MX audiophile tips and tricks
MX audiophile tips and tricks
Hi everyone! hope you're all having a nice life!
I love listening to music and am always looking for some ways - on the software side - to bring some improvement into my audiophile experience. I know that the best solution is on the hardware side; better hardware better results, that's as clear as it reads, and I've covered as best as I've could. But I also know that some tweaking here and there might report some gain when it comes to play your audio files at their best, so to speak. I found this post https://medium.com/@gamunu/enable-high- ... 16f3fe7e1f some time ago and applied some of the suggestions and I believe I did get some improvement. This one is also a good sorce for getting ideas and suggestions https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=253225 However, I was wondering whether you people know/use some tips and tricks for enriching your audiophile experience within MX you'd like to share. Thanks in advance for your answers.
I love listening to music and am always looking for some ways - on the software side - to bring some improvement into my audiophile experience. I know that the best solution is on the hardware side; better hardware better results, that's as clear as it reads, and I've covered as best as I've could. But I also know that some tweaking here and there might report some gain when it comes to play your audio files at their best, so to speak. I found this post https://medium.com/@gamunu/enable-high- ... 16f3fe7e1f some time ago and applied some of the suggestions and I believe I did get some improvement. This one is also a good sorce for getting ideas and suggestions https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=253225 However, I was wondering whether you people know/use some tips and tricks for enriching your audiophile experience within MX you'd like to share. Thanks in advance for your answers.
Without each other's help there ain't no hope for us
Re: MX audiophile tips and tricks
I use Audacious to play music and a couple of its effects (output > effects) have worked for me.
Crystalizer set to 0.3 adds a bit of fairy dust to the top end without making things sound too sharp.
Extra Stereo set to 1.5 doesn't really add to the stereo effect, but I have found it does add more punch to the bass.
Crystalizer set to 0.3 adds a bit of fairy dust to the top end without making things sound too sharp.
Extra Stereo set to 1.5 doesn't really add to the stereo effect, but I have found it does add more punch to the bass.
Re: MX audiophile tips and tricks
We veered onto a discussion about this last year in a thread about yet another audio player.
viewtopic.php?p=451818#p451818
There's a lot of good info on using Linux for audiophile listening in the links I posted there.
Essentially you want the audio path to be as short as possible with no resampling or plugins inserted as these can introduce artifacts. Pulseaudio resamples by default so it's best to route straight to ALSA for purity.
Ultimately it's all in vain if you have a sub-par audio system so that's really the first thing to consider. You'll never get true hi-fi quality out of your average "computer speakers".
viewtopic.php?p=451818#p451818
There's a lot of good info on using Linux for audiophile listening in the links I posted there.
Essentially you want the audio path to be as short as possible with no resampling or plugins inserted as these can introduce artifacts. Pulseaudio resamples by default so it's best to route straight to ALSA for purity.
Ultimately it's all in vain if you have a sub-par audio system so that's really the first thing to consider. You'll never get true hi-fi quality out of your average "computer speakers".
Re: MX audiophile tips and tricks
Thanks for the link and sorry for the late reply. In the Mint thread I shared in my first post https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=253225 one user Hoser Rob in the third post page 1 saidsunrat wrote: ↑Mon Feb 18, 2019 6:28 pm We veered onto a discussion about this last year in a thread about yet another audio player.
viewtopic.php?p=451818#p451818
There's a lot of good info on using Linux for audiophile listening in the links I posted there.
Essentially you want the audio path to be as short as possible with no resampling or plugins inserted as these can introduce artifacts. Pulseaudio resamples by default so it's best to route straight to ALSA for purity.
Ultimately it's all in vain if you have a sub-par audio system so that's really the first thing to consider. You'll never get true hi-fi quality out of your average "computer speakers".
which I came to believe that it is true. I installed audacious and followed instructions from that same thread so audacious uses ALSA, then I ran in the terminalBTW it's a complete myth that pulseaudio always resamples. It only does so if there's software mixing needed ... there's no way around that which is why I avoid software mixing. But it's easy to prove this by showing the current ALSA sample rate while playing a file (all audio ends up at ALSA anyway).
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pasuspender audacious mp3_file
and if you read here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PulseAudioconsists of a set of kernel drivers, an application programming interface (API) library and utility programs for supporting sound under Linux.
it seems to me that there's no way to use alsa without pulseaudio. The way I see it, one can do his best to get the closest thing to a "perfect audio playback set up" but without external help i.e an external amplifier/mixer, you'll always get half - even maybe less - the potential since software limitations are insurmountable at least for the average user. I'll keep digging and reading till I found "my perfect set up" and even if I don't so far it's been an incredible learning experience, I didn't know anything about alsa, I knew a little bit about pulseaudio but there's way more to it.In a typical installation scenario under Linux, the user configures ALSA to use a virtual device provided by PulseAudio.
