Well, considering cdparanoia is many years old and clearly flawed, EAC is the one more credible to me.
another linux option
First, hello to all on this thread. Secondly, I did read almost every single post in this thread, but forgive me in advance if something I refer to was already mentioned.
I am not new to Linux or being an audiophile, but I am new to using Linux as my digital source. I just thought that maybe someone could benefit from my recent experiences.
A little background:
Initially, my main interest in USB audio was to have an assortment of music playing through the house while I attended to thing like cooking and hobbies.
Instead of diving straight in with the purchase of a USB DAC, I thought I would test the waters by purchasing a HagUSB USB to S/PDIF converter to see how things would play out. I coupled the HagUSB to my my trusty Adcom GDA-700 DAC, which is usually fed with a Theta Digital Data Basic.
Initially I was not --in any shape or form-- expecting this combo to sound better than the original DAC and disc transport. But after one fortuitous listening session where I was actually paying attention to the music (in FLAC, fed by a Debian Thinkpad X40) when I was seated in the sweet spot, I could not believe the difference.
On albums with which I was intimately familiar with, voice and instruments were just more there. Decay on cymbals had more presence. I knew I was on to something.
I was using plain old XMMS on the laptop, but soon found out about (and fell in love with) Music Player Daemon, aka MPD. (http://www.musicpd.org). MPD is a music server that is controlled by a client. Since MDP is GPL, there are many different clients available. So, in order to perform a few experiments without spending as much cash as possible...
I installed Debian Linux on a Dell GX110 (P3 700Mhz, 256MB RAM; found in the trash in mint condition) desktop with a newly purchased Western Digital Green Power, i.e, low power consumption 750GB hard disk. MPD and proftp were installed via apt-get. Some discs were ripped with Grip, some with EAC (on an old hard disc I have with Windows XP) on the my main Linux desktop machine, with the FLAC files ftp'd to the Dell music server. USB output is via hardware output, thereby bypassing ALSA mixer. No software mixer is used. I'm using gmpc as the client; sometimes arranging play lists from the bedroom desktop, or using the Thinkpad wirelessly from the listening couch.
I am thoroughly enjoying music using this setup except for the fact that the Dell machine is a bit noisy. It was at this time that I found out about his thread, and was researching using a SBC (single board computer) from PC Engines (http://www.pcengines.ch/) as silent, flash based MPD server; accessing my FLAC files via NFS via my desktop PC.
I am investigating several options:
One is to use the ALIX alix3c2 SBC (http://www.pcengines.ch/alix3c2.htm) as my digital source controlled by mmpc (http://mmpc.garage.maemo.org/). With the ALIC board, I could install and run Debian on a 4 to 8 GB CF flash disk. The board could possibly be battery powered, which might afford some sonic benefits.
The other is to wait a while for the $199 Shuttle KPC (http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/08/shuttle-launches-199-kpc-linux-box-99-barebones-kit/) and hope it's much quieter than my current setup.
Eventually I hope to have MPD controlled with a small web tablet like device. There are also several web based MPD clients (like Pitchfork) that would be perfect for devices like the Apple Ipod touch; fire up the Safari web browser and have access to all of your music on your Linux server.
I hope to report back soon....
First, hello to all on this thread. Secondly, I did read almost every single post in this thread, but forgive me in advance if something I refer to was already mentioned.
I am not new to Linux or being an audiophile, but I am new to using Linux as my digital source. I just thought that maybe someone could benefit from my recent experiences.
A little background:
Initially, my main interest in USB audio was to have an assortment of music playing through the house while I attended to thing like cooking and hobbies.
Instead of diving straight in with the purchase of a USB DAC, I thought I would test the waters by purchasing a HagUSB USB to S/PDIF converter to see how things would play out. I coupled the HagUSB to my my trusty Adcom GDA-700 DAC, which is usually fed with a Theta Digital Data Basic.
