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Post by John on Jun 16, 2015 4:23:32 GMT
This is to answer a question for Andre
My experience is based on Windows based laptops and just my own personal experience.
A laptop has a lot going on inside it and just using a USB based DAC to avoid the internal soundcard will not give you the best results.
A memory player will do a few things. It will put the music into RAM it may turn off some of the internal processing going on in the computer. It may also manipulate the sound
I heard a few players and will put my own thoughts towards sound and usability
Jplay For me the sound is very clinical and I have not used Jplay for awhile now. It also costs money but they will send free upgrades. Easy to set up in single PC mode using two pc method a bit more complex.
MQn I prefer over Jplay its free but can be difficult to upload and has become increasingly more specific to the designers own equipment.
Bug Head Infinity Blade SQ this is another free player. To get the best out of it the laptop will need 16gb ram and use in hibernate mode as well as playing with different coding on the player. So my laptop that has 4gb the SQ is okay (using Infinity blade SQ I can only get sound degradation down to 50%) but nothing special, on my friends Laptop that has 16gb ram he can get the player into professional mode (sound degradation 0%) and then putting the machine into Hibernation mode as well the sound is very good.
The other memory player I heard that is very good is Tony C player. He uses his own specially built server and yet again the sound he manages to get is simply stunning. Not a hint of fatigue.
Hopefully Clive will come around latter as I know he played with this a bit more than me
On the laptops I heard I have a preference for the sound quality on Windows 8.1 over Windows 7 I heard a few Apple based systems that sounded good. But not heard any Linux based systems
So getting the best out of a laptop is not straight forward in my experience but worth the effort if this means of playing music appeals to you |
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Post by stanleyb on Jun 16, 2015 6:45:34 GMT
I use a Windows 7 laptop to store the music that I play through the SB Touch. I have found this to be the best route for absolute sound quality for me. And that's after hooking up the same DAC through USB and a USB to SPDIF converter from the same PC to compare against the Touch route. For 24/192 especially, but even 24/96, I just can't get a better performance than the Touch delivers.
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Post by John on Jun 16, 2015 6:58:46 GMT
It is always interesting on peoples different experiences Stan, you are using a route I not tried. Have you played with any of the memory players
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Post by brian2957 on Jun 16, 2015 7:07:44 GMT
Have you compared JRiver to these John ?
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Post by John on Jun 16, 2015 7:25:41 GMT
Yes
JRiver has a great interface and also has a few things you can do to improve SQ. Gaz can help you out on that side.
For a usable interface that sounds good JRiver is hard to beat. If you wish JPlay can be added and a lot of people like what this does. These days I am disappointed where JPlay has headed with its sound compared to other players that are available free.
For SQ I think Tony C player and Bug Head are better but as I said getting Bug Head to perform at it best requires a lot of ram which not everyone going to have.
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Post by MartinT on Jun 16, 2015 7:26:34 GMT
I use a Windows 7 laptop to store the music that I play through the SB Touch. I have found this to be the best route for absolute sound quality for me. And that's after hooking up the same DAC through USB and a USB to SPDIF converter from the same PC to compare against the Touch route. For 24/192 especially, but even 24/96, I just can't get a better performance than the Touch delivers. That's interesting, Stan. When I had the Touch, cabled ethernet to the Touch and then co-ax to the Caiman created the best sound for me. My Touch had EDO and TT3 installed.
However, the RPi2 with HiFiBerry Digi+ (optical S/PDIF to the C-II) sounds quite a lot better again over the Touch.
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Post by John on Jun 16, 2015 7:34:12 GMT
I am going to add two 8gb memory (16gb) to a PC that has two expansion slots to see if I can get Bug Head to perform at the same level as my friends system I let people know how I get on
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Post by brian2957 on Jun 16, 2015 7:37:33 GMT
Thanks John . I'm very happy with Jriver , there's always something better though . Gary has already optimized it for me and I'm reasonably good at changing basic settings . I tried JPlay but wasn't keen on it . Quite like Fidelizer though which has various settings for getting the best SQ . It may be worth a try .
