Music PC

[ranjeetrain]

I have given the Bug a try and too much to fiddle with and more over fiddle the same thing everytime you open the player after closing the session. Just peaceful existence in this world moved back to Foobar

True, Manniraj. Bug Head Player seems to be targeting those who find solace in fiddling. It adds a very important component missing from digital playback (vs analogue). It gives people a ritual to follow.

Ever observed the rituals associated with analogue playback? For example, routine caressing of records prior to playing, or the needle. Or how some people like how Analogue forces them to listen to entire track or entire album at once without jumping from track to track or skipping in between a track. Bug Head Player eliminates "seek bar", makes track changes difficult. These "features" add digital equivalent of the popular analogue rituals to digital playback. I think these rituals are vital elements missing from digital playback that Bug Head Player attempts to add. Bug Head is increasing digital's acceptance among analogue guys. They are used to such rituals. They find this player "more like it".

I doubt the seller is selling this configuration for Music Listening. Its for Music production, Music composition, or so. Check out the product description:










Do we have a Foobar settings thread? Would love to know what all addons, plugins, settings, theme, layout, etc you guys are using.

I seem to have been misunderstood. I didn't say this 15k computer is good for nothing. It was more of an amusement

I feel I am thinking along the same line as many others, going by the "reviews" of the product, none of which, incidentally, came from an actual verified buyer. That's too much of coincidence to think I was alone in getting amused about it.

Oh BTW, there are a lot of specialized products that are used in "Music production". The use of traditional computers in Music production has been minimal. In any case, so far they just use a high spec configuration from your everyday computers. This machine is much more elaborate. As Rikhav said, quite good for Multimedia production. There are more expensive Multimedia production machines available. So for usage such as 3D animation production, this machine will surely be an asset.


There are a lot of threads with Foobar settings discussion. A bit of search will get you the info you are after.

 

[venkatcr]

Do we have a Foobar settings thread? Would love to know what all addons, plugins, settings, theme, layout, etc you guys are using.

I have stopped reading all the rot about settings etc. I just use default settings and I am happy with the way my music plays. The idea of playing from a PC is to keep it as minimalist as possible. I ensure I don't add any program to my Audio PC. I don't even connect it to the Net. Even Foobar was installed by downloading it on my laptop and using a stick drive to transfer. If Foobar needs to be updated, I follow the same procedure.

The only time I fiddled with Foobar was when I tried between Kernel Streaming, Asio output, WASAPI to see which works well. Once that was settled, that was it.

I think the following three or four sites should give you all the data you need.

The Best Foobar2000 Plugins and How to Install Them
Play Music Like An Audiophile With Foobar2000 [Windows]
Foobar2000 A Guide To Set Up - Head-Fi.org Community
How to Turn Foobar2000 Into a Super Music Player - Techie Buzz
Hack Attack: Roll your own killer audio player with foobar2000

For playing, I drag multiple songs I want to hear into the Foobar window, sit back, close my eyes and enjoy the music. That way I control and manage what songs I want to hear. Some days I might want to hear Beatles or Arijit Singh. Other days I might just detest Arijit's voice and find solace with the voices of Mukesh or Harry Belafonte. When I am frisky, the Police may work for me. I let my mood control what music I listen to. All my albums are ordered by language/artists/albums. Someday I am in the mood to listen to some new music, and I experiment with voices I have not heard before. I also have a sub-directory of my favourite numbers that I listen to often. Just drag and drop some 25-50 songs in random from that directory, and I am in audio nirvana for that evening. Someone else listening with me may be stunned as the songs are in multiple languages. I might spend a few days listening to all the songs of Michael Buble.

Enjoy and LISTEN to the music.

Cheers

 

[keith_correa]

16 GB is plenty RAM by current standards for music-only capability. In fact the effect can be achieved with as little as 2 GB RAM if the approach is correct.

My laptop has 1.5 GB of RAM and with what I've implemented on my laptop running Win 10 there is ~600 MB used by the OS and with JRiver playing [from memory] with the rest free. So yes, even with 1.5 GB installed, plenty available for music playback.

 

[raghupb]

Started with foobar a couple of months ago (since I acquired a DAC).
The one plugin I found useful is the EQ settings and auto-level. I use them sometimes to suit my mood.
I downloaded an Analog VU meter for kicks and grins, and DR meter for checking dynamic range of tracks.
Most of the time it is simply drag/drop/play/stop.

Cheers,
Raghu

 

[Kushanava]

I used to have foobar consistently over jriver because it sounded better.bughead sounds less digital to me than foobar.yes it is not user friendly for sure..but it really has a very unique and relaxed presentation.i am less fatigued and listen to more
music through it.thats what matters.

