Let's Talk Computer Audio

[Johnny Vinyl]

Hi

Phelonious touches an important point CA is not that complicated and the differences between the "ways to skin" the proverbial cat do not produce grossly different outcomes the way changing tubes or cartridges do in the analog world... Iow the differences between foobar and media monkey or iTunes range from slim to non-existent

Ripping cd with dbpoweramp is uncomplicated and accurate... The best deal is to use an asynchronous USB to SPDIF converter and just play music from a PC or Mac to your dac ... simple and effective... Should not take 3 hours ...later after njoying the music one can delve in the arcana and ocd stuff we so enjoy..you know bit perfects hires etc

Granted, I don't have the most resolving gear, but I've tried many players through the years and could never tell a difference in sound quality (once it's set up properly) with CD's burned using any player.

Does anyone remember MusicMatch Jukebox? I loved that player and am still peeved that when Yahoo bought it they butchered it.

 

[JackD201]

Yeah but the cat I skinned is of noble breed and yours is an ordinary ally cat

Ouch! LOL!

Seriously Vincent, I just haven't been all too attentive although I should. At this point in time, I am still not as attuned to digital problems as I am with analog or acoustical ones. If I were to draw an analogy to wine, I'm at a point where I know what I like and what I don't like. I'm not yet at a point especially with computer audio, both software and hardware, of what exactly does what. I plan to immerse myself further but it will still requires some time and effort. I am simply not adept at the inner workings of todays machines.

Maybe it is still in it's toddler years. Things aren't quite plug and play yet and UI is a big deal for me especially since I seemed to have crossed that invisible boundary the last few years between instinctive understanding to now having to read every manual.

For the record, I do not think all players sound the same. I just don't know why.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Ouch! LOL!

Seriously Vincent, I just haven't been all too attentive although I should. At this point in time, I am still not as attuned to digital problems as I am with analog or acoustical ones. If I were to draw an analogy to wine, I'm at a point where I know what I like and what I don't like. I'm not yet at a point especially with computer audio, both software and hardware, of what exactly does what. I plan to immerse myself further but it will still requires some time and effort. I am simply not adept at the inner workings of todays machines.

Maybe it is still in it's toddler years. Things aren't quite plug and play yet and UI is a big deal for me especially since I seemed to have crossed that invisible boundary the last few years between instinctive understanding to now having to read every manual.

For the record, I do not think all players sound the same. I just don't know why.

For the record, I've A/B'd straight iTunes and Amarra (and Pure Audio), which was hailed as the audiophile breakthrough in CA, with my best recordings on multiple highly resolving headphone sets and they sounded exactly the same. I just don't know why. I take some comfort in the fact that no one else seems to know why either. I also take it as a sign. YMMV. Do they all sound the same? I couldn't say as I haven't heard them all.

Tim

 

[mep]

When I switched from MediaMonkey to FooBar, I thought I heard a difference and I preferred FooBar. Both are free programs so it wasn't like I had more money invested in one program than the other and needed to justify my purchase by assuming the more expensive product was the better. Could I be wrong and there is no difference to be heard? Absolutely. However, one thing that I'm quite sure of is that I much prefer listening to DSD files than RB or any of the other PCM high-rez formats including 24/192. Why? Because it sounds more like analog to me. I forget I'm even listening to digital when I'm playing back DSD files until I switch back to playing analog.

 

[jkeny]

For the record, I've A/B'd straight iTunes and Amarra (and Pure Audio), which was hailed as the audiophile breakthrough in CA, with my best recordings on multiple highly resolving headphone sets and they sounded exactly the same. I just don't know why. I take some comfort in the fact that no one else seems to know why either. I also take it as a sign. YMMV. Do they all sound the same? I couldn't say as I haven't heard them all.

Tim

A sign of what??

 

[Vincent Kars]

For the record, I do not think all players sound the same. I just don't know why.

Nobody knows why.
At face value, they are simply library managers.
You click a track, the media player invokes the right decoder and send the output to de audio device.

Maybe it has something to do with buffer management.
Can be done smooth or in a burst.
Maybe these bursts induce some jitter somewhere.

Never have seen measurements demonstrating the difference.

