Software media players tricks and tips

[Gordon Steadman]

You can get a a worthwhile improvement converting your Flacs to uncompressed format, noticable particulalrly if running Jriver.
JRiver 18 is the most transparent, most "audiophile" player out there imo and shows up any changes you make quite easily.
I tried Jplay, Cplay, XXHighEnd and...naa.

Using Jrivers inbuilt tools try converting a Flac album to Aiff.
Not Wav though, doesn't sound as good...
Apple do the whole audio thing a bit better than Microsoft.
(Aiff is Apple's version of a Wav file)

Yup, I know Flac is lossless and theres checksums and all that good stuff to ensure the original signal is outputted, but its the extra CPU load when uncompressing Flac back to PCM than can have an impact.
I've found that even with a powerful PC where you'd think this kind of thing would not matter it does.
In my experience with computer audio, getting the software right can make as much difference as changes in hardware.
Tweaked a mates server recently and the difference was quite a omg moment.
His speakers are doing bass like they shouldn't, just because of software.

Try converting a couple of favourite albums to Aiff in Jriver. It might surprise you.
I heard it for myself in my system, enough so that I converted 5000+ abums to Aiff. A major PITA but worth it.
Had to buy an extra 2TB drive mind you, but not that expensive in the scheme of things.

try it for yourself though..its worth doing and it's free.

For us Mac fans, would it be the suggestion that converting all our Lossless files back to AIFF would show some advantage??? Seems illogical but I'll try anything once!!

[Gordon Steadman]

Well, I tried it and I can't say I noticed any difference. Maybe when I get my new DAC!!

It did increase the size from 30mB to 50mB (short song) which surprised me as I can't see how it can create any information that isn't there. I guess, basically, I just don't understand the technical stuff.

I just lurve the music.

[Andrei]

Yup, I know Flac is lossless and theres checksums and all that good stuff to ensure the original signal is outputted, but its the extra CPU load when uncompressing Flac back to PCM than can have an impact.
I've found that even with a powerful PC where you'd think this kind of thing would not matter it does.

My experience is the opposite. The 'extra load' is fairly trivial. Try using Task Manager in Windows and go the processes tab. Foobar shows 0% process being used when playing Flac. Of course it is not 0% because it is rounded to the nearest percent. So it will use less than half a percent of the CPUs resources. So if Flac is < 1% it is not taxing the system at all. I've just done this on my office PC that has an AMD Phenom II X4 945 processor running at 3.0GHz and 8Gb of ram running at 1600MHz. (My Flac server has an Intel i7-3770S 3.1GHz processor with 16 Gb of ram running at 1866Mhz.) With a modern multi-core processor I would not expect a difference to be heard because the extra 'load' is likely done simultaneously.

I think of it like a car that cruises at 100 km per hour. Throw some bricks in the back and you will still travel at 100 km per hour. You will use a small amount of extra petrol for the trip but you wont notice anything different.

[NRG]

The Flac file is decoded first and buffered thats probably why you see 0% CPU usage but I agree the load is minimal to nothing on a PC with the spec you quote and the time to decode a Flac is only a few seconds...I've never noticed a difference between Flac and WAV sound wise.

[Rothchild]

I've just done this on my office PC that has an AMD Phenom II X4 945 processor running at 3.0GHz and 8Gb of ram running at 1600MHz. (My Flac server has an Intel i7-3770S 3.1GHz processor with 16 Gb of ram running at 1866Mhz.) With a modern multi-core processor I would not expect a difference to be heard because the extra 'load' is likely done simultaneously.

I'm currently listening to files encoded to flac and being live transcoded to mp3 and streamed over the internet (on a domestic ADSL line - upload is slower than down) on a £25 Raspberry Pi (700mHz ARM 512meg Ram) No glitches, no drop outs, yeah it runs the cpu up a bit on the pi but not enough to cause it to break sweat. Andrei has his bricks in the back of an artic lorry, mine are on a motorbike! They'll all get there at the same time and be the same bricks!

[Gazjam]

My experience is the opposite. The 'extra load' is fairly trivial. Try using Task Manager in Windows and go the processes tab. Foobar shows 0% process being used when playing Flac. Of course it is not 0% because it is rounded to the nearest percent. So it will use less than half a percent of the CPUs resources. So if Flac is < 1% it is not taxing the system at all. I've just done this on my office PC that has an AMD Phenom II X4 945 processor running at 3.0GHz and 8Gb of ram running at 1600MHz. (My Flac server has an Intel i7-3770S 3.1GHz processor with 16 Gb of ram running at 1866Mhz.) With a modern multi-core processor I would not expect a difference to be heard because the extra 'load' is likely done simultaneously.

I think of it like a car that cruises at 100 km per hour. Throw some bricks in the back and you will still travel at 100 km per hour. You will use a small amount of extra petrol for the trip but you wont notice anything different.

