soundscape

BTW, once I figured out the great sound my set up is capable of, I went to HDTracks and bought 24/96+ music for $500.

Using Audiophilio 1 with test files, I checked my digital set up for bit perfectness. With Audio Units turned off, my set up is indeed bit perfect. Since I also get similar results with the internal speakers, as well as with a FireWire-connected Apogee Duet and AKG 702 headphones, instead of the V800/V181/LCD2 combination, I don't think it is caused by the analog part of the set up either. Could my ears be the origin of the "problem"? Or my expectations? Well, the sound of voices, for example, with those graphic equalizer settings, appears to be more like what I hear in the "real" world.

Or like my ears... Perhaps some of those bad recordings are not as bad as we think. Do you have one that you would care about? Try it with my settings!

Perhaps that was really some coincidence: I currently usually see 176/24 for 44/16 files. My settings might have changed (but not the Audirvana version I'm using). Will keep an eye on it. Unfortunately, I did not write down the track I saw 176/16 with.

P.S. regarding the graphic equalizer settings: They do depend a bit on the music/recording, but in my case so far those are nuances which are not obvious visually, for example a bit more or less bass or treble or mids, but basically the same curve. So I am not sure if I could take the curve shown in the user manual (which I found only later on) as a confirmation that there is a common problem, as that curve differs more substantially (in the frequency ranges being emphasized, or not) from the ones I have found so far when optimizing for specific albums.

Damien: Although the audio unit's quality is in general (subjectively) very, very good, occasionally there seem to be slight distortions. I had the impression these could be avoided by having a smooth curve of settings in the graphic EQ. However, when coincidentally took a look at my new Audiophilio USB-SPDIF converter, I saw it display 176/16, playing a 44/16 file with 4x up sampling. I would have assumed that both up sampling and the audio unit calculations are done in 24 bit, so I was surprised about that. When playing files which are 24 bit natively, it does display 176/24, so it seems to detect a difference somehow. Are the calculations really done in 16 bit, or how does Audiophilio know about the file's native bit width? It seems to make sense for the calculations to be 24 bit, especially for graphic equalizers which reduce the volume in some frequency range.

It might be more than the tweeter. I also had a problem with higher frequencies being over-emphasized, and was under the impression there was something possibly wrong with my set up (it actually sometimes created some buzzing in my ear). I found the audio unit named AUGraphicEQ very useful, it can not only improve the tonal emphasis to be more pleasant, but actually significantly increase the subjective sound quality, and result in a much more natural sounding system (for the same price). I came up with a setting which has visual similarities with the one shown in the user manual, but I think the two settings will result in a very different sound. At least in my case, it appears the important part is that the frequencies up to 2 kHz are de-emphasized, while those in the range 3 kHz to 6 Khz should be de-emphasized very little, for a natural sound. This seem to be the same for different headphones and equipment that I have, even for the computer's internal speakers, though in each case one would fine-tune for the specific equipment being used. I'm not sure if others will achieve the same result with the same settings, or if there are dependencies, but so far I wouldn't know what those might be, and expect this kind of setting to solve a common problem for anyone desiring a more natural sound. Well, actually there is a cost: to avoid distortions at high volumes, all the individual settings in the graphic equalizer need to be 0 db or lower, and so the resulting overall volume is reduced. This means one might need a headphone amp with sufficient extra power.

> " I have retested iTunes 10.1.1 (4)." If you follow the links above, you'll see that more than one person was able to capture sample tracks which show the modification on at least one channel (the left). However it seems to appear and disappear under certain conditions, (and maybe the amount of the effect also varies). Also some don't seem to experience it at all.

> "What I found is appreciably diminished separation (between left and right), a loss of clarity (which may be a function of the former) and a general shift in balance to the right side of center. (Some will interpret this as the other software having a wider, deeper soundstage with greater clarity and better imaging.)" Ahh! I remember flipping my headphones around and wondering whether it's my hearing or the music... in my case it wasn't (always) easy to identify and I started to listen for all kinds of differences between different newly-downloaded players...

Thanks for 0.3.2, it will ask me to confirm m3u8, and then playlist save works! (I wonder if it would be technically possible to write a test application which uses an additional USB port and pretends to be a listening DAC. Then one uses a short USB cable to connect the music-out USB port to the test USB port, and the test application can test for bit-perfectness by comparing the received samples to the file on disk...)

> "I believe you will find that all the Mac playback applications talked about on this web forum are "bit perfect". This includes Audirvana, Ayrewave, Pure Music (in all of its forms), the various versions of Amarra, and even iTunes. Of course, this all presumes that the processing options these products offer are turned off. You can investigate this yourself if you'd like, as this has been reported on within the threads on this very forum. Well, there still seem to be differences, and it's unlikely jitter since I'm using the Halide bridge (edit: which also has galvanic separation). I thought I checked all options (except on Amarra, which I want to check once the system is complete and burnt-in). However it is not impossible that I missed something since the differences aren't always audible immediately on each track. It is also not impossible that "imagination" has a stronger influence on the sound experience than I am aware of, so far. I have done a bit of searching, but not yet found the information you are referring to. I'd appreciate any links, perhaps in a PM in order not to go off topic too far, in this thread. It seemed to me that those app options, which have impact on the sound, can change from app version to app version, and perhaps even depend on the OS version, depending on the API used by the player app. (Or depend on settings in "Audio MIDI SetUp", although as far as I know at least Audirvana sets all those itself). > "Sorry - I don't fully understand your checkbox comment, so I can't reply fairly." What I meant is that if some audiophile player software has a feature that makes the output not bit-perfect, then there should be an option to turn it off. I wrote that before you stated that all players can be set to be bit-perfect.

> "Or... Perhaps Audirvana is doing something that somehow attenuates treble (but perhaps not a plain equalizer-like function.) Depending on a bunch of things, that also could be perceived as "more natural." " No, Audrivana was recently found to be bit-perfect (in this thread). Unless that changed. > " This is why it's good to have a choice." Options are good, but in my opinion should have checkboxes in an audiophile player.

@Damien: I don't seem to be able to make the Save Playlist As... work. I've currently dedicated a laptop for Audio, but will soon be trying to run it again on a computer being used. (So I currently can't comment on the CPU over, but will soon). @wgscott: Unless AyreWave is bit-perfect as Audirvana is (or at least was recently), it seems that AyreWave is doing something that accentuates treble (but perhaps not a plain equalizer-like function). It probably depends on listening habits (and on the headphones, for example) whether that is perceived as "more natural".

@Damien Thanks for the playlist save! (EDIT: BTW, I like your idea of a read-only browser for the iTunes library)

@Karl To me it seems the CPU overs sometimes come when also using other software, especially after a longer time. Once they start, it seems to be slowly getting worse. Sometimes they stop again when I stop doing anything else on the computer (I don't have a dedicated music server), but when they don't, re-launching Audirvana usually "fixes" it for a long time. I don't think you need to reboot, just re-launch Audirvana (in my experience).