Another playback software to argue over

NorthStar

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The developer is making code changes to gain an understanding of what relationships exist between coding technique and sound quality. It is an very interesting journey. This is not an unusual way to investigate and develop knowledge.

Having so very easily heard the differences between versions with defined coding differences it is very clear that the "bits are bits" argument is flawed.

Clive's two posts; above top quote is reply #19, and below is #24.
 

jkeny

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Groucho

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Another thread about the organic, malleable, analogue nature of digital data.

I have just release vx.6 which switches off the desktop window manager's use of MMCSS leading to a dramatic improvement in the amount of detail obtained and a fantastic 3d sound stage.

What is the budding engineer to make of this? On the one hand he reads the engineering literature that describes how the DAC/sound card's own crystal oscillator clocks the samples out at a fixed rate independent of the software. But then he reads that the unconnected things the CPU is doing are changing the "3D sound stage" to such an extent that it sounds "fantastic" compared to the garbage released by the manufacturers of the operating system or those audio workstations used by recording studios. In one moment, everything the engineer has ever learned is cast into doubt. Tears fill his eyes and he cries in frustration and humiliation. They lied! How could they have said those things with a straight face when inside they were laughing at him?
 

jkeny

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Another thread about the organic, malleable, analogue nature of digital data.

What is the budding engineer to make of this? On the one hand he reads the engineering literature that describes how the DAC/sound card's own crystal oscillator clocks the samples out at a fixed rate independent of the software. But then he reads that the unconnected things the CPU is doing are changing the "3D sound stage" to such an extent that it sounds "fantastic" compared to the garbage released by the manufacturers of the operating system or those audio workstations used by recording studios. In one moment, everything the engineer has ever learned is cast into doubt. Tears fill his eyes and he cries in frustration and humiliation. They lied! How could they have said those things with a straight face when inside they were laughing at him?

The smart budding engineer will realise that all he was taught in school may not be all there is to learn in the real world of electronics/computer science.
Your concerns for budding engineers are touching!
 

Julf

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What is the budding engineer to make of this? On the one hand he reads the engineering literature that describes how the DAC/sound card's own crystal oscillator clocks the samples out at a fixed rate independent of the software. But then he reads that the unconnected things the CPU is doing are changing the "3D sound stage" to such an extent that it sounds "fantastic" compared to the garbage released by the manufacturers of the operating system or those audio workstations used by recording studios. In one moment, everything the engineer has ever learned is cast into doubt. Tears fill his eyes and he cries in frustration and humiliation. They lied! How could they have said those things with a straight face when inside they were laughing at him?

Just another person saved from the soul-destroying prospect of a life as an engineer. Instead he becomes the flesh-and-blood equivalent of the Electric Monk, devoting his life to Sales and Marketing...
 

Julf

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The smart budding engineer will realise that all he was taught in school may not be all there is to learn in the real world of electronics/computer science.

Indeed. All you were thought in school and university was wrong. Just trust your inner feelings. Freak out, man!
 

Groucho

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The creator of MQN even gives us a snippet of his code.
loop1644:
WaitForSingleObject(hNeedDataEvent, INFINITE);
pAudioRenderClient->ReleaseBuffer(1024, 0);
pAudioRenderClient->GetBuffer(1024, &pData);
A_memcpy (pData, sound_buffer += 4096, 4096);
goto loop1644;

Do you know what I'd like to see? Before the main code he could put a loop that ran through the main sections several million times in order to burn in the instructions. When code is freshly installed it sometimes needs a bit of loosening up.
 

NorthStar

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Julf

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When code is freshly installed it sometimes needs a bit of loosening up.

True. First it sounds a bit tight. That of course depends on if you loaded your Windows installation from CD's or DVD's.
 

Groucho

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True. First it sounds a bit tight. That of course depends on if you loaded your Windows installation from CD's or DVD's.
I prefer reel to reel.
 

jkeny

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Clive

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It seems I ought to describe something of what I hear with MQn. My system comprises a couple of good turntables as well has my CA setup. The introduction of MQn has brought redbook playback to be very comparable to my two turntables. Where the turntables won out in the past was timing/rhythm, tonal richness, depth of soundstage and the freeing of certain instruments from the speakers. The MQn versions (there are so many in total) that work well do all the things that I felt my records decks did better than my previous CA playback software. There have been versions of MQn with poor vocal focus, thin sound, lightweight bass or harsh treble, this for me shows how important it has been for the developer to make these experiments, I believe some of the changes are relatively minor but the audible effects are very clear to hear. Bear in mind that MQn is a very lightweight piece of software, it doesn't need a highly tuned machine though tuning seems to bring some benefits. The journey over the last few weeks has been most illuminating.
 