In recent experience I found that extra load makes a difference even on a high spec computer.
Cant explain it other than what my ears are telling me.
That said, I never did perscribe to the "its just 1s and 0's" camp though

Got curious, so I bought my work PC through to the lounge (Dual Xeon CPU, 32GB ram yada yada) and installed JRiver on it and set it up the same way I have my music server.
Heard the difference between switching Memory Play on and off, changing the buffering settings, anti virus&firewall on compared to off...

Task manager showed barely a blip, but ears said different.

I don't profess to have all the answers, just know that in my experience increased overhead on the system_DOES_make a difference.
Always a believer in experimenting and listening, and I found that it does makes a difference, even on a "high end" PC system.

[bpcairns]

In recent experience I found that extra load makes a difference even on a high spec computer.
Cant explain it other than what my ears are telling me.
That said, I never did perscribe to the "its just 1s and 0's" camp though

Got curious, so I bought my work PC through to the lounge (Dual Xeon CPU, 32GB ram yada yada) and installed JRiver on it and set it up the same way I have my music server.
Heard the difference between switching Memory Play on and off, changing the buffering settings, anti virus&firewall on compared to off...

Task manager showed barely a blip, but ears said different.

I don't profess to have all the answers, just know that in my experience increased overhead on the system_DOES_make a difference.
Always a believer in experimenting and listening, and I found that it does makes a difference, even on a "high end" PC system.

The most likely explanation for this is the PCs power supply feeding noise back into your mains and affecting your analogue components. More load means more work for the crappy, in electrical noise terms anyway, switch mode power supply so more noise fed into mains so more effect on the system. Big powerful computers are largely unsuitable as digital players for this reason, Also they are usually mechanically noisy anyway. I'm sure I've seen discussion of driving these small modern integrated systems with linear PSUs for this very reason. Can't remember if it was here or another forum.

I'm pretty certain it is just 1s and 0s but you have to get those from the PC to the DAC without affecting the rest of the hifi. PCs are electrically very noisy due to aforementioned power supplies as well as the high frequency operation of the rest of the system. So just because it is "only" 1s and 0s doesn't mean all other problems are solved. And that's before we even consider jitter, aliasing etc...

[Gazjam]

The most likely explanation for this is the PCs power supply feeding noise back into your mains and affecting your analogue components. More load means more work for the crappy, in electrical noise terms anyway, switch mode power supply so more noise fed into mains so more effect on the system. Big powerful computers are largely unsuitable as digital players for this reason, Also they are usually mechanically noisy anyway. I'm sure I've seen discussion of driving these small modern integrated systems with linear PSUs for this very reason. Can't remember if it was here or another forum.

I'm pretty certain it is just 1s and 0s but you have to get those from the PC to the DAC without affecting the rest of the hifi. PCs are electrically very noisy due to aforementioned power supplies as well as the high frequency operation of the rest of the system. So just because it is "only" 1s and 0s doesn't mean all other problems are solved. And that's before we even consider jitter, aliasing etc...

Not so sure about that Brian,
its a VERY high quality (as in measures extremely well in terms of ripple, noise etc) supply I use in my works PC.
Also it was plugged into my balanced mains system, so should have been fed with a clean mains.
Any jitter should be taken care of by the dac.

Hear what your saying about "normal" PC's not being as good for digital playback and I agree, I never buy off the shelf though but build my own.

The normal server in the listening room, is pretty highly specced too (4.5 Ghz i3750k, 16GB ram) and still I notice improvements reducing the load.
there are no switching supplies in this system as well, completely linear harwired into the balanced mains.

Just go with what my ears tell me...that's all that matters really.

[Rothchild]

The only difference between .wav and .aiff is the 'endianess' of the header file both are PCM wave files.

FLAC files are asymetricly encoded so all the processing goes in to the encoding (which is why there's a 'quality' setting when you encode, it doesn't affect the quality of the sound (they're all lossless) but it affects the resulting final file size - smaller file more processing to encode).

The processing power required to decode a FLAC is negligible and shouldn't cause even the slightest strain on any computer released after about 2005.

[technobear]

'Strain' on the computer is rendered irrelevent by the use of a USB Galvanic Isolator:

http://electronics-shop.dk/galvanically-usb_isolation

and a DAC which uses Asynchronous USB.


Beware some dodgy manufacturers (and I'm including some big names here) who work the word 'asynchronous' into their marketing drivel in devious ways. Their DACs might, for example, have asynchronous sample rate conversion (ASRC). This is completely unrelated to Asynchronous USB and is in any case not desirable. Sample rate conversion should be synchronous for best results. You might see weasel words like 'asynchronous signal processing' which is ambiguous meaningless bullshit. If it doesn't say 'Asynchronous USB' then it isn't and is best avoided.