[Pondoro]

I am taking signal out of my Windows 10 PC via USB into a Schiit Modi DAC. The DAC then feeds powered speakers. Sources are actual physical CD's and ripped CD's. Do the various different music players change the quality of sound delivered out the DAC? That is, do any use different methods of reading the source file and delivering it out the USB?

I'm not a "last 1/2 percent" audiophile but since most audio players are free or nearly free I might as well use the best one. I do not need a lot of features. I generally listen to one song or an entire CD. I don't need complicated playlist or DJ capability.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

foobar2000 is bit perfect with ASIO or WASAPI devices and so is probably everything else. Of the ones I tried it is my preference.

 

[sajunky]

+1000

Q1. Yes. On most players you need to do some work to get perfect playback.
Q2. Reading not really matters, it only matters if OS is overloaded or poorly configured. On the plain installation default reading should work fine. Delivering yes. It is the main work you have to do. See this tutorial.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

We can only grimace at the prospect of the next 600 pages of posts with claims that this or that bitperfect player sounds better or worse

 

[manueljenkin]

I am taking signal out of my Windows 10 PC via USB into a Schiit Modi DAC. The DAC then feeds powered speakers. Sources are actual physical CD's and ripped CD's. Do the various different music players change the quality of sound delivered out the DAC? That is, do any use different methods of reading the source file and delivering it out the USB?

I'm not a "last 1/2 percent" audiophile but since most audio players are free or nearly free I might as well use the best one. I do not need a lot of features. I generally listen to one song or an entire CD. I don't need complicated playlist or DJ capability.

Try PlayPCMwin. Another nice option is musicbee.

Each access has a noise associated with it and reducing the number of access during playback generally has a positive impact on sound quality.

I made this thread a while back. You could find a little more than 20 music player choices to choose from in this list, most of them free (ulilith, winyl, aimp, etc) : https://www.head-fi.org/threads/my-experience-with-different-music-players.923248/page-9

The sound output is system specific so you may experience sound different from what I hear in my system (system dependent).

 

[acguitar84]

I'm using JRiver 27 right now, but Musicbee is a very nice free choice. With Musicbee - you can find it on the Windows 10 app store, so when there's updates, you'd get them no problem. I've also used winamp for many years, but it doesn't receive updates anymore afaik.

 

[shaitan667]

Try PlayPCMwin. Another nice option is musicbee.

Each access has a noise associated with it and reducing the number of access during playback generally has a positive impact on sound quality.

I made this thread a while back. You could find a little more than 20 music player choices to choose from in this list, most of them free (ulilith, winyl, aimp, etc) : https://www.head-fi.org/threads/my-experience-with-different-music-players.923248/page-9

The sound output is system specific so you may experience sound different from what I hear in my system (system dependent).

What do you mean by "Each access has a noise associated with it and reducing the number of access during playback generally has a positive impact on sound quality."?

Sure if you, if you have a silent PC but still have an HDD installed, then maybe you might hear the mechanical movements of the HDD.

If you're using some poor quality components and are getting EMI noise or whatever, then the music player ain't gonna make much difference.

 

[redrol]

He means his PC makes electrical noise when he accesses his hard drive.

 

[Pondoro]

He means his PC makes electrical noise when he accesses his hard drive.

So this is an important point. If true (I am not arguing, it makes a lot of sense) then software design can reduce noise by reducing the number of operations that cause (electrical) noise. Two points:
1) If you use a shielded sound card or an off-the-computer DAC that reduces the sensitivity to noise. So better shielded or isolated components are not helped as much as poorly shielded components.
2) Electrical noise can move along cables as well as through the air.

I will point out that the components in submarines are designed to be very quiet. But the "software" (rules and operating procedures) teach the humans to avoid noisy operations at critical times. So when noise is crucial you take extra precautions, no matter how good your components are.

Says the guy with a $99 DAC. But in a world of free music players you might as well use the quietest one.

 

[redrol]

So this is an important point. If true (I am not arguing, it makes a lot of sense) then software design can reduce noise by reducing the number of operations that cause (electrical) noise. Two points:
1) If you use a shielded sound card or an off-the-computer DAC that reduces the sensitivity to noise. So better shielded or isolated components are not helped as much as poorly shielded components.
2) Electrical noise can move along cables as well as through the air.