Jaguar

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I will try it if I can, but it'll probably be around January before I have time. I did try another GUI-less player a while back, to see if an extremely light player could yield better sound. I found that Foobar still sounded better. I was using ASIO4All in Foobar, which sounds better than most drivers and the new player was using WASAPI. I don't believe a player without a GUI is likely to sound much better than Foobar just because of that, since the GUI isn't doing anything but taking up a few hundred K of memory. Also, I find a player without a GUI to be rather worthless from a practical standpoint for people who enjoy listening to music.

However, I will say that passing judgement without using one's ears to do so is a waste of everyone's time. There are plenty of smart people on here, but I haven't come across any who have a complete understanding of the inner-workings of the universe, so who's to say how it sounds regardless of which methods, protocols, measurements, etc, are involved and why does it make any difference if all I need to do is listen to it to make up my mind?
 

jkeny

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I will try it if I can, but it'll probably be around January before I have time. I did try another GUI-less player a while back, to see if an extremely light player could yield better sound. I found that Foobar still sounded better. I was using ASIO4All in Foobar, which sounds better than most drivers and the new player was using WASAPI. I don't believe a player without a GUI is likely to sound much better than Foobar just because of that, since the GUI isn't doing anything but taking up a few hundred K of memory. Also, I find a player without a GUI to be rather worthless from a practical standpoint for people who enjoy listening to music.

However, I will say that passing judgement without using one's ears to do so is a waste of everyone's time. There are plenty of smart people on here, but I haven't come across any who have a complete understanding of the inner-workings of the universe, so who's to say how it sounds regardless of which methods, protocols, measurements, etc, are involved and why does it make any difference if all I need to do is listen to it to make up my mind?

That's the spirit - too many people dismiss things before trying them
Just to clarify - it's free software which is investigating any correlation between coding Vs audibility - so the lack of GUI is not important to the developer.

BTW, Audioarcher has just tried it & he may post something here?
 

Julf

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Just to clarify - it's free software which is investigating any correlation between coding Vs audibility

Just to clarify - it is "free" as in "free beer" - you don't have to pay for it. It is not free as in "free speech" or open software (as defined in the Free Software Foundation criteria "The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish"), but proprietary - the inner workings are hidden and secret.

If the purpose is to investigate, I would have expected opening up the investigation to peer review, and having at least some way of doing regression testing and quantifying the effects of the code changes.
 

jkeny

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Just to clarify - it is "free" as in "free beer" - you don't have to pay for it. It is not free as in "free speech" or open software (as defined in the Free Software Foundation criteria "The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish"), but proprietary - the inner workings are hidden and secret.

If the purpose is to investigate, I would have expected opening up the investigation to peer review, and having at least some way of doing regression testing and quantifying the effects of the code changes.
You are free to make up your own mind (before even trying it)
You are also free to do your own software, quantify the effects of code changes & do regression testing, yourself.
You are free to ask the developer what code changes have been made between version A & B - versions that you can hear an audible difference between. But of course this would be difficult if you never listen to ANY version.
 

jkeny

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audioarcher

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That's the spirit - too many people dismiss things before trying them
Just to clarify - it's free software which is investigating any correlation between coding Vs audibility - so the lack of GUI is not important to the developer.

BTW, Audioarcher has just tried it & he may post something here?

I have just got it working last night. My initial thoughts on MQN vs Jriver. MQN sounds slightly softer and rounder than Jriver to me. It's not a big difference. This can be appealing depending on the music and /or system. I'm not sure which is more accurate but suspect Jriver may be. I'm not sure which version of MQN I am using but the skip track commands do not work for some reason. They just stop the music requiring the program to be restarted to play music again.
 

jkeny

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I have just got it working last night. My initial thoughts on MQN vs Jriver. MQN sounds slightly softer and rounder than Jriver to me. It's not a big difference. This can be appealing depending on the music and /or system. I'm not sure which is more accurate but suspect Jriver may be. I'm not sure which version of MQN I am using but the skip track commands do not work for some reason. They just stop the music requiring the program to be restarted to play music again.
Ah, you're using the old version - there's no skip track in the new version & the sound has changed significantly also.
Replace all your files with the ones from the dropbox link I just posted.

You can also get the very latest MQNplay (2.65 SSE4 Intel V3) from here
Haven't listened to it yet but said to sound great
 

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