MX audiophile tips and tricks

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Moltke
Posts: 229
Joined: Tue Dec 19, 2017 6:07 pm

Re: MX audiophile tips and tricks

#21 Post by Moltke »

rs55 wrote: Sat Mar 02, 2019 3:46 am I am using vlc for audio.Seems to have a lot of options that can be configured- alsa /pulse etc. Any thoughts?
I only use vlc for video and have a couple of dedicated music players; clementine and cmus. I did find a couple of articles, you might read them, try some suggestions and come back and tell us all about it.
https://www.techwalla.com/articles/the- ... gs-for-vlc
https://ohotech.com/2013/10/improve-and ... layer.html
whell wrote: Sat Feb 23, 2019 9:27 am
Bluesguy wrote: Thu Feb 21, 2019 10:56 pm Just thought to chime in and say that I use Audacious as my general-purpose, default audio player ... I like the fact that you can set it up to play midi files by accessing high-quality soundfonts if you have them. I'm a professional musician (going on 45 years now!) and my go-to audio player for gorgeous audiophile output is Cantata (MPD frontend) ... love it! Highly-configurable GUI as well as access to edit/tweak the mpd.config located at /homes/(user)/.local/share/cantata/mpd/ if you so desire ... radio stations galore including Tunein ... wow!
+1. I’ve been using Cantata for a while now for much the same reasons as you mention.

Also, since mpd is handling the playback duties, I repurposed an old android tablet to use as a mpd front end. I work from home and have the tablet at my desk so I can control playback while working.

Lots of options!
I read about cantata and thought of trying it but didn't do it...I don't know, just changed my mind. Maybe I do this time.
Without each other's help there ain't no hope for us :happy:

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whell
Posts: 66
Joined: Sat Sep 26, 2009 1:03 pm

Re: MX audiophile tips and tricks

#22 Post by whell »

rs55 wrote: Sat Mar 02, 2019 3:46 am I am using vlc for audio.Seems to have a lot of options that can be configured- alsa /pulse etc. Any thoughts?
It's a fine option for audio playback. In the audio setup options for VLC, you can opt to bypass Pulseaudio and pipe the audio output directly to your sound card / audio device. This isn't required, but it should be a consideration if you play back "hi res" audio files.

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manyroads
Posts: 2603
Joined: Sat Jun 30, 2018 6:33 pm

Re: MX audiophile tips and tricks

#23 Post by manyroads »

Here are some additional tricks & tips I've accumulated:
Make an mp3 playlist:

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ls -1 *.mp3 > playlist.m3u
Make mp3s from raw wav files:

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ffmpeg -b 192k -i The_Rain_Song.wav The_Rain_Song.mp3
Convert m4a to mp3:

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ffmpeg -y -i ./BWV0666.m4a -ab 192000 -ac 2 ./BWV0666.mp3
Good help source: http://xed.ch/help/sound.html

Concatenate mp3 files

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ffmpeg -i "concat:part1.mp3|part2.mp3|part3.mp3" -acodec copy Episode3.mp3
Add stereo channels:
Use the command-line tool sox and do the channel duplication

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sox mono.wav -c 2 stereo.wav
To concatenate files

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sox file1.mp3 file2.mp3 file3.mp3 output.mp3

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ffmpeg -i "concat:1.mp3|2.mp3|3.mp3" -acodec copy Micah-ItsyBitsySpider.mp3
Tip: if you think you might ever compile your 'casts into an audiobook, make sure to set the peaks in Audacity to -3. That's one of the requirements.
Pax vobiscum,
Mark Rabideau - ManyRoads Genealogy -or- eirenicon llc. (geeky stuff)
i3wm, bspwm, hlwm, dwm, spectrwm ~ Linux #449130
"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." -- H. L. Mencken

rs55
Posts: 273
Joined: Sun Feb 24, 2019 4:24 pm

Re: MX audiophile tips and tricks

#24 Post by rs55 »

I like Clementine for a while. Unfortunately it seems to lack an easy way to switch between my laptop speaker and usb-DAC.
VLC has a nice simple choice right off the toolbar-audio.

rs55
Posts: 273
Joined: Sun Feb 24, 2019 4:24 pm

Re: MX audiophile tips and tricks

#25 Post by rs55 »

rs55 wrote: Thu May 02, 2019 8:54 pm I like Clementine for a while. Unfortunately it seems to lack an easy way to switch between my laptop speaker and usb-DAC.
VLC has a nice simple choice right off the toolbar-audio.
Laptop speakers are tinny little things - good enough for youtube shows , but to listen to music - it seems to me - having a good quality external DAC is essential - at least thats the way I have always done it.
I have my music - all 120GB of it - organized by category in folders. So all I am looking for is a nice way to access my music folders and play them on my DAC.
VLC , so far , is the only one that does this .

mr_dashi
Posts: 9
Joined: Sat Mar 09, 2019 8:30 pm

Re: MX audiophile tips and tricks

#26 Post by mr_dashi »

I use mpd + cantata for bit perfect playback. Cantata is a great client with an aesthetically pleasing GUI.

