[hulja]

Hi, i don't know where else to put my question. I am using foobar2k with WASAPI enabled, ALAC's and I am using Fiio e07k and Grado sr325is. I also use Akg k450. Yesterday I noticed kind of rattling,cracking sound coming when playing deep bass songs. First I have feared it was grattle, but plugging AKG's and IEM's delivered same result. It was also present without Fiio, and not present if I connected headphones to iPhone. It is the same file that I have on pc. Now, I tested it on iTunes and it did that again so sorry if question is missplaced. It is masked more when all frequencies are engaged thus it can be heard more at more quite, but bass heavy parts, like the beggings of songs. Music is dl-ed from bandcamp directly as ALAC. Also not every song with deep bass produce the noise. It's driving me nutts! I just can't get around it! Please help.

 

[dakanao]

Does anybody know where I can get a skin that looks kind of like Windows Media Player 12? I did my research, but couldn't find anything working.

 

[ejong7]

hey guys I'm new to foobar and i was just wondering does the iPod Manager automatically converts FLAC into ALAC when set to convert to playable format? Or does it convert to AAC?

 

[HPiper]

When ripping a cd to flac file, it doesn't display any album/track information. is there something I need to enable or change to get it to do that?

 

[xnor]

Right click album - tagging - get tags from freedb.
 
There's also a plugin for musicbrainz which I prefer (link).

 

[akinari-kun]

Digital volume control: 

Due to my studio monitors having the volume knobs on the rear of each unit, I must use digital volume attenuation as adjusting my monitor volume would be extremely inconvenient requiring me to rotate each speaker around to adjust the volume.

Is it best to keep:

Windows volume 100% and adjust foobar volume?

Or

foobar volume 100% and adjust Windows volume?

Which option would lead to the least bit degradation, assuming that this bit degradation is actually perceivable when playing 16 bit 320kbps mp3 files or FLAC or 16 bit CDs (which probably isn't perceivable anyway)?

I'm running an Auzentech X-Meridian 7.1 2G which is giving me insane distortion when Windows volume is anything more than 60% (tried pretty much anything and everything to diagnose, concluded with a bad cap slowly degrading) which will soon be swapped out for an ODAC or Modi on Windows 7.

I just want to know if there's a right or wrong way, or a more preferable or correct way to adjust digital volume given that Windows and foobar both have volume adjustment.

 

[xnor]

Once you have an interface or DAC that doesn't distort near 100% I'd set the monitor knobs a bit above what is a comfortable level for you and control the system volume.
 
foobar2000 vs. windows volume control: it doesn't matter if the DAC doesn't have a digitally controlled analoge volume control, which ODAC/Modi don't have afaik. Else I'd prefer the system volume control.

 

[akinari-kun]

Ah, I see then. I'm just wondering if lowering Windows volume or lowering foobar volume instead, one or the other would allow for a lower noise floor.

 

[xnor]

I see no reason why they should not be equal with the DACs above.

 

[akinari-kun]

I think I may have been misunderstood. What I meant was, since my DAC does not have volume control built in, is it better to lower volume with the Windows volume in the lower right corner of the screen in the taskbar, or lower the volume through my audio player volume slider in foobar to preserve the best quality, if it makes a difference at all? 

 

[xnor]

I don't see any difference in that case.

 

[Tilpo]

Do whatever you find most convenient. I'd be surprised differences are anything close to audible.

 

[OiCU812]

Have an older computer running on xp, installed ASIO and ASIO4all v2, I 'think' it's bypassing the extra processing. It does show asio4all under device and the green box on the taskbar. How can I check to be certain?

Have a newer computer running windows8. Have installed WASAPI, it shows in the installed components window, even checked the components folder, it's there but under playback>outputs>device>it's not there. Computer volume and sounds play through the external dac which also indicates no wasapi? Where am I going wrong???

This would be feeding a modi and/or by later next week an aune x1 through usb.

 

[imeem]

what's the point of up-sampling if it does not improve audio quality? 

 

[xnor]

Upsampling may be used in audio-plugins that do signal processing, especially those with nonlinear effects like compression. Some do a bad job at it, so you can upsampling before, then let the plugin process the higher rate signal, then downsample again.
 
It can also be used to kinda "bypass" the filter in your DAC or raise the sampling rate to a frequency where the DAC performs a bit better. Both gains are small but measurable.
Resampling to a fixed sampling rate can be used to change the rate of a file to a rate your DAC likes (for example some tracks have 32 kHz but many DACs only support 44.1 kHz and up) or to bypass the Windows audio engine's resampler.