Solved FreeBSD vs Linux sound quality

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Years of hearing about it but a simple Google will find the evidence yourself such as Why is audio still so awful on linux? But there were links going back 9 years of people complaining about it. As far as I knew, everybody felt that way.
As someone grew up on Linux (and Windows, too), I didn't feel that way. Maybe I'm just different, but with my latest observation there is no different between the sound quality of the two systems. Perhaps my ears are bad. I'm not born to be a composer!

p/s: Yeah, this time I lose. You can give the evidence, but I can't give the spectrogram. You win.
 
What? I watched the same MV with 4K quality on both systems. So I have to choose 8K quality? My system can't render 8K! I think the higher the video quality, the higher the audio quality, too. Isn't it?
No. Usually these are separate "channels" in a multipart archive. The resolutions/quality of them are in no way related.
I don't use KDE. You think I should install another DE just to use a graphical mixer? :what:
Again, no. You choose the GUI you like the most & then use the tools it integrates. Maybe you find an alternative in the ports tree, if the standard one does not work for you. But you may have to tweak some settings 1st: Standard disclaimer:
  • install the docs: pkg install {de,en}-freebsd-doc, replace de with your native tongue, and point your favorite browser to /usr/local/share/doc/freebsd.
  • You can add to the ALIAS section of /usr/local/etc/pkg.conf message: "query '[%C/%n] %M'", and read through all pkg message|less.
 
  • install the docs: pkg install {de,en}-freebsd-doc, replace de with your native tongue, and point your favorite browser to /usr/local/share/doc/freebsd.
Is it fine that I always use the online handbook even though I have the docs installed? I think the online version is always more up-to-date and have keep doing so for a long time. I admit I have never read the local installed docs.
 
I found the volume on FreeBSD should be best at 80% and the audio will sound as round and warm as on Linux. The default setting of mixer is volume at 84% and is the optimal value. It's me that changed it to 100%. My bad.

p/s: I'm talking about the audio of Supertux2, this doesn't apply for other applications!
 
never use 100% of volume,keep thit at 85%, for volume and pcm
in the other side FreeBSD has the bitperfect option

I use audacious patched for a 31 bands equ and cristality more dinamic range compresor and sounds perfect
 
I think the higher the video quality, the higher the audio quality, too. Isn't it?
No it is NOT. You get the audio quality the uploader provided.
If you download YT-videos and extract the audio track from different video formats you can prove it.

See https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/4603579

Here is a nice audio test from YT. If you play with it you would most probably test the ability of your hearing. If you wanted to test the output of your equipment, you would need some professional setup for measurement.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Dc-5DD8P-0
 
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sysctl: What happened to that Spectrogram which I told you? use a vpn to bypass (probably!) that CloudFlare garbage. Sometimes it works.
and to follow up on getopt and mjollnir comments, if you use www/youtube_dl to download stuff from youtube you have option to use a combination of different quality, both audio and video. For example you can select from this range of audio (an arbitrary video clip)
Code:
249          webm       audio only tiny   58k , opus @ 50k (48000Hz), 2.01MiB
250          webm       audio only tiny   78k , opus @ 70k (48000Hz), 2.68MiB
140          m4a        audio only tiny  130k , m4a_dash container, mp4a.40.2@128k (44100Hz), 5.21MiB
251          webm       audio only tiny  150k , opus @160k (48000Hz), 5.29MiB
and combine it with different video/quality:
Code:
394          mp4        256x144    144p   83k , av01.0.00M.10.0.110.09.16.09.0, 30fps, video only, 2.77MiB
278          webm       256x144    144p   98k , webm container, vp9, 30fps, video only, 3.65MiB
160          mp4        256x144    144p  111k , avc1.4d400c, 30fps, video only, 2.67MiB
395          mp4        426x240    240p  191k , av01.0.00M.10.0.110.09.16.09.0, 30fps, video only, 5.68MiB
242          webm       426x240    240p  228k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 7.59MiB
133          mp4        426x240    240p  245k , avc1.4d4015, 30fps, video only, 5.69MiB
330          webm       256x144    144p60 HDR  245k , vp9.2, 60fps, video only, 8.72MiB
396          mp4        640x360    360p  347k , av01.0.01M.10.0.110.09.16.09.0, 30fps, video only, 10.59MiB
243          webm       640x360    360p  422k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 14.19MiB
331          webm       426x240    240p60 HDR  517k , vp9.2, 60fps, video only, 18.91MiB
134          mp4        640x360    360p  633k , avc1.4d401e, 30fps, video only, 17.17MiB
397          mp4        854x480    480p  651k , av01.0.04M.10.0.110.09.16.09.0, 30fps, video only, 20.00MiB
244          webm       854x480    480p  785k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 26.42MiB
332          webm       640x360    360p60 HDR 1064k , vp9.2, 60fps, video only, 40.80MiB
398          mp4        1280x720   720p60 1295k , av01.0.08M.10.0.110.09.16.09.0, 60fps, video only, 41.41MiB
135          mp4        854x480    480p 1351k , avc1.4d401f, 30fps, video only, 35.59MiB
247          webm       1280x720   720p 1588k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 53.74MiB
333          webm       854x480    480p60 HDR 1988k , vp9.2, 60fps, video only, 77.26MiB
399          mp4        1920x1080  1080p60 2237k , av01.0.09M.10.0.110.09.16.09.0, 60fps, video only, 74.32MiB
302          webm       1280x720   720p60 2667k , vp9, 60fps, video only, 89.04MiB
136          mp4        1280x720   720p 2698k , avc1.4d401f, 30fps, video only, 70.39MiB
248          webm       1920x1080  1080p 2772k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 94.90MiB
298          mp4        1280x720   720p60 4201k , avc1.4d4020, 60fps, video only, 115.83MiB
303          webm       1920x1080  1080p60 4486k , vp9, 60fps, video only, 154.48MiB
334          webm       1280x720   720p60 HDR 4529k , vp9.2, 60fps, video only, 176.99MiB
137          mp4        1920x1080  1080p 5065k , avc1.640028, 30fps, video only, 130.39MiB
335          webm       1920x1080  1080p60 HDR 6923k , vp9.2, 60fps, video only, 271.72MiB
299          mp4        1920x1080  1080p60 7007k , avc1.64002a, 60fps, video only, 204.42MiB
400          mp4        2560x1440  1440p60 7651k , av01.0.12M.10.0.110.09.16.09.0, 60fps, video only, 249.32MiB
271          webm       2560x1440  1440p 8977k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 297.43MiB
308          webm       2560x1440  1440p60 13368k , vp9, 60fps, video only, 448.85MiB
401          mp4        3840x2160  2160p60 15790k , av01.0.13M.10.0.110.09.16.09.0, 60fps, video only, 501.33MiB
336          webm       2560x1440  1440p60 HDR 16746k , vp9.2, 60fps, video only, 651.85MiB
313          webm       3840x2160  2160p 17965k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 644.01MiB
402          mp4        7680x4320  4320p60 23104k , av01.0.17M.10.0.110.09.16.09.0, 60fps, video only, 599.29MiB
315          webm       3840x2160  2160p60 26684k , vp9, 60fps, video only, 988.10MiB
337          webm       3840x2160  2160p60 HDR 30553k , vp9.2, 60fps, video only, 1.13GiB
272          webm       7680x4320  4320p60 31980k , vp9, 60fps, video only, 830.57MiB
571          mp4        7680x4320  4320p60 34531k , av01.0.17M.10.0.110.09.16.09.0, 60fps, video only, 918.43MiB
18           mp4        640x360    360p  667k , avc1.42001E, mp4a.40.2@ 96k (44100Hz), 26.87MiB
22           mp4        1280x720   720p 1877k , avc1.64001F, mp4a.40.2@192k (44100Hz) (best)
 
