It is quite simply self-evident. I have Win 10 machines, and Win 11 machines, both 64 bit, obviously. I always return to my 32 bit Win 8 laptop for my PC based line source. There is no question!
What we really need is a return to 16-bit computing for PC based line level audio reproduction.
What we really need is a return to 16-bit computing for PC based line level audio reproduction.
I prefer analog computing but that's just me 🙂
Seriously, could you explain a bit why? I have been running 64 software since the Athlon 64 came out (Linux) and I really can't see any reason to go back to 32-bit. Going back to W8, I might understand because each successive Windows generation is worse in performance than previous because of all the background going on. But then I would go back to W7, because W8 is where all those background stuff started.
Seriously, could you explain a bit why? I have been running 64 software since the Athlon 64 came out (Linux) and I really can't see any reason to go back to 32-bit. Going back to W8, I might understand because each successive Windows generation is worse in performance than previous because of all the background going on. But then I would go back to W7, because W8 is where all those background stuff started.
I hope I'm avoiding background stuff. I play wav files using Foobar and the Kernel Streaming plug-in, across all my devices. I get subjectively better results with 32-bit Windows. I'm playing 16-bit files almost all the time, so my reasoning is that 16-bit files should be output from a 16-bit machine.
I know this is a bit old but your idea is not accurate as A 16-bit system can theoretically address up to 64 kilobytes (2^16 bytes) of memory. A 32-bit system can theoretically address up to 4 gigabytes (2^32 bytes) of memory so you are good at 32bit. If you want to use an operating system designed for everything computing you are off to a bad start. If you want to get OS bloat out of the picture start with Linux or free BSD command line install and build an appliance for you audio needs.
Back in the cMP project days we had a running version of XP Pro that was 18 mB in size. It booted to cPLAY; this was a single purpose machine.
We thought it sounded really good. Who knows how it would fare today?
I am using DIETPI X86 and the best I can trim this to is approx. 650 mB. Whether this exercise makes any difference is hard to say. More of a challenge than a requirement for good sound. So far, this is the best I have been able to do and have the machine operate properly.
Aesthetically it seems wrong for a music only computer to have all of this useless junk tagging along.
DIETPI with only mpd and its required ancillaries starts out at 1.2 gB, which seems huge to me. But compared to what I see on the office WINDOWS machine it is comparatively tiny.
WINDOWS was simplicity to minimize and there were easily got tools to make it even smaller. After we deleted unneeded .dlls and .exes there was tool where you could go inside and delete stuff from within the ones we retained.
I figure the days of that kind of thing are long gone.
We thought it sounded really good. Who knows how it would fare today?
I am using DIETPI X86 and the best I can trim this to is approx. 650 mB. Whether this exercise makes any difference is hard to say. More of a challenge than a requirement for good sound. So far, this is the best I have been able to do and have the machine operate properly.
Aesthetically it seems wrong for a music only computer to have all of this useless junk tagging along.
DIETPI with only mpd and its required ancillaries starts out at 1.2 gB, which seems huge to me. But compared to what I see on the office WINDOWS machine it is comparatively tiny.
WINDOWS was simplicity to minimize and there were easily got tools to make it even smaller. After we deleted unneeded .dlls and .exes there was tool where you could go inside and delete stuff from within the ones we retained.
I figure the days of that kind of thing are long gone.
Not true, check out https://win10lite.com/ . there are also third party tools to strip out unwanted junk and full of tweaks.
I would highly recommend you customize your own ISO as running a custom modified operating system downloaded from the web carry's its own set of risks.
.. Or just use a Linux distro 👍
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What distro u running?
That is nice and lean. Thats the type of thing I was speaking of when saying appliance.
thx for link
Jeremy
I had tried the WIN10 tool with WIN10 but there is so much to delete. I cannot remember the name of the original XP PRO minimizing program - it has been many years since I used it.
What I meant to be understood was that there are not any tools I am aware of to make minimizing LINUX straightforward and simple like those for WINDOWS.
I did mention I was using DIETPI X86 - a variant of DEBIAN - most DIETPI users are using RPi type boards but there is one that works with X86. I am using Blitz's formula which allows for isolating CPU cores to certain tasks and minimizing interrupts.
Blitz does not think there is any use to minimizing the size of the OS and he knows infinitely more about this than I ever will but that did not stop me from trying.
I thought it should be possible to get the thing to100mB but I do not see how.
One big difference is with cMP there was no networking involved - with DIETPI I am using another machine to control the music server. This stuff adds up fast when it comes to space. I have grown used to being able to work the machine remotely. The evils of convenience! Always gets in the way of purist audio!
