Audiophile options for a HQ external USB DAC

mixer monitor 0
Did the command above didn't solve it?

You can try:
mixer -f /dev/mixer0 -s mix 0
mixer -f /dev/mixer1 -s mix 0
mixer -f /dev/mixer2 -s mix 0
mixer -f /dev/mixer3 -s mix 0

Avoid (don't do!):
mixer -f /dev/mixer4 -s mix 0
 
mixer monitor 0 did not solve

i have:
mixer -f /dev/mixer0 -s mix 0 mixer: unknown device: mix usage: mixer [-f device] [-s | -S] [dev [+|-][voll[:[+|-]volr]] ... mixer [-f device] [-s | -S] recsrc ... mixer [-f device] [-s | -S] {^|+|-|=}rec rdev ... devices: vol, pcm
it looks it is new mixer ( there was rewrite of it )
 
angry_vincent said:
mixer monitor 0 did not solve

i have:
mixer -f /dev/mixer0 -s mix 0 mixer: unknown device: mix usage: mixer [-f device] [-s | -S] [dev [+|-][voll[:[+|-]volr]] ... mixer [-f device] [-s | -S] recsrc ... mixer [-f device] [-s | -S] {^|+|-|=}rec rdev ... devices: vol, pcm
it looks it is new mixer ( there was rewrite of it )
Click to expand...
Please do all these commands after each other:

mixer -f /dev/mixer0 0
mixer -f /dev/mixer0 pcm 0
mixer -f /dev/mixer1 0
mixer -f /dev/mixer1 pcm 0
mixer -f /dev/mixer2 0
mixer -f /dev/mixer2 pcm 0
mixer -f /dev/mixer3 0
mixer -f /dev/mixer3 pcm 0
 
angry_vincent said:
this worked
bitperfect also now working. thats quite and achievement! thank you very much!
Click to expand...
You're welcome.
question: are these mixer changes permanent?
Click to expand...
No, you can always reconfigure them as you wish.
But if you don't change them, they'll be remembered.

My experience with bit-perfect on FreeBSD is that cmus does not play 24-bit files but only (the standard) 16-bit files. (I'm talking about lossless FLAC and APE files)
Audacious can play all file types (also FLAC 24-bit 96kHz) in bit-perfect mode, so I would recommend this audio player.
 
i am quite familiar with audio/musicpd so this is my player choice. I also meant that applied changes to mixer are remembered but used wrong word, sorry. I still shocked this was that simple :)
 
angry_vincent said:
i am quite familiar with audio/musicpd so this is my player choice. I also meant that applied changes to mixer are remembered but used wrong word, sorry. I still shocked this was that simple :)
Click to expand...
mpd may also be my favorite app but it takes a little longer to configure. I'm also glad it's resolved for you :)
 
I installed mpd today. I used to use it all the time but hadn't used it for a few years.

So what I noticed is that Audacious gives a little more volume at 100% volume on both players. I then adjusted this by giving 2% more volume to mpd in the mixer.

Then I compared the sound quality. I would think it's the same with bit-perfect settings, but it wasn't. The song I played didn't have that much bass, but the bass had more impact on Audacious than it did on mpd.

Then I played the following song on both players: https://opbeatz.beatstars.com/beat/hourglass-1680975

It sounds better in Chromium and Audacious than on mpd. The bass is less tight and less detailed on MPD. Maybe I've misconfigured mpd and that's why it doesn't sound as good. I'll investigate that further.

It could also be that Audacious has better sound for one reason or another: https://www.reddit.com/r/Ubuntu/comments/ado6kl/audacious_sound_with_a_gnome_music_like_interface/

I'm not an audiophile but I find the quality sound of the audacious music player much better than other music players I tried.
 
Audacious and MPD sound slightly different on my system. I researched it further and compared a few more tracks. Audacious has a bass that is more punchy. But MPD has more purity in the voice and instruments.
 
1. i have to say, sadly to my too early excitement, that disabling of mixers we did with above commands, pcm4 became my main device.
cat /dev/sndstat:
pcm4: (play/rec) default
and i had dev.pcm0 set to bitperfect. now that all other mixers disabled, i set dev.pcm.4.bitperfect=1 and it produces distorted sound, hiss and noise. so i was wrong in my comments, wrongly assuming dev.pcm.0 has worked ( it was main device before disable of other mixer devices )
2. i find it very weird, that in bitperfect mode audacious and musicpd plays differently. it cannot be so, in my understanding. either one or second doing something wrong with sound ( equalizer or similar )
 
Audacious has a more punchy and more emphasized bass, MPD has better vocals. For me it is definitely correctly configured on the right output. They both sound very good but there are subtle differences.

I don't know why it won't work for you, I think a developer will be able to help you better, I don't have detailed knowledge of FreeBSD's audio stack.
 
angry_vincent said:
i set dev.pcm.4.bitperfect=1 and it produces distorted sound, hiss and noise
Click to expand...
Bitperfect mode sends an audio stream directly, without any processing, to a device. In your case to pcm4, likely your DAC. If you get hiss and noise, you may be sending a format or a sample rate your DAC cannot handle.
 
angry_vincent said:
how to find out which format/sample which DAC can handle?
Click to expand...
Most of all from the manual and specifications of the DAC and its settings, if any. Ffprobe (part of the ffmpeg), by using ffprobe audio.file, gives you sample rate, no. of channels and bit depth of an audio file.
Remember that audio applications may alter audio before sending it to an output device. Command cat /dev/sndstat will show you these data as it was last sent.
 
Voltaire said:
Audacious has a more punchy and more emphasized bass, MPD has better vocals. For me it is definitely correctly configured on the right output. They both sound very good but there are subtle differences.

I don't know why it won't work for you, I think a developer will be able to help you better, I don't have detailed knowledge of FreeBSD's audio stack.
Click to expand...

Im not an expert in sound but me too, I find audacious with better sound, if you are interest I made a patch to have 31 bands on audacious

audacious hack

if you like I cant update the post for the actual version
 
On previous discussion DACs vs onboard; it's not just about the chip, there is an amplifier and analog circuitry. The baseline price for good retail USB DAC one channel (stereo) is about 50e. The price of chip itself is about few euros at volume, which is a lot more pricey than the DAC part of the average mobo soundcard which just has to be sub dollar considering $100 retail mobos have them. Indeed, if you take a look at interfaces utilizing stereo DAC and some additions, you'll come to a baseline price of about 100 euros, for example PiSound which has a Burr Brown with MIDI, microphone input, and two pots.

It would be absurd to claim that a mainboard that costs the same price as stereo interface has the same quality interface on board, and it's also multichannel.

Quality headphones are in audio world what gaming laptops are in gaming world. You pay for the ergonomics, not for the performance. Onboard analog circuitry is just not good enough to drive a proper speaker system. For me it is appropriate for home Hi-Fi tops, and only if you have good DAC on the receiver side so you can just use digital out from the computer. But that still counts as using (and paying for) separate DAC.
 
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