Have you discovered a digital source, that satisfies you, as much as your Turntable?

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#781
Looks like I will have to do that exercise shortly, of getting the best out of foobar, 🙂. On this very ordinary HP laptop I have at the moment, the internal sound system, including the tiny inbuilt speakers, does a surprisingly good job if everything is carefully adjusted. That is, the speakers do largely "disappear", quite a decent soundstage is brought forth, it's pleasurable to listen to for extended periods - this completely evaporates if an ordinary software player is used, it collapses back to low level, kitchen radio sound.
 
#794
BigE said:
So now you are suggesting that the input stream is the problem? I'd just sit back and let the grown ups talk.
Click to expand...

I have never said anything like that.

Discussion started with my (INPUT) statements:
(1) Anything can happen in software and computer processing. So that nothing surprising if (2) Players sound different (they do).

And I have explained a few things so that it is clear why and how it can be so (the OUTPUT of the discussion). I expected that I can explain with a single statement or a clue but it has never been that easy.
 
#795
I am running Foobar principally because I can run a polarity switching VST plugin with it, therefore I have not bothered to compare different players.
I usually play Wav or Flac files into an outboard asynchronous USB soundcard (Roland UA-25ex).
Under these conditions is it to be expected that players will sound different ?.

Dan.
 
#796
Add to Jay's explanation that these (audio processing) programs are written in a high level programming language. The executable program is very much dependant on the used language and its compiler. This adds another layer of fuzziness to processing and routing.

I would say it is impossible to know exactly what is going on at a bit level in a PC.
 
#799
Max Headroom said:
I am running Foobar principally because I can run a polarity switching VST plugin with it, therefore I have not bothered to compare different players.
I usually play Wav or Flac files into an outboard asynchronous USB soundcard (Roland UA-25ex).
Under these conditions is it to be expected that players will sound different ?.
Click to expand...

I think situations can get different if we use different Operating System. Windows Media Player (WMP) on Windows OS is unique, as they came from the same vendor.

Foobar has a component/plugin (Windows Audio Session API) with exclusive mode output, allowing bit-exact output, muting all other sounds, bypassing Windows mixer.

I just tried to listen to WAV file using WMP and Foobar. They use the same audio driver (the only one I have on my laptop). Different sound.

Since the soundcard is old, I thought, may be if I send the decoded audio in 24-bit to OS/audio driver, the hardware will have a problem. So I tried 16-bit without dither. Then 16-bit with dither. There was no change to Foobar sound with these 3 options.

The WMP sound is unique. It is less defined than Foobar, but it seems that the sound is smoothed out, as if there is some kind of dithering, but I couldn't hear noise change either (very noisy here at the moment).

I would say Foobar is more accurate (with its darker background), but due to this "smoothing" of sound, WMP sounds less aggressive. That's why I like WMP!
 
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