I will point out that the components in submarines are designed to be very quiet. But the "software" (rules and operating procedures) teach the humans to avoid noisy operations at critical times. So when noise is crucial you take extra precautions, no matter how good your components are.

Says the guy with a $99 DAC. But in a world of free music players you might as well use the quietest one.

This is specific to this guys computer. Not every computer does this, nor does every computer use a spinning hard drive. Not only that, there are different ways to access said hard drive/ssd, we have IDE, SATA, and direct connected PCIe (NVMe). This is a classic ground loop situation that many people have had to deal with including myself.

This entire line of reasoning is flawed. Reading an entire file into RAM is trivial for any modern system.

 

[manueljenkin]

So this is an important point. If true (I am not arguing, it makes a lot of sense) then software design can reduce noise by reducing the number of operations that cause (electrical) noise. Two points:
1) If you use a shielded sound card or an off-the-computer DAC that reduces the sensitivity to noise. So better shielded or isolated components are not helped as much as poorly shielded components.
2) Electrical noise can move along cables as well as through the air.

I will point out that the components in submarines are designed to be very quiet. But the "software" (rules and operating procedures) teach the humans to avoid noisy operations at critical times. So when noise is crucial you take extra precautions, no matter how good your components are.

Says the guy with a $99 DAC. But in a world of free music players you might as well use the quietest one.

It's free and easy to use. Just give PlayPCMwin a try and judge for yourself. Fyi PlayPCMwin is not the quietest.

If you were impressed, I'd recommend setting up daphile or wtfplay (both are Linux distros with very minimal activity) which are also free and sound great.

Note: If you encounter 8khz tizz from PlayPCMwin, try lowering the priority in its settings (high priority in certain systems causes this).

1. Yes. But like nothing is guaranteed 100% isolated. You can use optical isolators but they may have bandwidth limitations, and the fast ones may need enough backend support that will push back the noise you worked hard to eliminate. Also jitter.

2. Yes they do. Better usb cable design helps, and you can think about it if you actually hear changes with the players mentioned above. Imo, in my experience music player swap improved the sq much more than cable swap. Ymmv. Regarding em waves in air, well it's true and that's why significant effort goes into shielding, especially the components that are very sensitive to it. Again you could go down the deeper end of this, I haven't yet . Note: EM waves in real world aren't a very trivial concept

Interesting to know this information about submarines too. Thank you and happy listening!

 

[manueljenkin]

This is specific to this guys computer. Not every computer does this, nor does every computer use a spinning hard drive. Not only that, there are different ways to access said hard drive/ssd, we have IDE, SATA, and direct connected PCIe (NVMe). This is a classic ground loop situation that many people have had to deal with including myself.

This entire line of reasoning is flawed. Reading an entire file into RAM is trivial for any modern system.

Not sure how you happen to assume the system I use and that it has spinning drives. It doesn't.

 

[redrol]

what kind of computer is it then? specs?

 

[sajunky]

what kind of computer is it then? specs?

Don't bother. Read first replies to this thread, make your own judgement. If you doubt, make your own test system, take data stream from S/PDIF output and feed it into a suitable sound card with S/PDIF input. Capture data stream and compare it bit-by-bit with the original. If doesn't compare, then your player is cheating on you, or there are dropped frames during transmission. Stereophile made such tests, it is easy to detect dropped frames as opposed to pre-processing on the player.

 

[Pondoro]

what kind of computer is it then? specs?

I have two systems that I use for music. One is an HP with an AMD Ryzen 3.5 GHz Quad core processor and 16 G RAM. It drives a Schiit Modi DAC into Klipsch powered speakers (R-51PM's). The other is a Dell with an Intel i5-9500 3.0 GHz 6 core processor and 32 G Ram. It has an ASUS XONAR SE soundcard with digital out, it drives a Yamaha 70 watt amp and Klipsch Heresy speakers. I have Windows Media Player and FUBAR and a few other media players right now. I play actual CD's, ripped FLACs and some mp3's.