How to achieve bit perfect running foobar2000 under Wine in Mac 10.11

[foobar2015]

I love foobar2K. But I dislike Windows. So I ran foobar2000 in Mac and Linux Fedora 23 with help from Wine.

 

In Fedora, I knew that ALSA can be a bit perfect solution that audio would not up/down sample again with proper configuraiton. But I'm not sure how I can do that in Mac with Wine. I found some Wine source code using coreaudiod. I can't find any details regarding Mac audio system.

 

Sometimes, I wonder if bit perfect really matters. For example, foobar2K SACD plugin converts DSD/DST into PCM. It is lossy transformation. It is not bit perfect. So why am I so obsessed with this kind of thing?

[whoozwah]

the SACD plugin in foobar has a setting to render as PCM or as DSD.

 

bit perfect imo is something to shoot for. however depending on how your dac chip operates it may be throwing out all your samples and dithering down to 1-5 bits if it's a delta-sigma architecture. If this is the case it's like you kept the tuxedo in pristine condition all the way to the wedding then when you got there someone cut it to shreds and made a patchwork quilt out of it and said wear this instead, it'll be just as good.

[Iain]

the SACD plugin in foobar has a setting to render as PCM or as DSD.

 

bit perfect imo is something to shoot for. however depending on how your dac chip operates it may be throwing out all your samples and dithering down to 1-5 bits if it's a delta-sigma architecture. If this is the case it's like you kept the tuxedo in pristine condition all the way to the wedding then when you got there someone cut it to shreds and made a patchwork quilt out of it and said wear this instead, it'll be just as good.

Nothing wrong with PCM at all and in most cases it will sound just as good as native DSD. Have either of you ever tried the SoX plugin for Foobar2000 with the ASIO driver? It sounds very good, but it's limited to 24/48 PCM.

 

If you want PCM that sounds just as good as native DSD, get the latest version of HQPlayer which will play all the way up to 24/192 PCM.

 

Native DSD is very good expecially at 128 fs or higher mult-channel, but it's over-rated and doesn't live up to the hype in some instances.

 

As the previous poster said, "if it sounds good, it is good".

[foobar2015]

Guys, my question is on how Wine in Mac interacts with coreaudio.

 

I don't plan to compare PCM vs. DSD. TBH, what really matters the recording quality of audio source.

 

@Iain, I'm using foobar2000_input_sacd plugin to decode DSD into PCM. The upper limit on PCM sample rate is 352.8Khz. I can't tell difference after setting up to 88.2Khz.

 

My Fiio X3II DAP can use as DAC and may be able to decode DSD by DoP. But I haven't tried it yet because I haven't figure out how to use WineASIO driver yet. One of reason I will use foobar2000 to decode DSD is multi-channel record and only listen to FL and FR channel. Fiio X3II can't handle multichannel music correctly (not just DSD but also ALAC and FLAC)

[tmtomh]

Guys, my question is on how Wine in Mac interacts with coreaudio.

One thing to keep in mind is that coreaudio isn't going to do on-the-fly resolution switching without a third party app. So whatever foobar/wine puts out is going to get converted to whatever resolution is set in the Mac's "Audio MIDI setup" app (in the utilities folder). If you play mostly CD-quality audio and DSD converted to 24/88.2, then you might be good to go by setting the Mac's output to 24/88.2. That way CDs will be upsampled and therefore not technically bit-perfect, but since 88.2 is an even multiple of 44.1, the upsampled result should sound the same as if it were bit-perfect.

 

But in this scenario, if you have any 24/96 or 24/192 high-res music to play, it's going to get resampled by a very uneven multiplier, lowering the resolution and producing a very non-bit-perfect output to your DAC/stereo. And if you try to avoid that downsampling by setting the Audio MIDI output to 24/192, then all that CD-quality and 24/88.2 music is going to be upsampled by uneven multipliers, again ruining your goal of bit-perfect output.

 

Just to be clear, this issue is not specific to Wine - it's an issue even with Mac-native music playback.

[foobar2015]

@tmtomh

 

Awesome! Thanks for your answer! I saw my DAC change its sample rate when changing this in Audio MIDI setup. This should be PCM bit perfect between foobar2000 in Mac to my DAC.

 

Do you have any theory or practical reason that down sampling to different ratio between 48X and 44.1x causes audible differences? I tried several different ratio but I can't tell the difference.

[tmtomh]

@tmtomh

 

Awesome! Thanks for your answer! I saw my DAC change its sample rate when changing this in Audio MIDI setup. This should be PCM bit perfect between foobar2000 in Mac to my DAC.

 

Do you have any theory or practical reason that down sampling to different ratio between 48X and 44.1x causes audible differences? I tried several different ratio but I can't tell the difference.

It's great that when you make a sample rate change in Audio MIDI, you see that change reflected in your DAC - that means all is working as it should. I just want to be 100% clear, though, that you can't get bit-perfect output this way except if the sample rate of the file you are playing matches your setting in Audio MIDI, and not only do you have to manually change the MIDI resolution, but as far as I know the change does not take effect until you quit and restart your music-playback app. So if your MIDI setting is 88.2kHz, that's the output resolution while foobar/Wine is running, and during that session you'll only get bit-perfect output when playing files that are 88.2kHz files (like your DSD-to-FLAC files).

 

That brings us to your final question, which is why does it matter if the Mac is doing sample-rate conversion before sending the digital music data to your DAC? Well, the first rule - and the easiest answer - is that if you can't hear a difference, it's not a problem and you shouldn't worry about it. (Well, at least, that's my first rule - others here might disagree. :-)

 

The theory, though, is that if you have CD-quality music, aka 44.1kHz, and your MIDI output is set to 48kHz, then before sending your music out to your DAC, your Mac is going to do the 44.1-to-48 conversion. And since those two numbers don't divide evenly into each other, that means when the resampling happens, there are going to be errors (or remainders) in the data. These errors are minute, and perhaps not audible - but they produce increased noise, and that noise is neither totally random, nor is it shaped in any intentional way. So it can produce small sonic artifacts that can theoretically be heard in the form of a subtle degradation of the audio that comes out of your stereo. But as I say, if you don't hear any difference, then don't worry about it!