Initially I was not --in any shape or form-- expecting this combo to sound better than the original DAC and disc transport. But after one fortuitous listening session where I was actually paying attention to the music (in FLAC, fed by a Debian Thinkpad X40) when I was seated in the sweet spot, I could not believe the difference.
On albums with which I was intimately familiar with, voice and instruments were just more there. Decay on cymbals had more presence. I knew I was on to something.
I was using plain old XMMS on the laptop, but soon found out about (and fell in love with) Music Player Daemon, aka MPD. (http://www.musicpd.org). MPD is a music server that is controlled by a client. Since MDP is GPL, there are many different clients available. So, in order to perform a few experiments without spending as much cash as possible...
I installed Debian Linux on a Dell GX110 (P3 700Mhz, 256MB RAM; found in the trash in mint condition) desktop with a newly purchased Western Digital Green Power, i.e, low power consumption 750GB hard disk. MPD and proftp were installed via apt-get. Some discs were ripped with Grip, some with EAC (on an old hard disc I have with Windows XP) on the my main Linux desktop machine, with the FLAC files ftp'd to the Dell music server. USB output is via hardware output, thereby bypassing ALSA mixer. No software mixer is used. I'm using gmpc as the client; sometimes arranging play lists from the bedroom desktop, or using the Thinkpad wirelessly from the listening couch.
I am thoroughly enjoying music using this setup except for the fact that the Dell machine is a bit noisy. It was at this time that I found out about his thread, and was researching using a SBC (single board computer) from PC Engines (http://www.pcengines.ch/) as silent, flash based MPD server; accessing my FLAC files via NFS via my desktop PC.
I am investigating several options:
One is to use the ALIX alix3c2 SBC (http://www.pcengines.ch/alix3c2.htm) as my digital source controlled by mmpc (http://mmpc.garage.maemo.org/). With the ALIC board, I could install and run Debian on a 4 to 8 GB CF flash disk. The board could possibly be battery powered, which might afford some sonic benefits.
The other is to wait a while for the $199 Shuttle KPC (http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/08/shuttle-launches-199-kpc-linux-box-99-barebones-kit/) and hope it's much quieter than my current setup.
Eventually I hope to have MPD controlled with a small web tablet like device. There are also several web based MPD clients (like Pitchfork) that would be perfect for devices like the Apple Ipod touch; fire up the Safari web browser and have access to all of your music on your Linux server.
I hope to report back soon....
Interesting NYC_paramedic. I'll have a look at the mpd.
One more comment to a USB connection in general:
First of all I do not think USB to SPDIF is the best way.
Empirical Audio offers a real nice USBtoI2S interface.
It's AFAIK a modded M-Audio Transit with a reclocker inside. You could even slave the M-Audio Transit to a clock master.
Under MS M-Audio supplies decent drivers. Under Linux it's a bit of a hazzle to get it work. Anyhow - it is possible.
That's IMO an interesting option to look at.
However we are at DIY-Audio. Modding should be actually our strength over here. After a while in the DIY domain
I realized that not any commercial product will suit my expectations. 😀
A bit off topic (still touching upon some issues discussed earlier):
During the last weekend I introduced the ec-designs reclocker
to my DDDAC, hoping to find the holy grail.
OutOfTheBox I would rate it -- considering my very special environment -- "Something has to be heavily modded to get the full potential out of it".
The PCM2706 used just as a receiver is powered by noisy 5V PC-USB power. (I mean - I was pretty naively thinking the reclocker would be able manage all issues,
and the potential receiver issues wouldn't be a problem at all. Don't get me wrong here I don't blame ec-designs selling a module out of their overall solution. I am rather happy about this openess. As a standalone module you have to tweak the surrounding environment of course. I am still learning. 😉 )
After some hours of listening I can say, you hear more details and the sound gets this jitter-free fluidness and softness - this I expected. On the other hand you also hear a lot of power and/or power-noise related flaws, which makes the whole thing bold and fat sounding and out of focus.
I could not live with this situation, that's for sure. Don't get me wrong here- we are still talking real good quality audio in general!
