Author Topic: Resampling  (Read 6921 times)

Jonah

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Hello Steven,

I have been using Musicbee for 2 years and I just registered in order to post this. First I would like to thank you for the impressive work.

The first priority for a music player is the audio quality. You might want to try to implement SoX resampling, but for the best audio quality I suggest for the new revision to make this wonderful graphic interface that you created to work (as an external control application) with Signalyst HQ Player. It is hard to do a better job in sound reproduction that what Miska did (but with a terrible GUI). There are some commercial applications like Roon (much too expensive) and Muso (affordable) that do this. I would prefer to keep using Musicbee. On the Signalyst web site you can find the API.

I think that will be a major step forward and many of us will even want to pay a reasonable price for it if you so decide.

hiccup

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The first priority for a music player is the audio quality. You might want to try to implement SoX resampling, but for the best audio quality I suggest for the new revision to make this wonderful graphic interface that you created to work (as an external control application) with Signalyst HQ Player.

Welcome to the forum Jonah.

If sound quality matters, one thing you want to avoid is up- or resampling.
You should only use that to solve compatibility problems in your playback chain. It will never improve the sound quality.
Also (but please correct me if I am wrong) the player/re-sampler that you mention is not free, but a commercial product.

Jonah

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If sound quality matters, one thing you want to avoid is up- or resampling.
You should only use that to solve compatibility problems in your playback chain. It will never improve the sound quality.
Also (but please correct me if I am wrong) the player/re-sampler that you mention is not free, but a commercial product.


I remember reading maybe 10 years ago competent articles describing PCM superiority over DSD. However in the last few years more and more tend to disagree. I decided to trust my ears. I bought a relatively cheap DAC (xDuoo XD-05) DSD 256 capable and AK4490 based (which has a direct DSD path), used Musicbee with ASIOProxy (many think it is working only with Foobar - not true) and upsampled on the fly my FLAC files to DSD 256 (I do not own or intend to own DSD native music). The result is very good, much better than PCM, High End Analog with digital dinamics.
You are right I need the PCM upsamling (before the DSD upsampling) because of a problem in the chain with 96 and 192 HiRes files.
Musicbee already has a basic SRC but it is not in the same class as SoX and it is not addressing my target sample rates (multiple of 44.1). Foobar had it for a long time and JRiver has it in the last version. Sorry for the long explanation which is of no interest for this thread.

Going back to my request for the next version. Signalyst HQ Player is indeed a commercial product. If you have a DSD capable DAC (and a powerful PC - see hardware requirements) you can test it free of charge for 30 days. Most probably it will blow your mind and you will consider the return in sound quality more than 10 times the $140.00 you payed for it, probably the best investment in the audio chain that you will ever make. It just needs a decent GUI - external control application - Musicbee?

A forum to check: http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f11-software/hq-player-20293/

I do not want to give the impression that I advertise for HQ Player. Everyone wanting to drastically improve their sound system (and having the hardware for it) should give it a try. I only wish to be able to use the Musicbee that I love as an interface.

hiccup

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Going back to my request for the next version.

Interesting stuff. I see some parallels with the concept of 'mastered for iTunes'.
In itself it won't do anything for better sound quality, but it is created with the idea to prevent possible degradition later in the chain. In the rough that seems the case here also. (never mind let's not discuss that here ;-)

Since yours is a rather specific request, and not a feature that will enhance or improve MusicBee's general functionality, you might consider creating a wishlist topic for this.

B.t.w., there might be two ways you can achieve something in this direction.
If this HQ player has dlna client functionality, you could try to get it to work with MB's dlna plug-in.
And (but this will only work for playing one track at a time), you could use MusicBee's 'send-to' feature to send a track to that player. (Preferences > Tools)

Jonah

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Since yours is a rather specific request, and not a feature that will enhance or improve MusicBee's general functionality, you might consider creating a wishlist topic for this.

With all due respect I am surprised by your answer. To suggest an improvement that will enhance Musicbee sound reproduction to the top is a specific personal request is strange. I think this of general interest (at least for people not content with their PC soundcard, MP3s and Bluetooth speakers) and well placed in a thread requesting suggestions for future development. Not to mention that will definitely attract thousands of new users. I consider Musicbee an excellent music organizer that just happens to be free.

I would kindly ask Steven to look into this.

Thank you.
Last Edit: December 15, 2016, 07:24:47 PM by Jonah

psychoadept

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I split this topic and moved it to the Wishlist.
MusicBee Wiki
Use & improve MusicBee's documentation!

Latest beta patch (3.5)
(Unzip and overwrite existing program files)

hiccup

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The reason why I call it a specific request is because:

A. Musicbee is already capable of bit-perfect output, which is all you can reasonably expect and desire from a top quality software player.

B. HQ player is an advanced resampling/filtering player/algorithm, that might only improve the perceived sound quality for soundcards/dacs with lesser quality resamplers/filters, or might address incompatibilities further in the audio chain.

C. The addition you are suggesting will not be of any benefit for the majority of MusicBee users, but only for the ones who have hardware that doesn't perform to their expectations or requirements, and are willing to spend 130 on a software product to possibly improve on this.

I am not arguing the possible benefits of this possible combo for certain users and setups, and am certainly not speaking on behalf of Steven. If it is an addition he is willing to make and also has fun in doing it, great.
But I want to prevent a notion that MusicBee's sound quality would (could) be improved out of the box. Bit perfect is bit perfect.

And please don't get me wrong, I sincerely appreciate your input and thoughts, it certainly is interesting stuff and food for thought (ears) ;-)


P.S.
One good argument for posting this as a wish instead of having it somewhere in the long '3.1 thread', is that it will not soon snow under here, and that other users are able to simply +1 your request here if they support this request.
And it will also help Steven in getting a sense of how popular or 'hot' a request is.
Last Edit: December 15, 2016, 04:21:54 PM by hiccup

vincent kars

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There are many ways to skin the cat.
I agree with Jonah, the Signalist interface has a terrible GUI
To interface MusicBee and HQ Signalist there are 2 options
1-   Musicbee implememnts the HQ protocol
2-   HQ implements a ASIO interface so every media player supporting ASIO can output to HQ.
Personally I do think it is up to Miska, not to Steven