Foobar playback (BD-Design)
by GC 
, Friday, October 21, 2005, 23:01 (6762 days ago)
Hallo Bert and other computer music makers,
Several months ago I bought a Twindac, so I spent some time to learn EAC and Foobar. Since it worked easily and with good results on my old Toshiba 4600 I decided to go for a dedicated notebook. Today I obtained an Acer 2312LMi-L together with a LaCie 250 GB external hard disk.
So this evening I installed Foobar on the Acer and copied a CD to its hard disk, Debut from Bjork. What I heard was really amazing, Bjork voice was so distorted that I hardly recognised it. High frequencies were almost totally missing, also on instruments. It looked some what like a much too slow playback but the track time was exactly what it should be.
I checked every parameter in the preferences and compared them with the settings in the Toshiba and made them exactly the same. Nothing had any effect, the Acer kept sounding terrible. With the equalizer some high frequencies could be added but the sound remained far from the original.
After several hours of trying I have no idea anymore what to test. I did all listening up to now with a relatevely good headphone into the notebooks. Can anyone give me a clue of what can be happening here??
Yours,
Eddie
Foobar playback
Hi Eddie,
Question(s):
- does the Toshiba have a 2.0 USB port (and drivers installed)?
- do you use a short USB cable?
- did you fully disabled the build-in soundcard?
- did you select Direct Sound and USB Apparaat in Foobar?
Fully disabled sound card means that in the sound options menu (configuration window, Sound Options) you have to turn off the sound card (hardware) and turn off all mixer functions (drivers).
BTW, if you're able to listen to the headphone output of the Toshiba means that the sound card is still turned on with probably too much gain (volume digital increased with 6dB or more) giving much distortion.
Ciao,
Bert
Foobar playback
Hello Bert,
About your question(s):
- does the Toshiba have a 2.0 USB port (and drivers installed)?
- do you use a short USB cable?
- did you fully disabled the build-in soundcard?
- did you select Direct Sound and USB Apparaat in Foobar?
1. Both notebooks have USB 2.0 ports that work fine with the mouse and the external hard disk.
2. I did not yet use the USB connection to the Twindac for practical reasons. I am just testing everything on a table first. However, I did find a nice short USB cable of 0.5 meter from Belkin. It is called Hi-Speed USB 2.0 Device Cable from their PRO SERIES. The price was only 6.50 Euro but it has gold plated contacts.
3. I did not yet disable the sound card.
4. I did select Direct Sound but there was no option available to select a USB device. Could this be due to the fact that the Twindac is not connected?
This morning I made a test that I did not think of yesterday. I played a CD on my new Acer directly from the disk using Windows Media Player and my headphone. The sound was just as terrible as with Foobar! On my old Toshiba both programs sound OK through the headphone. So I will go to the computershop and ask them what they can do about this last discovery.
I must admit that I still do not know how all this computer audio works in detail. Do you know a good, technical document on this subject?
Of course I will try to test the notebooks with the Twindac soon, but tomorrow I will go to the VAD-show, a large HiFi-exhibition which is very close to my house.
Yours,
Eddie
Foobar playback
Hi Eddie,
4. I did select Direct Sound but there was no option available to select a
USB device. Could this be due to the fact that the Twindac is not connected?
If the TwinDAC is not connected then the computer can't see the DAC, so its not an option to select. Only connected items can be selected.
This morning I made a test that I did not think of yesterday. I played a
CD on my new Acer directly from the disk using Windows Media Player and my
headphone. The sound was just as terrible as with Foobar! On my old Toshiba
both programs sound OK through the headphone. So I will go to the
computershop and ask them what they can do about this last discovery.
My guess is that the sound is digitally gained in volume (that gives a lot of distortion, even with the normal volume control at low level) or the little amp for the headphone is broken or...
I must admit that I still do not know how all this computer audio works in
detail. Do you know a good, technical document on this subject?
Only in my head.... 
Of course I will try to test the notebooks with the Twindac soon, but
tomorrow I will go to the VAD-show, a large HiFi-exhibition which is very
close to my house.
I am sure that this will be the way to make it work much better, don't forget to turn off the soundcard and to turn off the mixer options!
Here is a link with information you should read:
http://www.bd-design.nl/index.html?lang=en-uk&target=d121.html
Ciao,
Bert
Foobar playback and VAD show
by GC , Monday, October 24, 2005, 22:01 (6759 days ago) @ GC
Hello Bert,
I did already see the pages that you refer too. After again changing settings for more than an hour I suddenly got a normal sounding Bjork out of my headphone. So after one minute I started Foobar and I also obtained Bjork. Already on the first seconds my mouth almost fell open from amazement. The difference was much larger than I expected: the sound is now crystal clear and much more detail is revealed in high and low frequencies.
So yesterday evening I took a deep breath and connected the Acer to the Twindac. The new hardware was immediately recognised and I made the USB device the default player and set all parameters according to your manuals. When I started Foobar no sound came out of the speakers. Three hours later, already after midnight, suddenly the sound appeared. So, again I listened to a CD by Bjork and noticed the same difference. The notebook is indeed considerably better than my Theta CD transport (a new one nowadays costs at least $5000!).
The problem remains that I do not understand what I am doing. Marian, my wife, is much more experienced in playing around with computers so she helped me a bit in trying to systematically scan possible settings. But I do not even know what Direct Sound means or Kernel Streaming or .... On the other hand I saw an interesting development on the VAD show I mentioned earlier: hard disk recorders specifically for audio. These were very userfriendly but are of course much less versatile than a notebook and, much more important, they did not have audio outout through USB. (I also did not hear a bass speaker that comes even close to the speed and the naturalness of the BD-15).
So I will definitely stay with the notebook playback and try to find good information on computer audio. The highest priority, however, is now back with the hum problem that is still not completely resolved. In spite of that I do enjoy listening to music almost every evening.
Yours,
Eddie