What I've done, so far. I had the luck to get an Opticis Optical USB-extension
from Ebay. (Though I have to admit that I was very suspicious about these before.) It was sold by a UK meteorologist using it for galvanically isolating his equipment. He didn't have a clue what I wanted to use it for. 😉
( Is there actually anybody interested to hear all this?? 😀 )
So I got it for 25pounds. Until now I didn't had time to try it because
it needed a better 5V supply. Since I was preparing these for
the reclocker I also made one for that optical extension.
Guess what. The heaven cleared after applying the cable to the
new setup. The above mentioned flaws "almost" disappeared. So, power quality is a mega-issue here-- that's for sure.
Perhaps a nice side-effect, with the reclocker I get rid of some extra jitter introduced by the optical transmission ( The anticipated extra jitter introduced by the Opticis was actually the reason for not trying it earlier)
For sure Doede did quite well by introducing a separated supply for the USB-receiver of his DDDAC. Still it is not galvanically isolated.
BTW Linux recognizes the Opticis extension without any problems.
I am just building TeddyRegs- the ones MaxLorenz was refering to.
Let see what they'll add to the sound quality.
The reclocker is supporting 44.1 only. Can I hear it?? I am not really sure.
Somehow I get the strange feeling that the stage got smaller again. The deep layering and separation disappeared. The things which heavily improved by introducing my 48kHz upsampling.
But this also might have something to do with the current PS situation.
One after another. First I get the PS right then I'll have a look at my beloved 48khz-upsampled data.
To summarize: If I get the power-supply issue solved and the 44.1 vs. 48khz comparison clarified, I might end up at a better setup then before.
Advise: If possible, you folks should try a galvanically separated approach - if you run USB DACS. Of course the Opticis would need a battery-powered supply.
Cheers
One more comment to a USB connection in general:
First of all I do not think USB to SPDIF is the best way.
Empirical Audio offers a real nice USBtoI2S interface.
It's AFAIK a modded M-Audio Transit with a reclocker inside. You could even slave the M-Audio Transit to a clock master.
Under MS M-Audio supplies decent drivers. Under Linux it's a bit of a hazzle to get it work. Anyhow - it is possible.
That's IMO an interesting option to look at.
However we are at DIY-Audio. Modding should be actually our strength over here. After a while in the DIY domain
I realized that not any commercial product will suit my expectations. 😀
A bit off topic (still touching upon some issues discussed earlier):
During the last weekend I introduced the ec-designs reclocker
to my DDDAC, hoping to find the holy grail.
OutOfTheBox I would rate it -- considering my very special environment -- "Something has to be heavily modded to get the full potential out of it".
The PCM2706 used just as a receiver is powered by noisy 5V PC-USB power. (I mean - I was pretty naively thinking the reclocker would be able manage all issues,
and the potential receiver issues wouldn't be a problem at all. Don't get me wrong here I don't blame ec-designs selling a module out of their overall solution. I am rather happy about this openess. As a standalone module you have to tweak the surrounding environment of course. I am still learning. 😉 )
After some hours of listening I can say, you hear more details and the sound gets this jitter-free fluidness and softness - this I expected. On the other hand you also hear a lot of power and/or power-noise related flaws, which makes the whole thing bold and fat sounding and out of focus.
I could not live with this situation, that's for sure. Don't get me wrong here- we are still talking real good quality audio in general!
What I've done, so far. I had the luck to get an Opticis Optical USB-extension
from Ebay. (Though I have to admit that I was very suspicious about these before.) It was sold by a UK meteorologist using it for galvanically isolating his equipment. He didn't have a clue what I wanted to use it for. 😉
( Is there actually anybody interested to hear all this?? 😀 )
So I got it for 25pounds. Until now I didn't had time to try it because
it needed a better 5V supply. Since I was preparing these for
the reclocker I also made one for that optical extension.
Guess what. The heaven cleared after applying the cable to the
new setup. The above mentioned flaws "almost" disappeared. So, power quality is a mega-issue here-- that's for sure.
