Hi,
The best sound I get so far includes the following:
1. Pure Player Version 1.1
2. Fidelizer Version 1.1
3. Set window 7 to no virtual memory, I use 2 core cpu running at 2.0Ghz
4. I have 2 G of memory no harm of having more memory.
5. Turn off Screen after 2-3 min helps.
6. I use a laptop, run on battery if necessary.
7. Remove all unnecessary background programs.
8. Disable all unnecessary ports e.g. Sound card(I am using ext. DAC), modem, etc
I get very low system latency, below 100ms most of the time averaging around 40-60ms, the cpu utilization is below 4% most of the time.
The sound is very clean and balance. Try it.
Totally agree. The next step is to make a good DIY regulated Power Supply.
I made my own for my netbook using LM 338K as a regulator, but for Laptops it will need more effort due to the higher consumption... The best result is achieved together with M2tech Hiface USB2SPDIF which has Kernel Streaming embedded.
Well done Nikos,
It sounds really good - need to do some long term listening.
I'm using Win 7 SP1 & when I changed Foobar from KS output to Wasapi there was a distinct & large improvement in sound (Foobar under XP using KS output has exclusive control over the soundcard i.e no windows mixer, in Win 7 that's not the case)
Does Pure Player use Wasapi drivers? I see that the windows mixer is operational!
Also, are you converting 24bit to 16bit using SOX for playback?
No, it uses the default windows wave out (which i trust more), so it depends from the sampling rate you specify in Windows. For Windows7: Control Panel\Hardware and Sound\Sound\Playback device\Properties\Advanced. Wasapi is included in future plans, but i'm not sure it will make things better. It will bypass the Windows mixer (resampling etc) but this is not the only factor for a good sound. Pure player is not converting anything, sox is just used to decode mp3 etc to wav, not for FLACs. 8,16 and 24bit FLACs are being played "as is" (decode-load to ram-playback) using an optimised engine written in C.
One thing that's also noticeable (with all the top quality players, I think) is the difference in sound between FLAC & WAV. Try it Fran & see if you agree. I use dbpoweramp to convert from FLAC to WAV - it seems to do a nice job.
In the short time I have used it, I haven't noticed any difference with Fidelizer. I use Win 7 SP1 (only on beta release) which is said to be th ebest sounding Win version so far - anybody else using this & tried Fidelizer?
I believe there is no sound difference between wav and flac because the flacs are first decoded and then played...
Nikos,
I like your Pure Player version 1.1 and even J. Keny praises it. I hope you don't mind if you can accept my constructive criticisms,
Pure Player as it is not really a Prototype but rather an Engineering Model. My suggestions are as follows will make it a Prototype:
1. Retain the sound engine as it is and improves on the USER Interface, with the following features:
a. No more DOS cmd display
b. Able to add tracks while player is playing
c. Play next track
d. Pause and Start
and many more, I am sure you can think of. A good starting point is from Foobar. Thanks for listening.
Added to the list
Thank you all for your feedback and comments