People make fun of WINDOWS and for good reason. What is interesting is it is/was really good for turning into a single purpose device. It has been compromised by trying to make it do much too much. The registry made it very simple to turn into a single purpose machine. I guess what we made was not really WINDOWS any longer but had returned to MS DOS.
Yes, appliance is what is needed.
What I meant to be understood was that there are not any tools I am aware of to make minimizing LINUX straightforward and simple like those for WINDOWS.
I did mention I was using DIETPI X86 - a variant of DEBIAN - most DIETPI users are using RPi type boards but there is one that works with X86. I am using Blitz's formula which allows for isolating CPU cores to certain tasks and minimizing interrupts.
Blitz does not think there is any use to minimizing the size of the OS and he knows infinitely more about this than I ever will but that did not stop me from trying.
I thought it should be possible to get the thing to100mB but I do not see how.
One big difference is with cMP there was no networking involved - with DIETPI I am using another machine to control the music server. This stuff adds up fast when it comes to space. I have grown used to being able to work the machine remotely. The evils of convenience! Always gets in the way of purist audio!
People make fun of WINDOWS and for good reason. What is interesting is it is/was really good for turning into a single purpose device. It has been compromised by trying to make it do much too much. The registry made it very simple to turn into a single purpose machine. I guess what we made was not really WINDOWS any longer but had returned to MS DOS.
Yes, appliance is what is needed.
I thought the win10lite was a tool but when I went there I see it is an actual operating system ... or is it.
Seems intriguing. I will install it this weekend and see what it looks like.
Thanks for the mention.
Might be the trick. At least worth a try.
Seems intriguing. I will install it this weekend and see what it looks like.
Thanks for the mention.
Might be the trick. At least worth a try.
So what exactly is the target hardware? and what exactly is the requirements? a half decent performance PC/Embedded system can be had for cheap nowa days.
Not sure what you are asking. Looked into decrapifiers and it seems they just make it easier to do the initial steps of approaching a music playing appliance.
Who knows what going beyond that kind of thing would do and that is the question I have. Only one way to find out.
All I want is a device that allows the best performance of mpd - which by itself has many (for me) seemingly useless dependencies - I have tried removing them only have to return to them. I never use FLAC but you have to have that file - there are plenty of others - maybe that is something DIETPT requires for it - I have no idea. Whether one could build their own mpd to not have these ... I tried building an mpd and I did not have success due to the fact that I do not know how to do these things. i thought it would be easier than it is.
Simplicity seems to work best in most audio circuits and that is basically all I am going on. I realize that it is just as possible that, other than saving space which is not my concern - space is cheap - that all of the unneeded files make no difference at all on sound quality.
If you literally mean hardware I am using an ASUS motherboard that was recommended by Blitz - Crosshair 7 Hero - which has well above average filtering of the CPU power. It is huge and would have been the last thing I would have chosen for myself - I had previously avoided large motherboards. Using an AMD CPU which allows low power operation. Requires use of a video card - I got the cheapest one I could find since that is (after initial installation) of no concern to me. There is a thread concerning Blitz's approach in this forum.
The setup sounds quite fine to me but one can never sit still when you are an audio kook such as myself.
I have no idea how well mpd works with Windows. I wonder if I can retain the core allocation with Windows? I know I have no idea how to do it.
There are a great many things I like about DIETPI. The developers have allowed it to be very flexible. Whether one can get Windows any smaller than my efforts with DIETPI is something one has to find out for themselves.
Hope I did not go on too long.
Who knows what going beyond that kind of thing would do and that is the question I have. Only one way to find out.
All I want is a device that allows the best performance of mpd - which by itself has many (for me) seemingly useless dependencies - I have tried removing them only have to return to them. I never use FLAC but you have to have that file - there are plenty of others - maybe that is something DIETPT requires for it - I have no idea. Whether one could build their own mpd to not have these ... I tried building an mpd and I did not have success due to the fact that I do not know how to do these things. i thought it would be easier than it is.
Simplicity seems to work best in most audio circuits and that is basically all I am going on. I realize that it is just as possible that, other than saving space which is not my concern - space is cheap - that all of the unneeded files make no difference at all on sound quality.
If you literally mean hardware I am using an ASUS motherboard that was recommended by Blitz - Crosshair 7 Hero - which has well above average filtering of the CPU power. It is huge and would have been the last thing I would have chosen for myself - I had previously avoided large motherboards. Using an AMD CPU which allows low power operation. Requires use of a video card - I got the cheapest one I could find since that is (after initial installation) of no concern to me. There is a thread concerning Blitz's approach in this forum.