Perhaps a nice side-effect, with the reclocker I get rid of some extra jitter introduced by the optical transmission ( The anticipated extra jitter introduced by the Opticis was actually the reason for not trying it earlier)
For sure Doede did quite well by introducing a separated supply for the USB-receiver of his DDDAC. Still it is not galvanically isolated.
BTW Linux recognizes the Opticis extension without any problems.
I am just building TeddyRegs- the ones MaxLorenz was refering to.
Let see what they'll add to the sound quality.
The reclocker is supporting 44.1 only. Can I hear it?? I am not really sure.
Somehow I get the strange feeling that the stage got smaller again. The deep layering and separation disappeared. The things which heavily improved by introducing my 48kHz upsampling.
But this also might have something to do with the current PS situation.
One after another. First I get the PS right then I'll have a look at my beloved 48khz-upsampled data.
To summarize: If I get the power-supply issue solved and the 44.1 vs. 48khz comparison clarified, I might end up at a better setup then before.
Advise: If possible, you folks should try a galvanically separated approach - if you run USB DACS. Of course the Opticis would need a battery-powered supply.
Cheers
Re: another linux option
just a note: if you do/may have a system with a PCI BUS, I would rather AVOID the use of USB!
Instead, use some good "pro" audio card such as e.g. the E-Mu 1212m (or actually just a 1010 PCI digital interface) to provide a cleaner S/PDIF (or AES/EBU, or whatever...) digital stream to your DAC.
nyc_paramedic said:
just a note: if you do/may have a system with a PCI BUS, I would rather AVOID the use of USB!
Instead, use some good "pro" audio card such as e.g. the E-Mu 1212m (or actually just a 1010 PCI digital interface) to provide a cleaner S/PDIF (or AES/EBU, or whatever...) digital stream to your DAC.
Paolo.
It's not that easy.
Even one of the best Digital Interface card such as the AES-16 from
Lynx is not really what some people would call perfect.
As long as you run asynchronous you need to reclock on the
receiving side. And here none of your mentioned interfaces will
be better then USB. There are DACs like the Benchmark DAC1, which are able to handle the USB traffic quite good actually and are able to beat other interfaces easily.
Don't forget the driver issue. Very often el cheapo soundcards come with poor drivers, which are messing around with the data stream.
It's not only the hardware. There are more factors.
The key is IMO to get the digital chain in sync. Meaning one master
clocking all slaves, such as a PCI interface card. Otherwise the DACs are slaved to the poor PC clock and are forced to make something great a out of it.
As long as we talk "Async or Isync" we can just try to get the best out of it.
Cheers
It's not that easy.
Even one of the best Digital Interface card such as the AES-16 from
Lynx is not really what some people would call perfect.
As long as you run asynchronous you need to reclock on the
receiving side. And here none of your mentioned interfaces will
be better then USB. There are DACs like the Benchmark DAC1, which are able to handle the USB traffic quite good actually and are able to beat other interfaces easily.
Don't forget the driver issue. Very often el cheapo soundcards come with poor drivers, which are messing around with the data stream.
It's not only the hardware. There are more factors.
The key is IMO to get the digital chain in sync. Meaning one master
clocking all slaves, such as a PCI interface card. Otherwise the DACs are slaved to the poor PC clock and are forced to make something great a out of it.
As long as we talk "Async or Isync" we can just try to get the best out of it.
Cheers
soundcheck said:
I agree. But like I said, I was just experimenting, and the HagUSB let me do that for around 100 USD. The Dell was free, as was Debian Linux (but no less valuable).
I'm seriously considering the up coming new and improved Scott Nixon USB Tube DAC or the Version 2 of Wavelength's Brick. Once I settle on a dedicated USB DAC I will experiment, in earnest, with tweaking a RT kernel for the ALIX board, and run it on some type of battery.
I forgot to mention that MPD supports 100% buffer to RAM of songs before playing them. A nice feature if you ask me.