Do you use USB or SPDIF John . Unfortunately I can only use usb at the moment .
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Post by John on Jun 16, 2015 7:41:28 GMT
At present I go direct digital Brian so can use USB SPDIF and Ethernet but means I am without the use of my TT at present
Yes a lot of people use Fidelizer with good results
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Post by Deleted on Jun 16, 2015 8:08:13 GMT
J river is a good all round package but to extract the best to many compromises are made imho
John
Does the big head need to use hibernation mode to give max performance?
The memory ram location and the method and the way it is loaded in ram also have an effect
I recently did a comparison with a bog standard laptop running all of my work programmes via a powered USB lead into a product we supply in direct comparison against a top of the line streamer from a well known company with the equal top of the line psu feeding an 8k dac
It was most illuminating for the dealer!
The biggest issue for most people is the GUI and its ability to control the system
For any pc style playback the reduction in internal electrical noise and signal transfer paths are critical amoungst other requirements
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Post by John on Jun 16, 2015 8:20:36 GMT
Yes getting Bug head into Hibernation mode gets the best out of it you also have to get it to 0% degradation in the initial set up page by adjusting the dimm (you can see the percentage go down as you play with this) and also worth playing with the different sounds I thought Blade 4 and Galaxy both really good they are on the second page where files are loaded when I get back home from work I try and explain it better as getting it into Hibernation is not obvious
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Post by stanleyb on Jun 16, 2015 9:20:09 GMT
It is always interesting on peoples different experiences Stan, you are using a route I not tried. Have you played with any of the memory players I haven't tried any of the memory players. My music laptop uses SSD for the OS and programs. The music is stored on a separate drive in the laptop and spins at 72000RPM. Mind you, I wouldn't suggest that anyone should follow that route. The machine can run hot from the high speed drive, and few laptops can accept two drives. I would suggest in that case you use a SSHD, which is a SSD and normal drive combined. The Seagate ITB drive has a 64MB buffer, which is large enough to accept a 24/192 FLAC file in one go without putting the HD under stress, and causing the laptop to heat up more. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 16, 2015 13:57:18 GMT
The bigger memory reserves are important for the larger file sizes which can go upto and over 2Gb per track for the longer 24/176.4Khz+ classical.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 16, 2015 14:09:21 GMT
It is always interesting on peoples different experiences Stan, you are using a route I not tried. Have you played with any of the memory players This laptop with the HRT Steamer makes mince meat out of my CD player. Like i say i doubt i could get a sound better than this via another route.. btw i don't entain high res files.. |
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Post by Clive on Jun 16, 2015 14:31:37 GMT
There are some who believe a player of digital music cannot have a sound. That's not a discussion I want to revisit, I'll only comment that I personally find significant sonic differences between players. A couple of years ago or more I found sonic differences between digital (computer) players which in magnitude were less than typically found between record decks / arms / cartridges / phono stages; at that time whilst cost effective (ie a very few hundred quid) digital playback was approaching a decent mid-range record deck, it wasn't quite there.
There are various routes to go, mine happens to be a W8.1 laptop into a USB DAC. Jplay I found to be a good improvement over Foobar and Jriver. MQn came along as an experiment and this improved on Jplay, then MQn went down a more restricted route as John mentioned. A more generic version may come along. For now Bug Head's Infinity Blade SQ for me holds the W8.1 player crown. The three players mentioned are all memory players with hairshirt UIs and certainly couldn't be more removed from the Jriver sexy UI. There seem to be all sorts of places where noise gets involved even with digital playback so there's not just one simple way to make the perfect player...yet.