A bit more:
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?2703-Do-media-players-have-a-sound
http://thewelltemperedcomputer.com/Intro/SQ/MediaPlayer.htm

 

[JackD201]

For the record, I've A/B'd straight iTunes and Amarra (and Pure Audio), which was hailed as the audiophile breakthrough in CA, with my best recordings on multiple highly resolving headphone sets and they sounded exactly the same. I just don't know why. I take some comfort in the fact that no one else seems to know why either. I also take it as a sign. YMMV. Do they all sound the same? I couldn't say as I haven't heard them all.

Tim

I'll spare you the audiophile language Tim. iTunes does not sound better than PureMusic and Bitperfect in the three systems I've tried them on at home. I've literally got up from my chair to see why things sounded "not as good" to find that I had had Bitperfect disabled.

 

[astrotoy]

Hi Steve,
I'm on my way to London - actually waiting at the airport - for my annual month long sojourn. I am carrying with me a MacAir with Audirvana+ and a new $300 Meridian Explorer DAC and 4 portable Hard Drives with about 10TB of files. 1500 CDs in flac lossless ripped with dbpoweramp and, about 500 SACD's ripped to DSD by a PS3 which Audirvana and the Explorer change to 176/24 and 500 R2R tapes and 1200 LP's (including my entire collection of over 1000 Decca SXL titles) all ripped at 192/24. I can listen to them through my NuForce earbuds or my 25 year old Cambridge Audio suitcase system that I leave in London. The computer and Dac and headphones all fit in my cute little Apple Macair case. THe Hard Drives take up a little more room. A nice very portable system.

Larry

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I'll spare you the audiophile language Tim. iTunes does not sound better than PureMusic and Bitperfect in the three systems I've tried them on at home. I've literally got up from my chair to see why things sounded "not as good" to find that I had had Bitperfect disabled.

Good for you. Enjoy. I A/B'd between them blind and, while perfectly convinced I could hear a difference at times, could not accurately identify which was which with any consistency. Not a formal test. No margin for error calculated nor sampling rate reached. Proves nothing to anyone but me. But to me it says that any difference there - you know that difference that has never been measured and for which no one can come up with a reason? - is so insignificant that it doesn't matter. To me. Not playing redbook anyway. When you heard "not as good" you weren't listening to hi-res files by any chance?

Tim

 

[Steve Williams]

Hi Steve,
I'm on my way to London - actually waiting at the airport - for my annual month long sojourn. I am carrying with me a MacAir with Audirvana+ and a new $300 Meridian Explorer DAC and 4 portable Hard Drives with about 10TB of files. 1500 CDs in flac lossless ripped with dbpoweramp and, about 500 SACD's ripped to DSD by a PS3 which Audirvana and the Explorer change to 176/24 and 500 R2R tapes and 1200 LP's (including my entire collection of over 1000 Decca SXL titles) all ripped at 192/24. I can listen to them through my NuForce earbuds or my 25 year old Cambridge Audio suitcase system that I leave in London. The computer and Dac and headphones all fit in my cute little Apple Macair case. THe Hard Drives take up a little more room. A nice very portable system.

Larry

Larry

this truly makes you the poster boy for the virtues and convenience of computer audio.

 

[JackD201]

Good for you. Enjoy. I A/B'd between them blind and, while perfectly convinced I could hear a difference at times, could not accurately identify which was which with any consistency. Not a formal test. No margin for error calculated nor sampling rate reached. Proves nothing to anyone but me. But to me it says that any difference there - you know that difference that has never been measured and for which no one can come up with a reason? - is so insignificant that it doesn't matter. To me. Not playing redbook anyway. When you heard "not as good" you weren't listening to hi-res files by any chance?

Tim

With hi-rez files it is downright obvious. I'm pretty sure anybody could pass a double blind. iTunes' down conversion is, shall we say, leaving A LOT to be desired. Grrrrrrrrainy. Ugh.

The times I got up, I was playing regular iTunes or iTunes+ downloads. It's really perplexing why it is but what can I do?

I use a dedicated CD player for redbook so I haven't and probably won't even rip my CD collection. Only 700 CDs tops these days anyway and they are well organized. I've given away a lot of the impulse buys that I never listen to or no longer have any interest in listening to again. Not seriously anyway.

 

[microstrip]

For the record, I've A/B'd straight iTunes and Amarra (and Pure Audio), which was hailed as the audiophile breakthrough in CA, with my best recordings on multiple highly resolving headphone sets and they sounded exactly the same. I just don't know why. I take some comfort in the fact that no one else seems to know why either. I also take it as a sign. YMMV. Do they all sound the same? I couldn't say as I haven't heard them all.