As others have mentioned, you need decent gears to hear the difference. If you're listening to lossy compressed formats, there's no benefit to bit perfect playback. I have decent gears but still enjoy my lossy Spotify premium. I mostly listen to ripped CDs to FLAC lossless compression with EAC on an SSD. EAC is Windows specific software but works great under WIne.

If you don't want to set up mpd, Deadbeef and gmusicbrowser are great music players and can easily be configured for "audiophile" playback.

In another lifetime, I built DIY audio gears, mostly headphone related:
https://solderworksaudio.wordpress.com/

rs55
Posts: 273
Joined: Sun Feb 24, 2019 4:24 pm

Re: MX audiophile tips and tricks

#27 Post by rs55 »

mr_dashi wrote: Thu May 02, 2019 11:50 pm I use mpd + cantata for bit perfect playback. Cantata is a great client with an aesthetically pleasing GUI.

As others have mentioned, you need decent gears to hear the difference. If you're listening to lossy compressed formats, there's no benefit to bit perfect playback. I have decent gears but still enjoy my lossy Spotify premium. I mostly listen to ripped CDs to FLAC lossless compression with EAC on an SSD. EAC is Windows specific software but works great under WIne.

If you don't want to set up mpd, Deadbeef and gmusicbrowser are great music players and can easily be configured for "audiophile" playback.

In another lifetime, I built DIY audio gears, mostly headphone related:
https://solderworksaudio.wordpress.com/
Thanks for the tip on Deadbeef - I am now using it. Nice and simple - set it up to use Alsa ( bypass pulseaudio) and output directly to usb DAC hardware. Works great.

mr_dashi
Posts: 9
Joined: Sat Mar 09, 2019 8:30 pm

Re: MX audiophile tips and tricks

#28 Post by mr_dashi »

Glad to hear. IMO, for my needs, Deadbeef is the best music player if you don't want to use mpd+client. It's the Foobar/Windows equivalent in the Linux world. There's no difference in audio quality/reproduction, but I'm comfortable with mpd+Cantata out of habit. I could live with either.

This should still be current for bit perfect with latest Deadbeef:
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/bit-per ... ux.561961/

rs55
Posts: 273
Joined: Sun Feb 24, 2019 4:24 pm

Re: MX audiophile tips and tricks

#29 Post by rs55 »

mr_dashi wrote: Fri May 03, 2019 1:06 am Glad to hear. IMO, for my needs, Deadbeef is the best music player if you don't want to use mpd+client. It's the Foobar/Windows equivalent in the Linux world. There's no difference in audio quality/reproduction, but I'm comfortable with mpd+Cantata out of habit. I could live with either.

This should still be current for bit perfect with latest Deadbeef:
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/bit-per ... ux.561961/
Thanks for that link! I used to use wasapi in windows with foobar ( took a lot of setting up!). Linux/deadbeef is much easier.

rs55
Posts: 273
Joined: Sun Feb 24, 2019 4:24 pm

Re: MX audiophile tips and tricks

#30 Post by rs55 »

rs55 wrote: Fri May 03, 2019 1:37 am
mr_dashi wrote: Fri May 03, 2019 1:06 am Glad to hear. IMO, for my needs, Deadbeef is the best music player if you don't want to use mpd+client. It's the Foobar/Windows equivalent in the Linux world. There's no difference in audio quality/reproduction, but I'm comfortable with mpd+Cantata out of habit. I could live with either.

This should still be current for bit perfect with latest Deadbeef:
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/bit-per ... ux.561961/
Thanks for that link! I used to use wasapi in windows with foobar ( took a lot of setting up!). Linux/deadbeef is much easier.
With my Stello DAC and AMP, and this Deadbeef /Alsa I am in audio heaven. My ears are not "bit perfect" !!

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