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Didital Things
Topic: Recording/Playback software

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Posted by Romy the Cat on 08-24-2008

What greatly surprises me is that fact that all playback software sound very different. I wonder if the playback software just read the WAV file and rout the stream to sound card devise then why there is such a huge difference between the playback software?

My configuration is very simple – XP, a playback software feed Lynx 16 I/O interface (bypassing window mixer). The Lynx interface allegedly does not do any processing and sends the signal to external D/A. So, I was trying a few playback software that can do 24bit players in different configuration, including a number of DJ players and memory players. It is very sad that they all sound different, particularly when they differently configured.

I discover that ‘expensive’ pro editing software do best sound: WaveLab, SoundForge, Samplitude. Unfortunately it is virtually imposable to hear from anybody about the sound of these software. Everyone talk about the great array of wonderful features in these software, the features that I do not use during my playback. No one I head talks actually about the sound of the playback engine. I do not know what in editing/playback software is responsible for quietly of sound. Still even the WaveLab, SoundForge and Samplitude – all sound very different.

The SoundForge sound all sound with some kind of strange noise and efforts – it is similar to many other lightweight players. WaveLab sounds very clean with very high level of brilliance. It has horrible rate/bits conversion engine though. The Samplitude has much better conversion engine and has good sound. However, the Samplitude sounds like a lightly equalized vision of WaveLab (or vice versa). I wonder: if the WaveLab and Samplitude are so accurate players then why they sound so different?

I have to add that none of the PC-based software that I trued do good rate conversion (88/24 to 44/16). The conversion engine in Pacific Microsonics in my view kills anything in trim of conversion sound quality. Unfortunately to use Pacific for ad-hoc processing is not too convenient.

So, I wonder what makes a WAV player to sound good. I would write up my own WAV player if I have any idea what makes a player to sound good…

The Cat

Posted by el`Ol on 08-25-2008
Hello Romy!

I don´t know what you find inconvenient about the Pacific and so I don´t know whether this includes all realtime converters. The RME converters have a lot of parameters to play with and they work synchronous, so I don´t expect the "inviting and relaxing" sound you complain about for the asynchronous ones.
http://www.rme-audio.com/english/adi/adi192dd.htm
Regards,
Oliver

Posted by DHT4ME on 08-27-2008
Well we know that Steinberg  who created Wavelab is also behind ASIO. The Ottachan ASIO notes state that Wavelab was the sonic standard for compiling the plugin. It is possible to get very close to the Wavelab sonic standard with some players and a whole lot of tweeking. I just would love to see Steinberg make a Wavelab inspired standalone player.

Posted by Romy the Cat on 08-27-2008

 DHT4ME wrote:
Well we know that Steinberg  who created Wavelab is also behind ASIO. The Ottachan ASIO notes state that Wavelab was the sonic standard for compiling the plugin. It is possible to get very close to the Wavelab sonic standard with some players and a whole lot of tweeking. I just would love to see Steinberg make a Wavelab inspired standalone player.

DHT4ME, I do not think that Wavelab would do a “better” standalone player. They are in a different business: they do pro editing software with zillions features and the absolute quality of just a player is hardly would be in their priority list. Who would buy such a thing? Me, another hundred people like me and it would be about it… They might do a player only for DJ use but it would hardly have quality of sound objectives.

When I use WaveLab I use the ASIO, however I would not report that the result worse if I read data directly from the Lynx 16 card. The ASIO besides of everything is a mapper but the Lynx 16 has one mixer that sound perfectly good to me. I do not know what kind driver WaveLab used if it reads directly from a specific Lynx 16’s card channel. It might use ASIO or use some kind of Lynx’s own driver – I have no idea. The Wavelab has 3 options: Windows Mapper, ASIO or Lynx’s specific channel. To my ear the section either ASIO or Lynx’s specific channel sounds kind of identically. When I ran any other contesting players I also read the Lynx’s specific output channel, so I presume that I bypass the Windows generic driver.

I have to generally mention that I am not so good with understanding all those digital idiosyncrasies and when I asked people who know to explain to me the things then I got controversial, not to mention contradictory explanations. Frankly speaking all those digital gismos slightly freak me out. What I see an option screen with 34596th adjustments and each of them slightly alter sound then it really scares me. I have no idea what 99% of them mean and I have no interest to moderate sound on digital domain. All that I would like to do on digital domain is to read and write the digital stream into a file - how simple shell it be and what kind “tweaks” I need if I even set the stream’s level externally on my outboard A/D processor…

Rgs, Romy the Cat

Posted by DHT4ME on 08-27-2008
dream big. Yeah it is wishfull thinking about a wavelab inspired player but heck if we don't have dreams them what do we have  to look forward to. I was very excited about a PC based server at first. After 4 or so weeks of trying to figure it all out I grew extremely tired of it all. I dare not mess with anything now and I constantly hear that this or that is better.  It all makes me pissed actually, especially when the "bits is bits" people pipe up.
Bob

Posted by Romy the Cat on 08-27-2008
 DHT4ME wrote:
I was very excited about a PC based server at first. After 4 or so weeks of trying to figure it all out I grew extremely tired of it all. I dare not mess with anything now and I constantly hear that this or that is better. It all makes me pissed actually, especially when the "bits is bits" people pipe up.
Bob, I have written about before –I do not see anything exciting about PC based music servers unless you have a course for new music material unprocessed format. In my world live FM and occasional tapes do it. In other cases master tapes or 78s might do it. If you have no access to raw materials then I see no needs for somebody to practice the PC based music servers.