Tim

Tim,

IMHO as long as people will carry their tests using headphones or near field listening they are of very limited value for audiophiles.

From F. Toole "Sound Reproduction"

(...) Now, stereophonic, or just stereo, is firmly entrenched as describing two-channel sound recording and reproduction. In its original incarnation, the intent was that stereo recording would be reproduced through two loudspeakers symmetrically arrayed in front of a single listener. Nowadays, stereo recordings are enjoyed by multitudes through headphones. What is heard, though, is not stereo; it is mostly inside the head spanning the distance between the ears, with the featured artist placed just behind and maybe slightly above the nose. There may be a kind of “halo” of ambience in some recordings. This is sound reproduction without standards, but the melodies, rhythms, and lyrics get through.


19.2.1 The Audibility of Resonances
Beyond that, we get into peaks and dips. Buchlein (1962) conducted one of the first investigations. His subjects listened through headphones (which, as noted in Chapter 9, is not the most revealing circumstance)

 

[amirm]

Tim,

IMHO as long as people will carry their tests using headphones or near field listening they are of very limited value for audiophiles.

From F. Toole "Sound Reproduction"

(...) Now, stereophonic, or just stereo, is firmly entrenched as describing two-channel sound recording and reproduction. In its original incarnation, the intent was that stereo recording would be reproduced through two loudspeakers symmetrically arrayed in front of a single listener. Nowadays, stereo recordings are enjoyed by multitudes through headphones. What is heard, though, is not stereo; it is mostly inside the head spanning the distance between the ears, with the featured artist placed just behind and maybe slightly above the nose. There may be a kind of “halo” of ambience in some recordings. This is sound reproduction without standards, but the melodies, rhythms, and lyrics get through.


19.2.1 The Audibility of Resonances
Beyond that, we get into peaks and dips. Buchlein (1962) conducted one of the first investigations. His subjects listened through headphones (which, as noted in Chapter 9, is not the most revealing circumstance)

For the purposes of detecting small differences a headphone is most certainly the right tool and one that is used massively in audio research. Dr. Toole's entire job and career is about speaker and room performance. In that regard, of course he will point out what we are missing when using headphones. No one for example will challenge the "in-head" reproduction we get with stereo headphones.

We can't take that concept and then say you can't use it to determine differences between say, low and high resolution audio. For one, we have to agree that such changes affect each channel independently. If so, then I should be able to listen to one channel alone and detect the difference. In that case then, the "in head" issue goes out the window since we are not talking about stereo imaging.

One of the things headphone does which speakers have a hard time doing is that it can provide isolation and ability to turn up the volume very high. Getting a room to be as quiet as a headphone will be hard if not impossible. And turning up the volume in a real speaker very high can lead to equipment limitations and or people around you complaining.

All of this said, sure, if the thing you are trying to determine has to do with interactions between channels and only those interactions, then speaker testing is important. Otherwise, and that certainly describes much of what is involved in testing different players, high-res audio, etc. all can be determined with headphones.

 

[rblnr]

Good for you. Enjoy. I A/B'd between them blind and, while perfectly convinced I could hear a difference at times, could not accurately identify which was which with any consistency. Not a formal test. No margin for error calculated nor sampling rate reached. Proves nothing to anyone but me. But to me it says that any difference there - you know that difference that has never been measured and for which no one can come up with a reason? - is so insignificant that it doesn't matter. To me. Not playing redbook anyway. When you heard "not as good" you weren't listening to hi-res files by any chance?

Tim

This is my experience w/redbook and hirez as well. Have used iTunes, Amarra, BitPerfect, Audionirvana, Squeezebox server and recently, JRiver for the Mac. While I enjoy the automatic sample rate switching that all but iTunes provide, I hear no difference between them and iTunes when it's set correctly. Not unlike with (competently designed) cables, I've come to tune out any review or opinion expressing clear cut improvements among these programs. If it's there, it's subtle to the point of irrelevance. Makes the decision around which to use about ergonomics, convenience and features above all, IMO. FWIW, Charles Hansen of Ayre whose QB-9 was one of the first USB DACs, and the designer of JRiver both see no difference sonically between iTunes and all the others. And according to Amir and others as well, there are so many variables inside each person's computer that differences among programs could well be case by case.

