DVD transport better than hard-disk playback ???

[Kiep]

I wanted to try and see how different my PC hard-disk playback is compared to a Panny RP91 dvd player used as a transport.I ripped some music using EAC to uncompressed .wav on my hard disk and setup the following:

1.PC: latest Foobar2000 -> EMU 0404 -> Benchmark DAC1 -> Sennh 650
2.Panasonic DVD RP91 ---------------^

Well, the results were rather surprising. Panny as transport sounded little smoother with better vocal presence while the PC setup although very similar was a bit grainy and even SRC upsampler didn't help that much.

Any idea what may be going on? This certainly shatters my preconceptions about perfect timing in PC playback.

 

[gongos]

There must be something wrong with your PC setup. Based on my experience, there's no way a Panasonic DVD player should even come close to good PC playback. I've used an Empirical Audio Off-Ramp with a Modwright modified Channel Islands VDA, uncompressed files, and foobar. I did a direct a/b comparison with the same DAC paired with a Sony 7700 DVD transport. The PC audio playback absolutely blew away the CD based system.

 

[Glassman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kiep I wanted to try and see how different my PC hard-disk playback is compared to a Panny RP91 dvd player used as a transport.I ripped some music using EAC to my hard disk and setup the following: 1.PC: latest Foobar2000 -> EMU 0404 -> Benchmark DAC1 -> Sennh 650 2.Panasonic DVD RP91 ---------------^ Well, the results were rather surprising. Panny as transport sounded little smoother with better vocal presence while the PC setup although very similar was a bit grainy and even SRC upsampler didn't help that much. Any idea what may be going on? This certainly shatters my preconceptions about perfect timing in PC playback.

no reason why timing should be better in PC based system.. you probably misunderstand the concept.. it's the soundcard's s/pdif output circuitry and clock that matters, not the fact that you read the data off a hard disk.. it's quite possible that there was something wrong though.. the best way to check for errors is doing digital loopback and comparing played file to the recorded, they have to be bit perfect copies, if they aren't, you have some problem there, possible latency.. try it..

 

[]|[ GorE]

Being a BE in Computers i can go into deep detail but i dont want to and neither do i have the time/patience to tell you why the hard disk playback cant be worse.

 

[jefemeister]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ]|[ GorE Being a BE in Computers i can go into deep detail but i dont want to and neither do i have the time/patience to tell you why the hard disk playback cant be worse.

then why bother with a response at all?

 

[Solude]

Gore must be a recent grad

The harddrive isn't the transport any more than the CD is. Both are discs, the transport is the mechanism that gets the stream to the DAC. Can a DVD player be a better transport? Of course.

Can the PC transport be as good? Yes if its transport includes a clean power supply, a bit perfect sound card and the use of a toslink cable. Don't have those and your DVD player will be a better transport almost everytime.

 

[]|[ GorE]

Yeah i a month old grad.Very nice reply Solude !

 

[Kiep]

[Can the PC transport be as good? Yes if its transport includes a clean power supply, a bit perfect sound card and the use of a toslink cable. Don't have those and your DVD player will be a better transport almost everytime.[/QUOTE]

I assume the EMU 0404 is bit perfect. I am using toslink. Why would a power supply matter for digital output?

I am using Foobar in Kernel Streaming mode and have also tried the Direct 2.0 - they sound the same. I have no DSP on it, not even a volume control.

What can cause graininess in a all digital system? It seems to me this is a jitter/timing issue.

 

[Kurt]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kiep What can cause graininess in a all digital system? It seems to me this is a jitter/timing issue.

http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/showp...25&postcount=2

http://www.geocities.com/phileosopho...cilatency.html

 

[Kiep]

Thanks Kurt. Interesting reading but I don't experience any stuttering in playback at all so I am not sure if PowerBar would help in this case.

One thing I have noticed yesterday is that switching Foobar2000 to 16-bit output made a positive change when playing 44.1 files which makes sense although EMU panel indicates 32-bit native operation

I verified last night that my DVD player outputs 44.1 on redbook and correct sampling rate on my hi-rez DVDR. Both sound really good fed into the optical spdif on EMU. Hard-disk playback is good too but not really any better.
I have Foobar set to Kernel Streaming.
EMU session is set to send Wave out to ASIO out.

I see a lot of post regarding issues with Kmixer latency but from the reading I found here http://www.osronline.com/ddkx/stream...esign_3cx3.htm
I think Direct Sound and Kernel streaming take care of the issue.

