Advice worth taking. I can recommend some actual texts if that's the direction you decide to go.
I already have. Repeatedly.
Test systems have been various Linux distributions (both common and proprietary "audiophile" distributions). Software players have varied widely.
Once configured to output directly to the audio hardware, all players sound identical. In Linux it is to quite trivial to verify what is happening.
If this is not the case in Windows, then perhaps in the "Windows world" bit-perfect playback is an illusion. If that is the case, then there is only one solution.
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If two packages of digital data contain the same bit pattern the data within is exactly the same be it an audio file, a picture, a cad file or a document, I don't realy need to read AMRs paper but I will for a laugh.
Wow. You really believe this?
You've either been reading way too much marketing material, or you are an author of same.
By the way, we aren't talking about two different setups. We are talking about one setup running two different players. If you want to change multiple variables at a time in your version of science, then I cannot participate in the discussion.
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Not yet read all but I think the point is to dedicate the computer for audio processing? Windows is anyhow a very complex software. Probably unreliable.
With CD player, we tweak around DAC chip as the final determinant for the quality. With computer, I have never heard somebody tweak a sound card. And those SMD parts...
True. But Sony developed something else than CD because preserving analog master tape quality into something like CD quality would not be good enough.
I would suggest that I understand the issues with transferring digital data, the noise that digital electronics (and analogue) create, signal integrity EMC etc. data conversion both ways quite well, in fact probably from a practical point of view more than a lot who are posting on this thread.
You are making the claims show us some data.... Noise as I have said is a separate issue and should be dealt with accordingly.
Most anyone who is serious about PC audio is using an external DAC, not a "sound card".
Explore a bit on this site and you will find hundreds (thousands?) of threads discussing exactly what you say you "have never heard".
See, people who find it trivial to configure their OS and player properly move on pretty quickly to tweaking what really matters; the digital to analog conversion and the analog side of the chain.
Depends on the soundcard... Any decent soundcard made for the pro market can probably hold its own against most external DAC. It's quite amazing how clean their outputs are for something supposedly swimming in digital noise (and yes I've hooked a scope at the output of my ESI Juli@).
It's funny how digital audio threads always seem to end up in the loop where someone asserts that identical=different, in spite of the fact that if this were true they could not participate in the forum and make this claim because their computer would not work.
Exactly so. See the spectra I've published in Linear Audio and AudioXpress acquired with a PCI card.
Good question. I guess it could be fun to do as an exercise. I'm just imagining that the improvement in sound quality would be minimal.
To be honest, I have little to no experience with audio or hi-fi, but I work as an electronics technician and can't help finding the subject fascinating. These near-DC signals seem to be surrounded by so much mysticism and passion that the process of finding tangible facts becomes challenging in an interesting way.
I just like having technical discussions and learning new things, so don't put too much weight on my ramblings.
I am under the impression that these pro-grade (internal) sound cards are more often used in studio-type setups for multi-track recording/capture, mixing, etc. In this case the massive bandwidth advantage of the internal buses seems to outweigh the (seemingly negligible?) noise disadvantage.
For pure and simple stereo playback purposes, I think it is safe to say that most people opt for an external DAC, and that there is no shortage of DAC tweaking.
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Yes, I have done some searching regarding these external DACs and they were not like DIY but commercial. Just like miniDSP, not yet in my priority (but have read most of the tutorial tho).
There was a reason why it was a sound card and not external DAC. It's related to multi-channel programming. May be some external DACs also support this, I have no idea.
People modifying sound card? Cool. Never by accident heard one. I've tried once, but couldn't find pdf for the chips found on the PCB so stopped there.
You (we) guys have to focus when discussing something on a forum: who you are discussing with, what is the topic...
I'm not involved in discussion such as digital versus analog, or which part is more important in PC playback...
I'm here because I said I heard sound difference and I felt like somebody thought I'm daydreaming... I explained why it can be different, and you talked about bit-perfect...
Judge for yourself: measurements by Demian Martin
This said, I've built my share of external DAC because tweaking and building is fun and because I'm mostly using a laptop these days.
Nice data.
Even more pertinent to this discussion is the text that goes along with it. Especially the last two sentences.
I am becoming more and more convinced that the crux of the "identical=different" logical fallacy being purported here is Windows.
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