P.S. As for the rest of my system: B&W Matrix 804's, Pass Aleph 5 amp and Aleph L preamp, Adcom GDA-700. Alpha Core Goertz silver interconnects and some MIT speaker cable.
soundcheck said:
asynchronous ?!?
AFAIK, all common audio interfaces (such as S/PDIF, etc) are (UNFORTUNATELY!) synchronous (isochronous).
BUT, just about ALL the "pro" and semi-pro cards can be "slaved" to an external clock! Thus you can get the clock from the DAC and feed it back to the card (of course, unless the DAC is somehow made to allow such things, it will need some mods).
Another option is doable even with much cheaper cards... just about any sound card which is (really) capable of running "full-duplex" S/PDIF I/O must be able to "slave" its S/PDIF output clock to its S/PDIF input (reconstructed) clock... so you can create a "dummy" S/PDIF stream locked to your DAC clock and feed it back to the card input. Again, you end up with a digital stream which is synchronous to your DAC clock ==> there is no need for reclocking.
Of course, again some hardware work will be likely needed on the DAC side to "isolate" the DAC from the S/PDIF receiver reconstructed clock and use your local one instead (as well as to generate the dummy S/PDIF stream, in this case).
BTW, IMHO either option should be MUCH better than any USB solution.
soundcheck said:
sorry, I doubt it... USB is simply terrible for audio... locking your audio clock to the USB one (which is not even at a "right" rate) IMHO is the worst thing you can do.
For what regards the drivers: we're talking about Linux, aren't we?
Then, the drivers are NOT written by the card manufacturer! They are (ALL) written by the ALSA developers and their quality does NOT depend on the card price.
The only real problem is rather whether the card is supported or not.
According to the ALSA matrix, the 1212 should be supported "out-of-the-box" in kernels >= 2.6.22 (which include alsa >= 1.0.14).
Re: Re: another linux option
I don't understand your reply. I thought USB was the way to go as far as better than S/PDIF audio quality. Especially since companies like Wavelength Audio have introduced Asychronous mode USB DAC's.
I plan on using a dedicated USB DAC as my critical digital source fed by a Linux MPD server.
Cheers.
UnixMan said:
I don't understand your reply. I thought USB was the way to go as far as better than S/PDIF audio quality. Especially since companies like Wavelength Audio have introduced Asychronous mode USB DAC's.
I plan on using a dedicated USB DAC as my critical digital source fed by a Linux MPD server.
Cheers.
Re: Re: Re: another linux option
I spent quite a while looking at ARM based SBC's, and while the geode based ones might be a bit more mainstream, with the advent of the Intel D201GLY2 I'm not sure the fringe offerings are worth the trouble. Running from flash, the Intel is well under 30W, which will give many hours of run time off a pico-psu and a mid-sized battery (say 33aH - I have some agm's in this size)
Well, you'll get lots of different views on this. In my opinion, soundcheck's posts earlier in this thread illustrate why I find USB uninteresting - basically he reports that every little possible thing he did to his machine changed the sound. IMHO this reflects a rather poor interface.
SPDIF isn't great either unless you slave; if you do this, then it can be great, but aside from Empirical I'm not aware of anyone doing this commmercially.
I'm simply using an Emu 1820m and bypassing the whole transmission thing completely. (or rather, letting Emu handle it for me). By running balanced through the power amp, power supply noise becomes common-mode, which IMHO at the moment seems to be a big help in improving the analog quality of the output.
Well, if you can spring for a Wavelength maybe some of the issues with USB will go away - from what I can tell Wavelength and Empirical are the only ones offering truly high-grade USB solutions; too rich for my blood, though.
nyc_paramedic said:
I spent quite a while looking at ARM based SBC's, and while the geode based ones might be a bit more mainstream, with the advent of the Intel D201GLY2 I'm not sure the fringe offerings are worth the trouble. Running from flash, the Intel is well under 30W, which will give many hours of run time off a pico-psu and a mid-sized battery (say 33aH - I have some agm's in this size)
As I posted earlier in the thread, this is my setup. mpd controlled by phpMP via a Nokia 770. I think it's an amazing setup - being able to control directly from the listening seat is great.
nyc_paramedic said:
Well, you'll get lots of different views on this. In my opinion, soundcheck's posts earlier in this thread illustrate why I find USB uninteresting - basically he reports that every little possible thing he did to his machine changed the sound. IMHO this reflects a rather poor interface.