I am not sure if there is anything else I can try. Maybe a different sound card? But how different can a spdif out be on say EMU 1212 as compared to 0404?
I am starting to think my DVD used as transport just as good as hard-disk. With my engineering background I really hoped that the truly bit-perfect copies on hd would sound better but in the whole chain of things I have here - they don't. I hope someone can prove me wrong

 

[lan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kiep One thing I have noticed yesterday is that switching Foobar2000 to 16-bit output made a positive change when playing 44.1 files which makes sense although EMU panel indicates 32-bit native operation I have Foobar set to Kernel Streaming. EMU session is set to send Wave out to ASIO out.

Result may always vary. There's no universal rule saying harddrive playback is always better. BUT your emu setup looks strange to me.

16bit output vs. 24 shouldn't make a difference if you do no processing on CD files. If you do something, 24 should be better. For example

11.0000 is no different than 11.000000
10.9876 is worst than 10.987654

Emu session with waveout to asio out makes no sense. If you want to use ASIO, set foobar to use ASIO, then on that ASIO strip add a send to the digital output.

 

[Solude]

Like Lan says clean up your playback to start. Restore Foobar to defaults, remove all DSP functions, no upsampling... then set PatchMix to Minimum -10 or +4 and insert a SEND. Or skip learning to optimise Foobar and use WMP

But the real advantage of using your harddrive is convenience. There is no reason your DVD player, which was designed to do 1 thing well, should sound worse. That and the DAC1 is kind of its own jitter reducing, reorging box so jitter is much less noticable. I think the differences you are hearing is the 'software' dsp functions you have going. Between upsampling, attenuation, crosspatching and anything else you have going before the stream leaves the PC should absolutely sound worse

Now with a clean flow and capable hardware the convenience of having all your music at a click is certainly worthwhile. But frankly if I didn't do all my music listening at my PC an external transport would be a better choice.

 

[Kiep]

Ian: yes, the waveOut to ASIO in EMU MixPatch seems a little strange but I thought since I set Foobar to Kernel Streaming or Direct SOund 2.0 it wouldn't matter . I will try to install ASIO for Foorbar and make EMU session which monitors this ASIO and sends it out to spdif out. We'll see what happens.

I know that with 44.1 material the 16-bit -> 24 or 32 should make no difference but it does, very slightly but there is a change. Vocal in 16-bit is a bit more upfront, with almost to grain. I mean we are talking tiny differences here but they are audible.

Solude: I have zero DSP in Foobar for 44.1 files.

Would a different optical cable be worth trying in this excercise?

 

[mulveling]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kiep I wanted to try and see how different my PC hard-disk playback is compared to a Panny RP91 dvd player used as a transport.I ripped some music using EAC to my hard disk and setup the following: 1.PC: latest Foobar2000 -> EMU 0404 -> Benchmark DAC1 -> Sennh 650 2.Panasonic DVD RP91 ---------------^ Well, the results were rather surprising. Panny as transport sounded little smoother with better vocal presence while the PC setup although very similar was a bit grainy and even SRC upsampler didn't help that much. Any idea what may be going on? This certainly shatters my preconceptions about perfect timing in PC playback.

The rp91 is a good unit, considering the price they go for used. As mentioned before, it's entirely possible that the spdif circuitry is better in the panny than your emu/PC setup. Give the analog outputs on the rp91 a try sometime, too. I doubt it will beat the DAC1, but it would be interesting to compare to the Emu's analog - I easily preferred the rp91 to the RME PAD. I think it makes a very good budget CD player.

 

[Kiep]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mulveling The rp91 is a good unit, considering the price they go for used. As mentioned before, it's entirely possible that the spdif circuitry is better in the panny than your emu/PC setup. Give the analog outputs on the rp91 a try sometime, too. I doubt it will beat the DAC1, but it would be interesting to compare to the Emu's analog - I easily preferred the rp91 to the RME PAD. I think it makes a very good budget CD player.

The Panny RP91 is indeed a very good DVD-A player, it replaced the famous Technics DVD-A10 after H1000 and H2000 were also discontinued.

I am very familiar with its analog outputs which are good sounding and one can clearly hear benefits of hi-rez DVDR. Benchmark is definetely an improvement especially in bass region and size of the soundstage. I will try to compare it to some good redbook players if I get a chance.

In a mean time I may try EMU 1212 or Audiophile 192 this weekend.