 

[keith_correa]

My laptop has 1.5 GB of RAM and with what I've implemented on my laptop running Win 10 there is ~600 MB used by the OS and with JRiver playing [from memory] with the rest free. So yes, even with 1.5 GB installed, plenty available for music playback.

After further tweaks, the memory usage for the above mentioned scenario has come down to ~400 MB and CPU usage is 17%. Crazy! Overkill? Maybe.

 

[rikhav]

After further tweaks, the memory usage for the above mentioned scenario has come down to ~400 MB and CPU usage is 17%. Crazy! Overkill? Maybe.

I should say it's really good for a win10 OS Keith
Job well done

 

[ranjeetrain]

My laptop has 1.5 GB of RAM and with what I've implemented on my laptop running Win 10 there is ~600 MB used by the OS and with JRiver playing [from memory] with the rest free. So yes, even with 1.5 GB installed, plenty available for music playback.

After further tweaks, the memory usage for the above mentioned scenario has come down to ~400 MB and CPU usage is 17%. Crazy! Overkill? Maybe.

Keith, Windows 10 is a poor choice for music only. Switch to 7. 200 MB or less is what you should need for music playback. And that I am saying with a fully functional GUI.

I have more than half a dozen laptops with 512 MB to 6 GB of RAM. My current best is 220-230 MB RAM utilization while playing music in 100% RAM playback configuration. I am trying to improve it further so that even my oldest laptop with 512 MB RAM can breeze past the job well.

CPU utilization remains under 5% at all times except first few seconds when the track is being loaded. And this I am saying on netbooks with Intel Atom processor. With laptops with higher spec, CPU utilization is 1-2% at all times except first few seconds.

 

[ranjeetrain]

Even Foobar was installed by downloading it on my laptop and using a stick drive to transfer. If Foobar needs to be updated, I follow the same procedure.

Hi Venkat,

Installing Foobar or any other program from HDD has no bearing on SQ. Windows OS (if left on it's own) is smart enough to make up for file ops such as cleanup of unused disk space. As a good practice, it's cool. But purely from the SQ perspective, it's not needed or helpful in any way.

BTW, even on my music-only PCs, I have about 20-30 software which become available to me as soon as I install OS afresh. They are all software that run without messing with OS files or without needing proper installation. Having them on the HDD or not having them makes no difference to OS health metrics or sound quality.

 

[ranjeetrain]

Started with foobar a couple of months ago (since I acquired a DAC).
The one plugin I found useful is the EQ settings and auto-level. I use them sometimes to suit my mood.
I downloaded an Analog VU meter for kicks and grins, and DR meter for checking dynamic range of tracks.
Most of the time it is simply drag/drop/play/stop.

Cheers,
Raghu

The beauty of Foobar definitely lies in its infinite customizability, extensiblity. The facts that its resource efficient and a freeware are just bonuses.

DR meter plugin is really fun. I should install it too (Generally I only install 4-5 plugins I really use).

I used to have foobar consistently over jriver because it sounded better.bughead sounds less digital to me than foobar.yes it is not user friendly for sure..but it really has a very unique and relaxed presentation.i am less fatigued and listen to more
music through it.thats what matters.

No doubt, Bug Head Player is being adopted by many, specially those who like the greatest and the latest race. Today it needs 32 GB of RAM. A few month later its current versions may need 64/128 GB, and a few years later the requirement may become 1 TB. You see where this trend can lead to? Sure, even in those scenario there would be people who would stay with it. But its acceptability would reduce.

On the other hand, there is a whole bunch of digital adopters adopting high-quality-entry-level digital. Systems based on SOC, low specced laptops and such. So, you see this is the exact opposite.

Looking closely, there are two trends emerging now, going in exact opposite direction. One goes with low specced, well configured systems that thrive on purity of signal, lack of processing. The other that thrives on data processing to make the sound "subjectively better".

Let me do a bit of future-telling here. If Bug Head catches up by next year you will see a whole bunch of players jumping into the pool some needing 64-128 GB of RAM for best use. They would all rely on signal processing. So there you go! Firstly audiophile community pooh-poohed digital for signal processing, corrupting the bits by up-sampling and so on. Now players relying on data-processing will be the king. So you never know!

 

[venkatcr]

Hi Venkat,

Installing Foobar or any other program from HDD has no bearing on SQ. Windows OS (if left on it's own) is smart enough to make up for file ops such as cleanup of unused disk space. As a good practice, it's cool. But purely from the SQ perspective, it's not needed or helpful in any way.

