TIDAL in Audirvana and Volumio

[AJSki2fly]

So today out of interest I set up My.Volumio so that I could try out TIDAL from it.

I then listened to the same pieces of music/files through Audirvana and TIDAL at the same bit rates/sampling rates.

Something I think is different, I won't say what, but I would be interested to hear what others think?

[Qwin]

My experience is that all the audio players sound slightly different, they must be applying dsp in different ways and have different priorities/preferences. Yes they do more than playback the 0's and 1's, they mess with it. Even the Gain matching feature to maintain constant volume between tracks or albums is achieved using dsp. Oh, that's another thing MQA will put an end to, as dsp is not possible on an MQA file. I digress!

VLC for instance sounds nice, very coherent, especially with complex multi instrument pieces or vocals, till you listen to Audirvana and realize the bass on VLC is rounded off, has less depth and impact. After listening to quite a few audio players, Audirvana is my current favorite with Foobar2000 second. I'm not judging interfaces, just playback. I'm trying MPD next, which is supposed to be even better than Audirvana, in one reviewers article anyway, in which he said it was also better than JRiver - MPD is, "The most transparent player I have come across". I'll try it for myself as taste varies. In most cases its that they are just slightly different rather than better overall, so you will have to decide which you prefer when mated to your gear. Some differences like my example above, are fairly obvious, some are really subtle, but I have yet to find two I would say sound exactly the same.