Software media players tricks and tips

[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.