BTW, even on my music-only PCs, I have about 20-30 software which become available to me as soon as I install OS afresh. They are all software that run without messing with OS files or without needing proper installation. Having them on the HDD or not having them makes no difference to OS health metrics or sound quality.

You could be right. But what I have read in umpteen articles is that having a minimalist system is better. It kind of made sense to me, and I am following that method.

I have hundreds of laptops, desktops, smartphones and other devices connected to the Net. I really don't need the Audio PC to be one more connected device. Foobar is the only application I have on the system other than the standard apps that come with the OS. Right from the day I assembled the system, I have rigidly followed that principle. I did not install anything, nor will I install anything in the future. When I hear about a new version of Foobar, I download it elsewhere and update it.

Works well for me.

The only change I am going to make is to move the whole machine to a new HTPC cabinet. I bought a high end vertical cabinet, but I am having issues with it placement. Will get a Silverstone HTPC cabinet that is identical to my current HTPC.

Cheers

 

[venkatcr]

No doubt, Bug Head Player is being adopted by many, specially those who like the greatest and the latest race. Today it needs 32 GB of RAM. A few month later its current versions may need 64/128 GB, and a few years later the requirement may become 1 TB. You see where this trend can lead to? Sure, even in those scenario there would be people who would stay with it. But its acceptability would reduce.

A good wave file is what? - 50MB. Even if you take a DSD file, you are talking in the region of some 250MB. 32GB itself sounds crazy to me. 1TB will be ridiculous. The conversion of an audio file is to be done at the DAC. So I wonder what he is doing with the data before the DAC?

On the other hand, there is a whole bunch of digital adopters adopting high-quality-entry-level digital. Systems based on SOC, low specced laptops and such. So, you see this is the exact opposite.

Looking closely, there are two trends emerging now, going in exact opposite direction. One goes with low specced, well configured systems that thrive on purity of signal, lack of processing. The other that thrives on data processing to make the sound "subjectively better".

Let me do a bit of future-telling here. If Bug Head catches up by next year you will see a whole bunch of players jumping into the pool some needing 64-128 GB of RAM for best use. They would all rely on signal processing. So there you go! Firstly audiophile community pooh-poohed digital for signal processing, corrupting the bits by up-sampling and so on. Now players relying on data-processing will be the king. So you never know!

Look at the irony here. We are talking about spending thousands of dollars to move a byte of data from one place to another. The Net moves trillions of bytes of data every minute, some with devices that cost $50 or less. Companies like Sony build a machine for digital transport, and charge thousands of dollars for that. Companies such as FiiO build the same digital transport with a high end DAC built in at one tenth the size and one fifth the price. This has no hard disk and works completely from solid state devices. Syabas of Popcorn fame is taking public funds to build a high end media player that is again completely solid state. The strange thing is 2 out of these three are using the same Sabre DAC.

I am just curious. If you take a $500 FiiO device, use a 128 GB card, connect it to a good external DAC - will you not get the same sound quality or even better than the Sony machine? I have a feeling it will sound better. All you have to do is to flush the card with new songs you want to hear every 15 days. You might even be able to connect an HDD to the device, though I am not sure about that.

So the additional 2500$ is for the larger cabinet and the Sony stamp on it? For all practical purposes, I can get into an OEM agreement with FiiO, strip open an FiiO device, add a hard disk bank, and plonk the whole thing into a sexy Silverstone cabinet. And presto, I can sell that at 2500$.

Hail the Emperor's new clothes! This sounds very much like what my wife did yesterday. I usually pat my cheeks with a few drops of Old Spice after a shave. Yesterday my wife said she does not like the smell of Old Spice any more. She spent half a day and bought something called Ulric De Varens. Never heard of that guy before, but my wife is in 7th heaven with the new smell, and said I smell like my son now!! To me, it smells the same as Old Spice.!!

Cheers

 

[ranjeetrain]

Here is a little peek into one of my Ultra-light Music-PC configurations.

• Intel Atom N450 dual core processor
• 32bit processor with 512KB L2 Cache, 1.66 GHz,?667MHz FSB
• 2 GB RAM / 250 GB SATA Hard drive
• Windows 7 (32 bit)
• Foobar with ASIO4All ASIO driver
• 200-220 MB RAM utilization (while idle)
• ~230 MB RAM utilization (while playing in NORMAL mode)
• ~200 MB + File size (while playing in MEMORY_PLAYBACK mode)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbaBvA3fk0o&feature=youtu.be

 

[ranjeetrain]

A good wave file is what? - 50MB. Even if you take a DSD file, you are talking in the region of some 250MB. 32GB itself sounds crazy to me. 1TB will be ridiculous. The conversion of an audio file is to be done at the DAC. So I wonder what he is doing with the data before the DAC?