The cat

Posted by Hyperborean on 03-16-2009
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Here is an idea, if nobody mention it yet: http://www.psaudio.com/ps/how-to/how-to-build-a-1500-music-server/

Posted by Romy the Cat on 03-16-2009
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PS audio of cause would like to push own agenda but if I have to make $1500 music server then I would go to different direction. I would use the “expensive” Pro audio “mastering” sound cars like RME, or Lynx, or Digital Audio Denmark, with on board AD/DA converters. Such a case would do under $1K and for the rest you get a generic PC with the hardware you need. I would not make the foolish claims that it will be “better music servers available today regardless of price” as PS audio doe nit it shall be peaty good.

I have my suspicion about all those hand held devises, perhaps because I never owed any of them…

The Cat

Posted by Hyperborean on 03-16-2009
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I wasn't talking about solution by PS Audio, but rather the idea of using iTV from Apple for a player. It is not a hand held device. Also, one can replace a HD with bigger one and iTV  is chip. The key is, that there is a digital out (fiber optic), so one can feed any DA converter. I'm too think that HD based plyer will avoid problems of an optical drive.  Cheers.

Posted by el`Ol on 03-17-2009
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Meanwhile I did the Steinberg Waveleb test myself and the difference between it and the most common players is immense. The Realplayer does excessive spoothing and softening (too much for me, even though I like smooth and soft sound to a certain amount), as well as killing any dynamics. The Windows media player used to sound good for some CDs, but the latest version sounds 1:1 like the Realplayer to my ears. The Winamp sounds sharp and aggressive. In a thread about players in a German forum I read that Foobar2000 can be configured to bit correct playback, but I didn´t test.

Posted by Romy the Cat on 03-17-2009
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 el`Ol wrote:
Meanwhile I did the Steinberg Waveleb test myself and the difference between it and the most common players is immense.

The pro editing software are lights miles ways in terms of sound quality from all any Foolbars that I tried. The fact insulting itself as it shells not be different between bits reading software player. I think in my case I had advantage over any non-pro versions because my pro editors talk directly to WDM driver of Lynx card that turn out to be even better then AISO drivers or anything else that I have seen. I think WaveLab and Samplitude are beter for sound, with SoundForge stay behind. The WaveLab is horrible for conversion – juts a nightmare.

What I think is a ridicules truth in all those views about digital recorders that unfortunately the digital recorders behave in the very same way how analog records do. Do you remember in your reel -to-reel time what we had a microscopic differences between the aliment, wearing, or pressing tape on the heads then we had the machine that did the recording played the given tape the best? Surprise, but I see the same with recording software.

With my completely multiprocessing Lynx interface I can run Rohde & Schwarz tuner via Lavry Gold to one Lynx input and then Sansui tuner via Pacific to another Lynx input. Since WaveLab can’t run two instances at the same machine (stupid!!!) I am forced to use to use another recorder, mapping WaveLab to read one Lynx channel and let say Samplitude to read other Lynx channel. So, I have the same live FM program record twice at the same time. Knowing the sonic difference between the Rohde & Schwarz and Sansui TU-X1 and knowing the sonic difference between Lavry Gold AD and Pacific it is not difficult to extrapolate the sonic differences between digital recorders.

For somebody who did not do that experiment I would reports and if somebody would tell it to me then then I would not believe. The major different in the setting described in the paragraph above is not in the tuners and not in the A/D coders but in …. digital recorders.  The sonic difference between WaveLab, SoundForge are Samplitude if larger than the difference between Schwarz and Sansui or between Lavry and the Pacific. How absurd is it?!

Rgs, Romy the caT

Posted by miab on 03-18-2009
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Never tried it but R8Brain Pro Minimum Phase seems to show best in the link below. I personally do use foobar but only for the lack of simple dedicated players that output 16/44.1. There's much talk on cPlay but can't get it to work.

http://src.infinitewave.ca/

Posted by manisandher on 04-03-2009
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... and it's called XXHighEnd (http://www.phasure.com/index.php). There is a free demo version available for download. But it's not the easier or most intuitive player to configure/use (I'd be happy to guide anyone through the setup process though).

It really only comes into it's own with Vista, where it can use Exclusive Mode and WASAPI. I'd avoid using it if you have XP... or intend to use it with Apple's Boot Camp.

I can't put my finger on it, but it just sounds more 'alive' than say Foobar with ASIO/WASAPI.

Yes, 'bits are bits' for sure. I can get both Foobar and XXHE to output bit-perfect HDCD signals. But they sound different! Most people would say that there is then just one other variable that can come into play - timing...

Mani.

Posted by jp on 04-09-2009
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While waiting for my wavelab to arrive, I tried a number of free recording/playback software and each one sounded awful and sometimes created very strange results.  One program made the music sound like it was recorded underwater...

But one free program called audacity actually seems to be very promising.  http://audacity.sourceforge.net/.  Its an open source software.
Its very straightforward and doesnt overwhelm you with all those unneeded plugin options. Seems like the emphasis is on simple record and play.  The record and play buttons are nice and big and its not buried somewhere in the toolbar.  Most importantly, the recording quality is quite good! As for the other functions I dont know.  I havent tried editing the files and resaving them as well as downsampling

Caveats- I didnt try recording and comparing it to a live broadcast (this saturday).  I also havent figured out how to optimize everything on the outboard AD and DA as its been a day since I had things up and running.

...well after playing with all the settings, figuring out the functions on the ad/da it looks like this program is not good as the result sounds compressed and veiled. 

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