The setup sounds quite fine to me but one can never sit still when you are an audio kook such as myself.
I have no idea how well mpd works with Windows. I wonder if I can retain the core allocation with Windows? I know I have no idea how to do it.
There are a great many things I like about DIETPI. The developers have allowed it to be very flexible. Whether one can get Windows any smaller than my efforts with DIETPI is something one has to find out for themselves.
Hope I did not go on too long.
I see, so you want a headless (monitor less) server for playing music at the highest quality. A system does not require much resources to decode audio, despite what format. (look at your system monitor while playing a audio file).
I would say as long as your CPU/RAM aren't very high or spiking, I wouldn't personally worry.
I'd be much more focused on what comes after that, mainly the DAC. What interface? (USB/PCI-E) what sample rates are supported? clock generator. clean power. noise floor...
For an easy solution, I have used https://volumio.com/get-started/ before and it works well. It was on a Raspberry Pi but there are X86/X64 builds.
If it works well on a Pi, I would certainly expect it to work very well on a system with considerably more power.
Hope this helps 🙂
I would say as long as your CPU/RAM aren't very high or spiking, I wouldn't personally worry.
I'd be much more focused on what comes after that, mainly the DAC. What interface? (USB/PCI-E) what sample rates are supported? clock generator. clean power. noise floor...
For an easy solution, I have used https://volumio.com/get-started/ before and it works well. It was on a Raspberry Pi but there are X86/X64 builds.
If it works well on a Pi, I would certainly expect it to work very well on a system with considerably more power.
Hope this helps 🙂
And 24 bit Windows for 24 bit audio 🙂
Kidding aside, yours is an interesting observation. Have you taken any explicit measures to optimise either windows edition for music? They're generally unusable straight out the box.
Here is the thread that got many interested but who knows how many followed his directions.
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/path-to-noiseless-linux-streamer.391202/
The posts from Blitz are very interesting. Of course, there are the usual DIYAudio Guardians of the Known Audio Universe who do their best to say all of this is nonsense.
An audio friend in Toronto with excellent hearing built it as specified and was very pleased with the result. If Grant says it is good it is good.
I begged for instructions and was given them which I compiled into a .pdf that is 99% correct. There are some things I left out and when there was not that much interest in the thing I did not update. If someone wants to try it I would fix those. Mainly things to make things easier.
None of what is there is my work - it is all Blitz - a compilation from the many emails from him.
After getting it working and leaving it alone for months I removed useless stuff as much as I could but, as I said, he says that is useless. It did not stop my from doing it. It takes some time to do the deletions so it is impossible to say if it makes any sonic difference. It sounded good before and it sounds good now.
We have found that the DIETPI updates, so far, have been good for sound quality.
Some people like playing video games others deleting files from operating systems. Both can be classed as useless expenditures of time.
Of course, DACs are important. But to say one only needs to concentrate on the DAC is like saying one can put an excellent cartridge in any tonearm and turntable and hear how capable it is. I wish any thing would work as well as anything else. Sure would make life easy and boring. What comes before the DAC is important in my experience.
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/path-to-noiseless-linux-streamer.391202/
The posts from Blitz are very interesting. Of course, there are the usual DIYAudio Guardians of the Known Audio Universe who do their best to say all of this is nonsense.
An audio friend in Toronto with excellent hearing built it as specified and was very pleased with the result. If Grant says it is good it is good.
I begged for instructions and was given them which I compiled into a .pdf that is 99% correct. There are some things I left out and when there was not that much interest in the thing I did not update. If someone wants to try it I would fix those. Mainly things to make things easier.
None of what is there is my work - it is all Blitz - a compilation from the many emails from him.
After getting it working and leaving it alone for months I removed useless stuff as much as I could but, as I said, he says that is useless. It did not stop my from doing it. It takes some time to do the deletions so it is impossible to say if it makes any sonic difference. It sounded good before and it sounds good now.
We have found that the DIETPI updates, so far, have been good for sound quality.
Some people like playing video games others deleting files from operating systems. Both can be classed as useless expenditures of time.
Of course, DACs are important. But to say one only needs to concentrate on the DAC is like saying one can put an excellent cartridge in any tonearm and turntable and hear how capable it is. I wish any thing would work as well as anything else. Sure would make life easy and boring. What comes before the DAC is important in my experience.