He is "processing" the data. While his intention seem to be in the right direction his algorithm/code seem to be poor. This is all we can say.

Why I say poor algorithm is that my dCS upsampler upsamples everything to SACD specs in real time. That is, you feed the DAC a 16-44 stream and you get SACD quality playback, in real time. There are a lot of other hardware/software that upsample data 2x-4x before decoding, all in real time. So there must be an efficient way of doing it.

Let's hope with time the algorithm improves and hardware requirements come down.

 

[keith_correa]

He is using some 3rd party libraries to assist in achieving what he does. That restricts speed since he's not in control at the point he uses them. That's one. The other is he seemingly is doing nonsense like rewriting or whatever he calls it before playback and that takes a bit of time as well. A lot of what he's doing is seemingly BS but there's no denying that it sounds very good to most who use it. I think the audiophile word is "organic". Also being a maverick and having a "ghetto" grade UI helps in the aura/halo and building a cult. Not having good English helps too since people interpret things that he says to suit their beliefs.

 

[square_wave]

He is using some 3rd party libraries to assist in achieving what he does. That restricts speed since he's not in control at the point he uses them. That's one. The other is he seemingly is doing nonsense like rewriting or whatever he calls it before playback and that takes a bit of time as well. A lot of what he's doing is seemingly BS but there's no denying that it sounds very good to most who use it. I think the audiophile word is "organic". Also being a maverick and having a "ghetto" grade UI helps in the aura/halo and building a cult. Not having good English helps too since people interpret things that he says to suit their beliefs.

It would have been nice if you had compared the bughead to other players and posted your findings
Disparaging comments like this about someones work serves no purpose.

 

[regeHA]

It would have been nice if you had compared the bughead to other players and posted your findings
Disparaging comments like this about someones work serves no purpose.

I'm surprised so many folks are defending the Bug and that too so vehemently.

Isn't it the antithesis of an audiophile? Audiophiles typically focus on 2 things... high-fidelity sound reproduction and the creation or setting of actual live music.

The Bug is anything but that. It's great, but its still DSP on steroids with a specific sound signature that some folks will like.

Of course, I'm not saying that its ok to trash talk a programmer, but I cannot imagine anyone would defend JRiver, Foobar, JPlay, etc. Of the lot, Foobar is the closest to an actual audiophile player, disable all addons and processing and its pretty much the closest to bitstreaming that anyone can get in a PC setup.

 

[keith_correa]

It would have been nice if you had compared the bughead to other players and posted your findings
Disparaging comments like this about someones work serves no purpose.

My comments here on Bughead is not meant to be disparaging at all. It is what it is and is my opinion. I have already said [on another thread] that it sounds very good. That opinion is based on an old version of BHE before it needed ridiculous amounts of RAM to sound good. I am currently not in a position to compare it with others because my music player laptop is ghetto grade and new versions of the BHE do not run on it at all. My loss!

 

[raghupb]

My comments here on Bughead is not meant to be disparaging at all. It is what it is and is my opinion. I have already said [on another thread] that it sounds very good. That opinion is based on an old version of BHE before it needed ridiculous amounts of RAM to sound good. I am currently not in a position to compare it because my music player laptop is ghetto grade and new versions of the BHE do not run on it at all. My loss!

You at least had the chance to try it. Guys like me can't even enter the game.
As it is said in poker or teen-patti, don't even have table stakes.
So will wait and watch this thread and the bug head thread to see where each one ends up.
This one has promise to be accessible HW wise, by the looks of it.

Cheers,
Raghu

 

[asliarun]

On the complete other end of the spectrum, I placed an order for Google Chromecast Audio. This device is very intriguing as a media streamer and Squeezebox replacement. It has 2GB RAM, a dual core Cortex A7 processor, will do analog and digital (optical) out, an AKM AK4430 based DAC if you want to use its inbuilt DAC, supports up to 24-bit / 96KHz high resolution audio. It even has enough gain (2V) to be a viable headphone amp.

And it costs a royal $35. It is headless and you control it from your smart phone or tablet using Google's Chromecast extension (which is now supported by a lot of audio software players and radio players).

Interestingly enough, if you have it stream from your (say) SAN or computer, it will bypass the smartphone entirely and will directly stream from the source (SAN or computer or internet radio service) to Chromecast Audio device to your DAC or preamp/amp. So your phone is just a controller, not a pass-through.

https://support.google.com/chromecast/answer/6279377?hl=en

https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Chromecast+2015+Teardown/50189

Some of the anecdotal examples and reviews in other forums sound very positive as well.