For Bug Head to sound its best needs to be placed into Command Line and Black Screen mode along with using Stardust X2 and 16GB of memory. The player only shows as using 2.6 GB of memory, I suspect there's are lot to do with how the player lays out data in memory, hence the 16GB requirement. You really only want to be playing whole albums or long playlists as there's a 54 second memory setup time plus some extra time to load the data. With all this in place I find digital and my records decks to have very comparable sounds, not the same but frankly I'd be hard pushed to be able to identify which was digital and which was vinyl if unsighted.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 16, 2015 14:47:26 GMT
Clive: can i add that this im using sounds the closest ive ever heard digital to a top flight turntable. i was quite took back tbh..But i think it's more the hands on of records i love most of all.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 16, 2015 15:04:26 GMT
Interesting thoughts Clive thank you for sharing.
I have found Jplay to be a downwards step in replay and takes / ties up a lot of processing for a sideways difference at best.
The GUI on the Jriver is nice as is the Jriver remote.
Bug head looks and feels like an updated version of an old US player from the mid 2000's its a bit clunky but has a nice playback.
The other issue with all of these players is how many of you suffer from handshake problems with the dac (on USB)and the occasional drop out ?
Have the ability to drop in and out OS (Msata) up to 2012 R2 all been reduced down to bare minimum and not using the optimizer programer which seems to rob Peter to pay Paul.
So far W7 produces the best overall playback in what we have achieved, W8 has a better data transfer for SSD but you have to dig much deeper into the code to remove the unnecessary pieces that are simply not required for a digital transport. (imho)again Robbing Peter to pay Paul.
That said using the laptop on battery mode a quality player suitable USB attire you can achieve some quality results without question.
The key is noise removal, data transfer lines and uber quiet power rails plus a few other items.
I always find with software of any description it is usually written by qualified geeks who know their own subject very well, but do not appreciate the bigger picture of how it is going to used in its own environment.
So a decent playback bad interface and operating mechanism as opposed to a slick GUI, great intuitive flowing ease of operation with average playback (J River).
Difficult to find a code monkey who actually understands quality audio while keeping the users happy with easy UI, again imho.
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Post by John on Jun 16, 2015 15:06:52 GMT
Hi Tony
I am now able to see the screen
Bug Head has quite a lot perimeters to adjust SQ
Getting the best SQ
First bit is having a computer/ laptop with 16gb ram
On the first page adjust the settings till it says 0% It will tell you on the right hand side toward the top. Adjusting the Dimm on the left hand side helps the player go into professional mode. Also pick the driver you require
Then when you get to second screen the computer takes 1min to load (very slow by your player standards)
On the top of the screen
If you click normal this where you get your your choices towards how it will sound I suggest go with what Clive says first as he has more experience in professional mode than me. to get into being able to adjust on the top of the GUI towards the right hand side you two boxes beside the right hand side you see the rate and something like LPF Free to describe the file. Click next to this box about 1 mm on the right hand side of the box and anther screen will appear. Click command line and blank screen
You can also go into mmx and adjust in that too if you wish, all will slightly alter the sound
Press play and wait till the memory loads
The load time is it biggest issue the next is getting use to the interface
I think your player is better, certainly in terms of functionality But it sounds very good in hibernation/professional mode
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Post by Deleted on Jun 16, 2015 15:08:05 GMT
Clive: can i add that this im using sounds the closest ive ever heard digital to a top flight turntable. i was quite took back tbh..But i think it's more the hands on of records i love most of all. F307 I would suggest that these days you need to have a quality TT set up that costs more than the equivalent digital to get close where as some 5 or so years ago it was clearly the other way. However I would say they both have their own sonic traits that will appeal to different groups for different reasons. |
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Post by John on Jun 16, 2015 15:16:30 GMT
Andre
Bug head free, but is only worth exploring if you have the RAM on your computer and as I indicated is a slow process to play tunes so I can see a lot of people being frustrated by this
I think in this mode it is a big upgrade over just going through the DAC
I hardly have any high res files myself
Totally get where you coming from with a TT
I no idea which is better anymore they have different tonal characteristics and I not heard my TT with a very expensive cart and phonostage
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