oshcar wrote: > ok > > serious questions - not playing games > > are there differing opinions on this ? -- a couple years ago in a > previous software setup i experimented with i think an alsa setting > which i thought just padded right before sending to dac. i have no idea > what it was actually doing. with identical players in an A/B i thought > there were noticeable differences. i`m not sure of the whole process -- > what you are describing here could be completely different from what i > was doing. i try my hardest to not to be an audiofool - i give the > benefit of the doubt to the scientist, but many others have also claimed > audible differences with padding the bit length. the dac chips accept > data in a few different ways i remember reading ( Correct me if i am > wrong ) is it possible for a chip to sound different depending on how > the data is sent ? if a computer program ran a set of data through some > unnecessary processes, on purpose, but the data arrived at the dac > unchanged -- is it possible to have a different sound ? > > would you say squeeze has a distinct sound ? if so, what would you > attribute that too ?
I'm going to give you my honest "scientific" response. I have a specialization in digital signal processing and information theory (grade 12 + 5 years) and 25+ years experience in software development and implementation. I'm not bragging or trying to use the "argument of authority" because the world is full of people much more knowledgeable and intelligent than me, I just want to point out that I take my recommendation from a mathematical + theory + experience background. So, any scientific response always wants to keep and open mind because it's a trial and error progress, but we have to think in term of probability and plausibility. If you ask me can I be hit by a meteorite, the answer is yes but it is *very* unlikely. If you ask me if the earth is flat or if the world was created 6000 years ago, the answer is no, period and here there no question of "opening my mind". If you ask me can a chip sound different depending on how the data is sent, the answer is very (very, very) likely no, unless there is something totally broken in the design. And we always try to think about level of impact / importance / risk factor. There are so many more important reasons with effect orders of magnitude (10^n) more visible. Can CPU activity, network activity have an influence? Yes. When we do RF designs where we look at insane level of sensitivity (where we have 160dB of coupling loss for commercial products, so receiving 10^-17 watts), yes you can be sure that the memory bus layout to the main processor and every track can matter but even there the progress of chipsets integration and noise immunity has been amazing in the past 20+ years. When we do simple audio design, oh well, again, it is very very unlikely that there is any impact, unless again, the design is totally broken and that's going to blow up in your face immediately and all the time. Changing the CPU activity is just levels of magnitude less impactful, if any. I'm not interested in flame wars and discussion on "bits are not bits" for the reason I described above, with, but because you candidly asked I'm giving you my honest view. LMS 8.2 on Odroid-C4 - *SqueezeAMP!*, 5xRadio, 5xBoom, 2xDuet, 1xTouch, 1xSB3. Sonos PLAY:3, PLAY:5, Marantz NR1603, Foobar2000, ShairPortW, 2xChromecast Audio, Chromecast v1 and v2, Squeezelite on Pi, Yamaha WX-010, AppleTV 4, Airport Express, GGMM E5, RivaArena 1 & 3 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ philippe_44's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=17261 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=114947 _______________________________________________ plugins mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/plugins