That said, I've failed miserably trying to talk a couple of people out of spending thousands on some customized audio server/computers, isolating platforms, etc.

 

[edorr]

This is my experience w/redbook and hirez as well. Have used iTunes, Amarra, BitPerfect, Audionirvana, Squeezebox server and recently, JRiver for the Mac. While I enjoy the automatic sample rate switching that all but iTunes provide, I hear no difference between them and iTunes when it's set correctly. Not unlike with (competently designed) cables, I've come to tune out any review or opinion expressing clear cut improvements among these programs. If it's there, it's subtle to the point of irrelevance. Makes the decision around which to use about ergonomics, convenience and features above all. FWIW, Charles Hansen of Ayre whose QB-9 was one of the first USB DACs, and the designer of JRiver both see no difference sonically between iTunes and all the others. And according to Amir and others as well, there are so many variables inside each person's computer that differences among programs could well be case by case.

That said, I've failed miserably trying to talk a couple of people out of spending thousands on some customized audio server/computers.

Wouldn't the merits of an expensive customized server be an entirely different proposition than choice of server software? The differences between servers are more analogous to differences in CD transports. If nothing makes a difference, we are back to the bits are bits school of though, which has long been discredited and dismissed....

 

[Julf]

Wouldn't the merits of an expensive customized server be an entirely different proposition than choice of server software? The differences between servers are more analogous to differences in CD transports. If nothing makes a difference, we are back to the bits are bits school of though, which has long been discredited and dismissed....

Discredited and dismissed by whom? By the "we don't believe any stinking engineers" cult of audiophile faith?

Bits are bits. As long as you get the bits to the DAC in time for when they are needed, it doesn't make any difference where they came from. The fact that many DACs use a PLL to pick up the bit clock can make them susceptible to jitter, but that has nothing to do with the data and where it came from.

 

[edorr]

Discredited and dismissed by whom? By the "we don't believe any stinking engineers" cult of audiophile faith?

Bits are bits. As long as you get the bits to the DAC in time for when they are needed, it doesn't make any difference where they came from. The fact that many DACs use a PLL to pick up the bit clock can make them susceptible to jitter, but that has nothing to do with the data and where it came from.

The bits are bits school of thought in its purest form asserted that difference in digital source components cannot account for any difference in sound quality, because all they do is feed the downstream electronics the exact same bits. Toslink, AES/EBU S/PDIF, HDMI should all sound the same as well.

So of course bits are bits - red herring. However, if the jitter and noise characteristics of how these bits are fed to the DAC, make a difference in SQ of what comes out of the DAC, servers do make a difference, which was my point.

 

[rbbert]

With hi-rez files it is downright obvious. I'm pretty sure anybody could pass a double blind. iTunes' down conversion is, shall we say, leaving A LOT to be desired....

Why are you downconverting in iTunes? If you're playing hires why not leave it in its native format?

 

[rblnr]

The bits are bits school of thought in its purest form asserted that difference in digital source components cannot account for any difference in sound quality, because all they do is feed the downstream electronics the exact same bits. Toslink, AES/EBU S/PDIF, HDMI should all sound the same as well.

So of course bits are bits - red herring. However, if the jitter and noise characteristics of how these bits are fed to the DAC, make a difference in SQ of what comes out of the DAC, servers do make a difference, which was my point.

I'm not sure that the bits are bits argument is so discredited either, which is part of why guys like Charles Hansen and Jim Hillegas of JRiver don't ascribe any difference to the software. As for hardware, if you're using an asynchronous DAC that's controlling the timing, does the computer hardware matter? And does the noise in, say, a Macbook have any bearing on the digital stream coming out of it? Don't know the answer to #2 other than in a couple of albeit brief comparos between a purpose designed audio server and a Macbook, I didn't hear the difference. Could be I need to spend more time comparing and/or try other systems, but my gut is that it falls into the 'too subtle to matter if it exists' category, so it's low on the to-do list. Happy to be wrong, but haven't heard it yet.

 

[rblnr]

Why are you downconverting in iTunes? If you're playing hires why not leave it in its native format?

Yep, that's the real pain of iTunes, it doesn't automatically switch sample rates. I've absolutely heard diminished quality when the rate is not set correctly in the Midi app.

As an aside, JRiver for Mac, while still in alpha or beta, has become very stable and is a much more comprehensive tool for audiophiles than iTunes.