF HAT board, or through UAC2 compliant USB/SPDIF converter. A friend of mine uses modified RPI (he removed protection circuitry as it induces lot of noise, he said) with ULPS and Digi+ Pro modified (shortened rise time + ?) and he connects it to BADA Alpha DAC. Under Volumio. He claims it's a top notch player,

I hate Linux too. But there are audio taylored solutions like Volumio or Daphile are made for non Linux users, they're fairly simple to install and use, no any Linux knowledge required. My recommendation is Volumio because it's being actively developed and frequently updated, is user friendly, has both ARM and PC versions supported and most important - it sounds really good.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

All UAC2 (plus older UAC1) compliant devices should work well, this should be vast majority of USB DAC's on the market.

There are bypass solutions in case DAC uses some proprietary USB communication and is not UAC2 compliant, or supported with own driver in popular Linux based audio solutions. Either through RPi+SPDIF HAT board, or through UAC2 compliant USB/SPDIF converter. A friend of mine uses modified RPI (he removed protection circuitry as it induces lot of noise, he said) with ULPS and Digi+ Pro modified (shortened rise time + ?) and he connects it to BADA Alpha DAC. Under Volumio. He claims it's a top notch player,

I hate Linux too. But there are audio taylored solutions like Volumio or Daphile are made for non Linux users, they're fairly simple to install and use, no any Linux knowledge required. My recommendation is Volumio because it's being actively developed and frequently updated, is user friendly, has both ARM and PC versions supported and most important - it sounds really good.

All of the "normal" music player apps and/or pulseaudio and/or Alsa have opportunities to downsample and otherwise totally screw up your music. With so many places for things to go wrong, I don't see any reason to waste time on Linux for audio or video ever. And this has been like this for a long time and is not getting any better.

I have proprietary drivers for all my DACs and they all show the correct bitrate and depth when used from foobar and Tidal on Windows. If I play the same files on Linux using mplayer, vlc, and a few others I have tried, some of the DACs play the music but don't show anything about the bitrate or depth and some of them show the music was downsampled. I'm not wasting any more time on this when music and video on Windows *just works*. So that's my advice to people unless they like hurting themselves.

 

[zalive]

You obviously used non-audiophile players within Linux.

I had experience so far with Audiophile (AP) Linux (both RT and normal kernel; funny I preferred normal kernel as it was harsher than RT kernel, though not as harsh as Windows lol, possibly Marko made things better in versions later than APL 2.0).
AP Linux used DeadBeeF and Audacious players. DeadBeeF is a pretty good player. Trouble with APL back then was stability, possibly this is much better in newer versions.

Then I had experience with Daphile. And latest, with Volumio (mostly on RPi). Both are really good. Both are operated headless and have their own players built within the system. Also, on DAC which shows sampling rate everything is shown as it should be.

As for wasting time with Linux, it's personal decision. There's possible time investment (with installations like Volumio time needed to set up everything is ridiculously low), but there's a prize, too. I myself, don't hear a reason why I would waste my time on Windows.

Which DACs do you use? Possibly Volumio already has built in drivers for some of them, if not all. Though if they're UAC2 fully compliant then a generic UAC2 driver is as good as any.

 

[bixby]

Used Mac OSX, Linux, and Win. Currently Win is best for me. Too many problems with Linux, lack of HW support, drivers not there, networking issues and SQ just ok even with the Audiophile players (I'm looking at you Deadbeef) and lite OS versions. OSX and Win do fine are easier to setup and work reliably aside for Win which can have deep settings effed up via a Win update.

I started this digital computer based playback journey in 2004, when I replaced my super expensive CD transport with a Macbook. Certainly Mac is the easiest to get started wtih, but Win can be quite easy with the relative ease of setting up now that many dac makers have great ASIO drivers and now that Win waspi supports usb 2 standards.

 

[dwinnert]

Unless you’re running very old hardware, the latency and resource issues you raise no longer apply and haven’t for quite a while. And if one really wants to avoid the Windows media stack, just use WASAPI. The fallacy that one operating system “sounds” better than another is not based on any objective data.

The lengths and expense some go through to buy optimization software, run Server OS to “not have unneeded processes”, or manually disable Services is technically unjustifiable. If you’re running Windows and think there are OS related issues, run Task Manager and/or Resource Monitor and see just how little CPU and disk activity audio playback actually generates. And how few resources Windows is consuming for other tasks.

Agree 100%......

 

[zalive]

Listening beats any superficial theory.

 

[bixby]

Agree 100%......

Disagree 100% Optimized OSX and Win systems to audible effect.

 

[dwinnert]

Disagree 100% Optimized OSX and Win systems to audible effect.

Nope

http://archimago.blogspot.com/2015/08/measurements-audiophile-sound-and.html#more