SPDIF isn't great either unless you slave; if you do this, then it can be great, but aside from Empirical I'm not aware of anyone doing this commmercially.
I'm simply using an Emu 1820m and bypassing the whole transmission thing completely. (or rather, letting Emu handle it for me). By running balanced through the power amp, power supply noise becomes common-mode, which IMHO at the moment seems to be a big help in improving the analog quality of the output.
nyc_paramedic said:
Well, if you can spring for a Wavelength maybe some of the issues with USB will go away - from what I can tell Wavelength and Empirical are the only ones offering truly high-grade USB solutions; too rich for my blood, though.
How do you all install software on Linux?
I've heard apt-get, rpm, alien, yum, yast, yast2...
Is there a single installer that you can use?
I've heard apt-get, rpm, alien, yum, yast, yast2...
Is there a single installer that you can use?
Daveis said:
Depends on the distribution. apt-get and dselect on Debian. Yast on SuSe. rpm on red hat.
There is a GUI installer on Ubuntu (which is Debian based).
Ubuntu and Ubuntu Studio's software update repositories seem to be shut down...
Maybe gentoo, slackware or Fedora instead?
Maybe gentoo, slackware or Fedora instead?
Hi.
Just to clarify some things here:
1.Defintion:
"Asynchronous is a conventional transmit-acknowledgment protocol and isynchronous is a real time guaranteed bandwidth protocol for just-in-time delivery of information."quote
The clock information is embedded in the data stream. It has to be
recovered by the receiver. Usually folks spent quite some efforts
to get it going. If one wants to go for SPDIF. Have a look at the Altmann DAC. It was rated much much higher then these Scott Nixxon or similar DACs, since Charles has obviously found the right way to "refresh" the clock properly and how to solve the Jitter issue..
With a synchronous connection the transmitter and receiver are 100% in sync.
2. Just looping SPDIF back won't help. You need a precision clock.
3. Talking about ALSA drivers. Don't believe all of them are perfect. Of course Linux is much easier to handle from a drivers perspective then MS drivers. OSX drivers do have the same advantages like Linux drivers.
4. Wavelength and Benchmark using the same receiver on the USB front. I tested the Benchmark. This 1000$ piece is not performing any better then my setup. ( Actually I prefer mine - posted my experiences earlier in the thread!)
I really like the USB approach for its simplicity if you get your PC
setup right. With an extremely limited technical and financial effort you get it going. This is mainly my challenge here.
The USB driver of Linux is really good. Apply the mentioned tweaks and you're fine, it'll cost you close to nothing.
I'd be open to challenge any SPDIF setup with my setup.
And please don't buy the marketing messages of
our "commercial buddies". First they are claiming they have developed the best thing ever. If you start discussing and questioning certain things with these guys, they start telling you they'd have measured and proved everything with 20000$ worth equipment to shut you up. Two weeks later they show up with a new and better model. Make up your own mind! ( And forget discussions like this one! 😀 )
@Daveis:
You can't just switch the repositories. The repositories contain pre-integrated packages, which comply to each of the related distribution. The key task of a distribution is to integrate software. They just bundle and integrate them and put a label on it.
They don't really write software. I never had problems accessing Ubuntu repositories.
You might need to wait for an hour in case they are doing maintenance.
Cheers
Just to clarify some things here:
1.Defintion:
"Asynchronous is a conventional transmit-acknowledgment protocol and isynchronous is a real time guaranteed bandwidth protocol for just-in-time delivery of information."quote
The clock information is embedded in the data stream. It has to be
recovered by the receiver. Usually folks spent quite some efforts
to get it going. If one wants to go for SPDIF. Have a look at the Altmann DAC. It was rated much much higher then these Scott Nixxon or similar DACs, since Charles has obviously found the right way to "refresh" the clock properly and how to solve the Jitter issue..
