Linux audio being resistant...

[Kev06]

Thanks for the thoughts, its useful to get another perspective.

I'm only using Mint for these tests because it was the first distro that installed on the old laptop easily - I'm not particularly attached to it and the colour isn't relevant. So yeah, for longer term use I can see there may be better ways of choosing the distro, and as a noob support/community would certainly be one of them.

I've made things harder for myself with the use of old PC hardware which some distros won't run on (easily), as well as a DAC that isn't specifically made to be compatible with linux, even though it will work to a degree. But I've been researching linux audio and it seems that even without these initial issues, to get the best out of it (e.g. avoid re-sampling that you mention etc) I'd need to invest some proper time and effort getting to understand it much better than I currently do. Which is probably worth doing, I don't like being dependent on windows (and whatever direction microsoft takes) due to my own limited skill-set, but its going to take a while to get up to speed.

Cheers
Kev

 

[phofman]

1. Audio Linuxes and related peoples soundexperience is all but a myth.
There can be quite a difference caused by different tuning measures..
phofman tends to fight other experiences.
That's why guys preparing Volumio, Moode, Rune, AP-Linux, Voyage are all nuts.
Because he's always been right - bits are bits!

Would you show (in source code or config files) to readers what these "different tuning measures" of the embedded distributions prepared for x86/arm/RPI are? Would you show the readers the changes to alsa-lib, alsa-drivers, application output code, alsa.conf configuration compared to the same software (e.g. audacious) output to alsa in e.g. ubuntu, that means to stock alsa-lib, stock kernel alsa drivers, stock players compiled for the respective architecture? What "tuning measures" they took to "improve" the sound of the stock linux alsa stack? If you do not know, you can ask the guys preparing the distributions. Apart of AP-Linux which is specifically aimed at the audiophiles community who love voodoo. And fact-free talking. For people like you.

 

[TimCurtis]

Hi.
My two cents.

1. Audio Linuxes and related peoples soundexperience is all but a myth.
There can be quite a difference caused by different tuning measures..
phofman tends to fight other experiences.
That's why guys preparing Volumio, Moode, Rune, AP-Linux, Voyage are all nuts.
Because he's always been right - bits are bits!

Hi,

Just for the record, Moode ships with stock Raspbian kernel settings as default. All the user feedback that I have received to date indicates SQ is excellent as-is

Regards,
Tim Curtis

 

[soundcheck]

Hi,

Just for the record, Moode ships with stock Raspbian kernel settings as default. All the user feedback that I have received to date indicates SQ is excellent as-is

Regards,
Tim Curtis

That doesn't mean it can't get better.

Your SW ( a spinoff/piggyback of Volumio as far as I recall - which calls itself audiophile audio player ) is pretty continuously compared with my stuff by a friend of mine. I know what I'm talking about.

And it's not just the kernel, kernel revision or the kernel config. Even the compiler revision and compiler options can make a difference. And there's more...

Your project respectively Volumio is still based on MPD. I left that alone years back.

Good luck with your project.

 

[Kev06]

Its very useful to get advice and opinions on what the issues are or could be, it'll add to my list of things to investigate and evaluate. But please don't worry too much about arguing WRT people's differing perception of sound quality - I don't consider that to be a very reliable indicator (unless theres a substantial consensus) so will just have to test and decide for myself.

Thanks again
Kev