Tweaking the audio performance Rpi3

[hondagx35]

[pietpara]

Hello Frank,

I am not using upsampling now. It is not my goal to use this SOX thing.

One of my biggest hobbies is to "conduct some extensive listening tests". I just love to listen to music, compare, discuss with similar fanatics, share and all of that.

And, since I came across this thread mentioning possible improvements with tweaks, I started playing with each of them, to feed my craving for my hobby with the little nifty new device, the RaspTouch, that I had been reading so much good about, and have been eagerly anticipating, with it's equally infamous ES9018 DAC.

So, if with my audio equipment, my ears and brain, and my room, this SOX sounds better to me than without, I would like to use it, no matter what engineers may say about it. Mind you, I'm a physicist too.

That's really all there is to it for me.


Cheers!
Pietpara

[DomieMic65]

I will try to give a very simple answer the way I understnd it from the things I have read to some forums, to the question:
"why should someone bother upsampling?"

It is because the way Delta Sigma DACs work.
They do upsample internally in order to make the D to A conversion, filter etc..! From 44.1 it goes it up to the highest possible I think and then after the conversion and filtering is done it goes it back to 44.1 (very simplistic and may be not quite right sequence of things but you get the picture).
So if this upsample is made by the computer and not the DAC sometimes -depending on the DAC- may have better result than leaving the DAC to do all the work!
You save some conversion steps...

That is how I understand why upsampling might have a benefit in sound!
And from my tests on Macs and PCs I hear an improvement when upsampling!
I do not know if it will be the same with the RPi but it is nice to have options No?

Excuse my not at all technical explanation...

[DomieMic65]

I managed with the help of a friend to make all the above tweaks and I think that they worth the effort!

I also think that when
over_voltage=-10 is set to -5 there is also a benefit.
What is the minimum that can be used?
Thank you!!

Now I must see what I can do about a linear power supply.

Sent from my Nexus 5X

[nzlowie]

Hi all
Do these tweaks also improve the performance when using digital out? I have a hifiberry Didi + and thought that it supplied a pure bit perfect digital output stream.....
This is on a pi2 and I thought it sounded pretty good!

Sent from my Moto G (4) using Tapatalk

[Discovery]

Hi nzlowie,

There's more to good sound quality than just being bit-perfect - If that's all it took, all bit-perfect DAC streamers would sound identical, wouldn't they...?

The more subtle effects start with jitter, and other artifacts in the signal that influence the outcome.

My advice is not to worry too much about understanding the theory but to try the practice, i.e. listen for differences yourself. If they exist (and are positive), you'll enjoy your music more. I don't fully understand nuclear physics but I'm happy to accept that electricity is available to power my hi-fi, regardless of how it was generated.

Regards,

Trevor

[DomieMic65]

[DomieMic65]

[Kilgore]

[andrea]