DSP and the Single-Driver Speaker

[Bob Brines]

One of the problems here is that the XP mixer is indeed screwed up. Either KS or ASIO is required to avoid SRC. The problem was fixed in Vista. But so many people avoided Vista for a number of issues real or perceived and never found out that exclusive mode and DS work correctly. And worse, these people extrapolate the XP problems into 7. Use exclusive mode and it doesn't matter what you use, DS, KS (which is very buggy when used with Vista/7) or ASIO.

As for Linux/Wine, I have no experience, but from what I read on the Foobar forum, Wine has some issues.

Bob

[cogitech]

Originally Posted by rjbond3rd

Hi cogitech,

May I ask - what's the most bands of EQ that you've seen on a good Linux player? I've used lots of players but always felt I could not get sufficiently fine-grained EQ.

Thank you in advance! I really appreciate it.

The default EQ DSP in DeadBeef is Naoki Shibata's 18-band "SuperEQ". I find this to be an excellent EQ.

As Shibata-san explains:

"An accurate equalizer for winamp 2(yes, it's old). It uses FIR filter with 16383 taps, which is substantially longer than other equalizers. Although it has many knobs to change frequency characteristics, it does not degrade audio quality."

I have to agree. The audio quality seems to be completely unaffected by this EQ. In fact, this is one of the main reasons why I currently prefer DeadBeef over Audacious. Audicious' SRC plugin is extremely flexible (as discussed in my earlier post) but DeadBeef has the advantage of using Shibata-san's fantastic SSRC (Shibatch Sample Rate Converter). It can only be configured to apply a single output rate to all input rates, but it is an extremely high quality SRC and it is very fast. I use this when I want to play anything higher than 48kHz (my USB DAC only does up to 48, but I am going to be addressing that issue shortly).

If you don't like DeadBeef for some reason and/or prefer Audacious for other reasons (SRC configuration flexibility), you can use one of the LADSPA DSP EQs (lots of them provided in the plugin packages that I mentioned). I didn't look at all of them, but one of them has 15 bands for sure and works quite well. There are also various parametric EQ DSPs, bandpass filter DSPs, crossover filter DSPs, etc. etc. I did not try very many of them because I just really like DeadBeef (and the fact that the 18-band SuperEQ plugin is nicely integrated into the DeadBeef interface).

[cogitech]

Originally Posted by Bob Brines

As for Linux/Wine, I have no experience, but from what I read on the Foobar forum, Wine has some issues.

Bob

Foobar-in-WINE is unnecessary and suboptimal. There's no doubt about that.

[Pano]

Originally Posted by cogitech

Based on this and the posts by ra7, I suspect that my issue really must have been driver related.

Yes, probably. I've seen soundcard drivers that forced everything to 48K. Fortunately my present one does not. It's not perfect, tho. Put into 96Khz mode it will force any lower sample rate to 48Khz. I don't know were the resampling takes place, tho.

For me XP and Direct Sound work great. Bit perfect if I want it.

[cogitech]

Originally Posted by Pano

I don't know were the resampling takes place, tho.

This would drive me nuts... But that's just me.

Off Topic:

A pirate walks into a bar with a steering wheel in his pants.

Bartender: "What's with the steering wheel in your pants?"

Pirate: "Arrrrr, it's driving me nuts!"

[Pano]

LOL!

I always assumed that the driver did the resampling, tho I don't know why. Doesn't matter, I don't let it change the sample rate. So no steering wheel in my britches.

[alant4321]

In computer architecture perspective, the highest standard requirement of Digital Signal Processing (DSP) for audiophile is recap as below:
1) “Bit Perfect” audio condition
2) Stereo 24Bit/192KHz Studio Master quality
3) Speed of audio streaming at least 1.12 MB/s (i.e. 2x24x192,000=9,216,000 bps)

Since the operating system of PC does not design for audiophile purpose, the general guildlines to meet the captioned three conditions are listed as below:
Condition#1: It requires by-pass for both hardware and software. Hardware bypass is the SRC (Sample Rate Converter) in audio codec by software driver. Software bypass is the original audio mixer by software driver to direct route from Application software to hardware.
Condition#2: It depends on the three factors of source, interface and DAC chipset to support up to 24Bit/192KHz Studio Master quality
Condition#3: It depends on the speeds of CPU and computer bus

Take Microsoft Window O/S as the platform for example, the following two configurations are proved to true to fulfill the captioned three conditions.

1) CPU: Intel Prentium III or above for both desktop and notebook computers
2) O/S: Window XP or above
3) Audio codec: HD Audio codec (built-in on board)
4) Media player: Footbar2000 with ASIO4All plug-in (To bypass Window KMixer)

1) CPU: Intel Prentium III or above for old desktop computer
2) O/S: Window XP or above
3) Audio codec: AC97 Audio codec (built-in on board)
4) Media player: Footbar2000 with ASIO4All plug-in (To bypass Window KMixer)
5) Add-on Interface: Creative Labs Audigy 2 PCI sound card (To replace AC97 bypass SRC)

For detail explanation, please refer to my [ARTICLE] here in which I have just finished.

[cogitech]

Correction from one of my posts above. I was mistaken. DeadBeef does not use Naoki Shibata's SSRC plugin, it uses Secret Rabbit Code SRC (which is pretty good, but not as good as SSRC, AFAIK).

[alant4321]

I want to add a remark that some people may classify the sound of music with American style, British style, Asian style, etc… This DSP approach is not classified for any style. It just moves the source code exactly from Master Recording Studio at 24Bit/192KHz to the home for broadcasting without any third party treatment. If the source code is recorded with American singer, then music is American style as well as recorded with British singer, then British style and so on. In contrast, it simulates the situation that this DSP approach moves you from home to sit at Master Recording Studio for listening to the singer with real live effect.