[Patrick82]

I have dual boot on my undervolted Asrock nettop 330. I booted into Ubuntu (Linux) and listened to a track, then I booted into WinXP and closed all programs on task bar, then I started up cPlay and put only one track into the playlist, I have enabled "advanced ram allocation" which should give better sound. I also turn off my display before I listen.

There is clearly a difference in brightness and resolution. This is due to lower power consumption of the Ubuntu OS. The difference is about as big as FLAC vs WAV playback (1% CPU draw).

Ubuntu sounded very smooth with more low-level detail, WinXP sounded bright and edgy, I ended up covering my ears with my hands. The difference is so big that I need to restart my computer and boot into Ubuntu whenever I listen to music.

I'm using EMU0404 USB and Adam A7 studio monitors.

 

[aristos_achaion]

I suppose, then, why not just use Ubuntu all the time and save yourself the hassle?

 

[krmathis]

Yeah, seems like you have found another improvement (to your ears). So stick with Ubuntu...

 

[Patrick82]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aristos_achaion /img/forum/go_quote.gif I suppose, then, why not just use Ubuntu all the time and save yourself the hassle?

When I watch movies in Ubuntu I get a horizontal line running across the screen. I don't get this with WinXP. Any ideas how to fix this? The Asrock nettop 330 has Nvidia graphics card.

 

[bcpk]

Install Gentoo.

 

[Bredin]

I think you don't have the proper video drivers installed. But in XP, did you "bypass" the kmixer as it will resample the music to 48Khz? Also, did you run the application in "realtime" priority, that should make the processor-load impact go away.

Also, do you run your system on really clean power?

 

[userlander]

what video player? try changing players or take a look in the settings and see what video driver your current player is using.

 

[b0dhi]

Try rotating your computer so it's parrallel with the lines of magnetic moment at your current location. Make sure you rotate COUNTER-CLOCKWISE or you computer, as you rotate it, will become degaussed and you'll need to rotate it back 720degrees to fix it.

 

[Patrick82]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bcpk /img/forum/go_quote.gif Install Gentoo.

That's great advice. I can choose which packages I can install and get less power consumption of the OS correct?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bredin /img/forum/go_quote.gif I think you don't have the proper video drivers installed.

I installed the newest nvidia drivers and have this problem.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bredin /img/forum/go_quote.gif But in XP, did you "bypass" the kmixer as it will resample the music to 48Khz?

Do you mean Kernel Streaming or ASIO? Without them I get lot of muddiness in the music.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bredin /img/forum/go_quote.gif Also, did you run the application in "realtime" priority, that should make the processor-load impact go away.

Do you mean in Windows Task Manager I need to set the priority to "Realtime" for the music program? I tried it with Foobar and it still shows the same 1% CPU for FLAC playback. I'm confused.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bredin /img/forum/go_quote.gif Also, do you run your system on really clean power?

I have tried 5 power plants and 2 power conditioners. They hurt the sound because they are running on AC and the power conditioners themselves dump noise into the system. I have found that power conditioners which don't need power to run are the best. I use RTP-4 Ultimate power strip and Judge power cable, they don't hurt the sound, they just improve it by using vibration dampening.

I compared RTP-4 + Judge against laptop battery and they were better. But the power plants and power conditioners were worse than battery, then I added 3 daisy chained Genesis power cables and it got equal to battery power, it was no good bang for buck. Then I sold everything and bought a Judge power cable and it was crazy bang for buck!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by userlander /img/forum/go_quote.gif what video player? try changing players or take a look in the settings and see what video driver your current player is using.

I tried all players and had the same problem.

 

[userlander]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrick82 /img/forum/go_quote.gif That's great advice. I can choose which packages I can install and get less power consumption of the OS correct? ... I tried all players and had the same problem.

What video driver were they using?

You'd probably be better of with arch than gentoo. gentoo takes significantly longer to install, set up, and maintain than arch, which is one of the easiest distros to maintain. It's also extremely fast and tends to be very stable with current packages.

 

[userlander]

duplicate

 

[Bredin]

What about a newer version of windows, or does the wasapi-layer not sound as good as the kernel streamer?

I can also recommend Arch, it's simple, minimal, gives you good control.

 

[bcpk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrick82 /img/forum/go_quote.gif That's great advice. I can choose which packages I can install and get less power consumption of the OS correct?

Exactly, it is the most efficient method.

 

[Bredin]

So how is it going? I've found my nirvana using a battery-powered dac&headphone-amplifier feeding it via foobar in vista, with a setup that reads the whole track into the memory and then play it back bit-perfect. You say that you can hear a difference between the cpu-loads, but would you actually hear it in a A/B test. Think on it, a 2Ghz core 2 duo can output like 4.000.000.000(?) operations every second. The difference in between 0,5% cpu-load or 1% may result in jitter that effects the sound like 0.000000006%. I know that you are serious about what you are doing, but moving the head 1mm forwards would probably make a bigger difference. Placebo is a bitch, don't go forward until you are sure that you can beat it like a trucker would!

 

[Patrick82]

After I wrapped my system with ERS Paper everything became more revealing and I scored 100% on the FLAC vs WAV blind test. I only did 2 trials and it didn't feel like I needed to continued because the difference was so obvious. I have done many blind tests which were more subtle.

Volume test: < 0.3 dB
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f7/car...d-test-183266/: 99.99%

Someone else changed the power cables for me and I could hear that it wasn't plugged in deep enough. It didn't sound like any of the cables I heard before when I did A/B-testing. This blind test shows that my tests are not lucky guesses since my answer was something else than the options I had.

+ YouTube Video​

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