With a synchronous connection the transmitter and receiver are 100% in sync.
2. Just looping SPDIF back won't help. You need a precision clock.
3. Talking about ALSA drivers. Don't believe all of them are perfect. Of course Linux is much easier to handle from a drivers perspective then MS drivers. OSX drivers do have the same advantages like Linux drivers.
4. Wavelength and Benchmark using the same receiver on the USB front. I tested the Benchmark. This 1000$ piece is not performing any better then my setup. ( Actually I prefer mine - posted my experiences earlier in the thread!)
I really like the USB approach for its simplicity if you get your PC
setup right. With an extremely limited technical and financial effort you get it going. This is mainly my challenge here.
The USB driver of Linux is really good. Apply the mentioned tweaks and you're fine, it'll cost you close to nothing.
I'd be open to challenge any SPDIF setup with my setup.
And please don't buy the marketing messages of
our "commercial buddies". First they are claiming they have developed the best thing ever. If you start discussing and questioning certain things with these guys, they start telling you they'd have measured and proved everything with 20000$ worth equipment to shut you up. Two weeks later they show up with a new and better model. Make up your own mind! ( And forget discussions like this one! 😀 )
@Daveis:
You can't just switch the repositories. The repositories contain pre-integrated packages, which comply to each of the related distribution. The key task of a distribution is to integrate software. They just bundle and integrate them and put a label on it.
They don't really write software. I never had problems accessing Ubuntu repositories.
You might need to wait for an hour in case they are doing maintenance.
Cheers
Just a few notes.
Emu 1212 alsa drivers are incomplete and do not support a number of important features. One local developer here in co-operation with the author of the original driver is fighting them and painfully (no specifications) adding e.g. 24bit playback, > 48kHz streams, etc.
Asynchronous connection to the device is the only technically sound solution for audio transmission. It means PCI, asynchronous USB (implemented in VERY few cards), I do not know about firewire.
The same holds for SPDIF - the only technically sound solution is slaving the card to precise DAC clock because SPDIF itself is not asynchronous. It still leaves the question of "reclocking" the signal past SPDIF receiver to the local clock as SPDIF specifications explicitly state that the clock to be used is the recovered one. But a simple buffer would do since both input and output clock are synchronous (though probably time-shifted due to transmission and processing delays).
Emu 1212 alsa drivers are incomplete and do not support a number of important features. One local developer here in co-operation with the author of the original driver is fighting them and painfully (no specifications) adding e.g. 24bit playback, > 48kHz streams, etc.
Asynchronous connection to the device is the only technically sound solution for audio transmission. It means PCI, asynchronous USB (implemented in VERY few cards), I do not know about firewire.
The same holds for SPDIF - the only technically sound solution is slaving the card to precise DAC clock because SPDIF itself is not asynchronous. It still leaves the question of "reclocking" the signal past SPDIF receiver to the local clock as SPDIF specifications explicitly state that the clock to be used is the recovered one. But a simple buffer would do since both input and output clock are synchronous (though probably time-shifted due to transmission and processing delays).
Daveis said:
Uh?! no, no, don't worry, Ubuntu is up and running. 🙂
Maybe you've hit some momentary network or server problem with some mirror. Of course unless you're using an outdated and no longer maintained version. Ubuntu release a new version every 6 months -the latest currently is 7.10 "Gutsy"- and keeps updating the old one for a limited amount of time (1 more year, if I remember correctly).
BTW, if you want to go for something else, I'd suggest Debian or perhaps Gentoo. BUT, only if you are an experienced Linux "power user". I would NOT recommend these distributions for a newbie, unless she is willing to learn a lot and "get her hands dirty". 🙂
soundcheck,
Thanks for the script, it worked well. I also modified your script to play one flac file at a time, instead of an entire directory.