Here are some hints on audio from videos using ffmpeg(1):

Extract mp3 from a video:
video gets demuxed in video- and audio-stream. The video-stream is dropped and the audio-stream is transcoded i.e. from AAC to mp3 and finally muxed to mp3.
ffmpeg -i somevideo.mp4 audiotrack.mp3

Use ffprobe to find out which codec is used for the audio-stream:
ffprobe -i somevideo.mp4

Copy audio from video:
ffmpeg -i somevideo.mp4 -vn -c:a copy audiotrack.aac
does a very fast bitwise copy of the audio-stream.
 
My recommendation is the mediainfo command from the multimedia/mediainfo port / package.
It gives a very detailed listing of the various streams contained within a multimedia file. This tool is also useful for scripting because it has options to extract certain pieces of information (e.g. resolution of a video stream, number of channels in an audio stream, language of a subtitle stream, …) and display them in a user-supplied format, so you don’t need to parse anything.

Of course, there is no easy way to get the “quality” of a multimedia file. For example, a 320 kbps mp3 file can sound worse than a 128 kbps mp3 file, and a 1080p video can look better than a 4K video. It depends on the quality of the source material, the encoder settings, and a lot of other things. Apart from that, “quality” is also a matter of subjective perception.
 
That’s not mutually exclusive.
To avoid talking on cross purposes that is not enough.

You might find your perception of the color white different than mine. You claim your white looks brighter and therefore your white has a better quality. Now what? For what purpose? Do we need to get a white balance?

When it comes to audio and perception criteria are necessary for talking about quality.
 
To avoid talking on cross purposes that is not enough.

You might find your perception of the color white different than mine. You claim your white looks brighter and therefore your white has a better quality. Now what? For what purpose? Do we need to get a white balance?

When it comes to audio and perception criteria are necessary for talking about quality.
Well, the word “quality” is used with different meanings.

Compression algorithms often need to measure the “quality” of a signal. For example, when variable bitrate (VBR) modes are used, like in mp3 audio or h.26x video, the algorithm needs to find out which parts can be compressed more than others without affecting the perceived quality of the result too much. In fact, this is the most critical part of an encoder. As you mentioned, it uses certain criteria. Often there are several algorithms implemented that you can chose from, that use different criteria, with different advantages and disadvantages. Each of them tries to measure quality in a different way. But which of them provides the “best quality” is often unclear, and in the end it’s in the eye of the beholder.

People often use the bitrate as equivalent to quality. That is, they assume that a 160 kbps mp3 has a better quality than a 128 kbps mp3. That might be true more often than not, but often it is wrong. Note that, in this case, the word “quality” is used in a different sense than above.

Ok, now I’ going to switch the PC off and have some quality time. :)
 
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