Without each other's help there ain't no hope for us
Re: MX audiophile tips and tricks
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pasuspender audacious mp3_file
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pasuspender -- audacious mp3_file
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pasuspender --server=ALSA -- audacious mp3_file
Re: MX audiophile tips and tricks
Kruppt wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 1:26 pmShould be:Code: Select all
pasuspender audacious mp3_file
Or:Code: Select all
pasuspender -- audacious mp3_file
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pasuspender --server=ALSA -- audacious mp3_file
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pasuspender --audacious mp3_file
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unknown argument --audacious
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pasuspender --server=ALSA -- audacious mp3_file
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connection error: connection denied
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audacious mp3_file
Without each other's help there ain't no hope for us
Re: MX audiophile tips and tricks
The difference between running through Pulse and directly through ALSA can be fairly minimal. I think I can detect a slight difference on my system with M-Audio Audiophile 2496 card and ADAM A5X studio monitors when playing a high quality lossless file but not with any mp3 files. The other system with similar studio monitor speakers using stock Intel audio and Pulse sounds fine anyway. I use DeadBeef player for testing as it's easy to switch between Pulse and ALSA.
At best you might get 5% improvement with tweaking software (unless you have really bad configuration) and 95% improvement with better hardware, mainly speakers. *no scientific basis to figures :)
At best you might get 5% improvement with tweaking software (unless you have really bad configuration) and 95% improvement with better hardware, mainly speakers. *no scientific basis to figures :)
Re: MX audiophile tips and tricks
I’ve got MX Linux 18 running music player daemon (mpd). I’ve configured it to bypass Pulseaudio, and I’ve found the difference bypassing versus not bypassing is significant. For better or worse, the better your audio hardware and source music files, the more you’re able to hear Pulseaudio's negative impact.
That said, I’ve been avoiding Pulse for a number of years now. If might have improved since I first waded into PC based playback several years ago.
That said, I’ve been avoiding Pulse for a number of years now. If might have improved since I first waded into PC based playback several years ago.
Re: MX audiophile tips and tricks
I’m not sure that the comments about Pulseaudio not resampling are correct. Again, it’s been a while but...
I own an external DAC that displays the output bit rate. When using Pulse, my 96khz files played back at 48 kHz. I wonder if the individual who claimed it was a “complete myth” experimented with hi res audio files at all?
I own an external DAC that displays the output bit rate. When using Pulse, my 96khz files played back at 48 kHz. I wonder if the individual who claimed it was a “complete myth” experimented with hi res audio files at all?
Re: MX audiophile tips and tricks
Agree. I said in my first post that I'm aware that the best solution to get the best audiophile experience is through hardware, however, I read some posts of people claiming that it is possible to find a "near perfect set up" for the available hardware, so I thought of trying and started to play a bit changing configuration files seeking to improve the sound as best as possible, which might be not much but still some improvement is better than none.sunrat wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 7:17 pm The difference between running through Pulse and directly through ALSA can be fairly minimal. I think I can detect a slight difference on my system with M-Audio Audiophile 2496 card and ADAM A5X studio monitors when playing a high quality lossless file but not with any mp3 files. The other system with similar studio monitor speakers using stock Intel audio and Pulse sounds fine anyway. I use DeadBeef player for testing as it's easy to switch between Pulse and ALSA.
At best you might get 5% improvement with tweaking software (unless you have really bad configuration) and 95% improvement with better hardware, mainly speakers. *no scientific basis to figures :)
I have a large collection of flac files as well as mp3s, I tested changes with both formats and yes, I do notice some difference when playing a flac file not so much with the mp3s.whell wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 8:58 pm I’ve got MX Linux 18 running music player daemon (mpd). I’ve configured it to bypass Pulseaudio, and I’ve found the difference bypassing versus not bypassing is significant. For better or worse, the better your audio hardware and source music files, the more you’re able to hear Pulseaudio's negative impact.
That said, I’ve been avoiding Pulse for a number of years now. If might have improved since I first waded into PC based playback several years ago.
Well, he did say thatwhell wrote: ↑Tue Feb 19, 2019 9:13 pm I’m not sure that the comments about Pulseaudio not resampling are correct. Again, it’s been a while but...
I own an external DAC that displays the output bit rate. When using Pulse, my 96khz files played back at 48 kHz. I wonder if the individual who claimed it was a “complete myth” experimented with hi res audio files at all?
I haven't tried that myself yet.Set the output module in your app to Pulse. Play a 44.1K sample audio file and execute this in the terminal:
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Then repeat with a 48K file. I've done this test many times and it's never resampled.Code: Select all
cat /proc/asound/card?/stream0 | grep Momentary
Without each other's help there ain't no hope for us