My (modest) Celeron 900 needs just 5 seconds to copy a 15 minute song from flac file to tmpfs, before playback starts.
I experimented with tmpfs and ramdisk. There doesn't appear to be much difference, except that tmpfs will use swapfile if it's available (which is a bad thing in my opinion).
So brutefir is working great ...
but can it pause/resume?
Can it search forward/search back?
Maybe via keystrokes defined in brutdefconf?
I'm running Puppy Linux with 2.6.24 kernel patched with the Ingo Molnar RT patch. My hardware is the Intel D201GLY2 miniITX motherboard with Celeron 900 processor. This system is fanless, but I have added a small 7 volt case fan.
Once I have finalised the configuration, I will remaster Puppy Linux and run it completely in ramdisk (which is how Puppy Linux was designed to be run) booting from flash drive. The flac files will be accessed via ethernet from a network attached hard drive, but the music server itself will have no hard drive.
With such a low power-consuming system I'm hoping that power supply-induced noise will be negligible.
Long term, I might even consider using a single board computer like nyc_paramedic.
Thanks for the script, it worked well. I also modified your script to play one flac file at a time, instead of an entire directory.
My (modest) Celeron 900 needs just 5 seconds to copy a 15 minute song from flac file to tmpfs, before playback starts.
I experimented with tmpfs and ramdisk. There doesn't appear to be much difference, except that tmpfs will use swapfile if it's available (which is a bad thing in my opinion).
So brutefir is working great ...
but can it pause/resume?
Can it search forward/search back?
Maybe via keystrokes defined in brutdefconf?
I'm running Puppy Linux with 2.6.24 kernel patched with the Ingo Molnar RT patch. My hardware is the Intel D201GLY2 miniITX motherboard with Celeron 900 processor. This system is fanless, but I have added a small 7 volt case fan.
Once I have finalised the configuration, I will remaster Puppy Linux and run it completely in ramdisk (which is how Puppy Linux was designed to be run) booting from flash drive. The flac files will be accessed via ethernet from a network attached hard drive, but the music server itself will have no hard drive.
With such a low power-consuming system I'm hoping that power supply-induced noise will be negligible.
Long term, I might even consider using a single board computer like nyc_paramedic.
Re: Re: Re: another linux option
well, indeed Asychronous mode USB audio would be a whole different story. That's likely a right way to go!
Unfortunately, all the USB DACs and adapters I knew until now were using the "standard" Adaptive (syncrhonous) mode. And that's no good. I had not heard of any existing Asychronous mode USB DAC before... happy to know someone eventually made it! No support for Linux, though. 🙁
BTW: back to the main topic, by chance I've got to this web page: Improving Linux sound latency
I didn't check the Wiki... if it's not there already, I guess a link to it should be added.
nyc_paramedic said:
well, indeed Asychronous mode USB audio would be a whole different story. That's likely a right way to go!
Unfortunately, all the USB DACs and adapters I knew until now were using the "standard" Adaptive (syncrhonous) mode. And that's no good. I had not heard of any existing Asychronous mode USB DAC before... happy to know someone eventually made it! No support for Linux, though. 🙁
BTW: back to the main topic, by chance I've got to this web page: Improving Linux sound latency
I didn't check the Wiki... if it's not there already, I guess a link to it should be added.
phofman said:
absolutely.
phofman said:
but the SPDIF specifications did not foreseen the "clock-back" connection either...
If the incoming SPDIF stream is already in sync with the local DAC clock, the reconstructed clock can (and MUST!) be discarded altogether and the clean local one used instead.
Otherwise, the whole thing of sending the clock back and synchronizing the source to it would be completely pointless...
UnixMan said:
I just installed Ubuntu 7.10 gutsy and Ubuntu Studio. They can't update their software with the GUI installer. I read something online that the government sites hosting for them saw such high bandwidth they had to shut them down. When I first get the ISO loaded it says there's like 186 packages needing update. It never is able to connect to us.ubuntu.org, etc.
I wish all software was
tar xvf file.tar
./configure
make install
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