dheerajin
Well-Known Member
yes..foobar. I tried everything under the sun and everytime came back to foobar.
Now bughead is addictive
Now bughead is addictive
Bug Head Player
- Thread starter jls001
- Start date
keith_correa
Well-Known Member
Let's get one thing straight - for "bit perfect" or "purest bits" or whatchamacallit audio, simplistically speaking, the media player reads a file and outputs it through an interface making no CHANGE to what is read by it. Now there are many variables here but basically that's it. For doing this, not a lot of CPU processing power nor memory is needed. The memory and CPU requirements go up when the bits are being manipulated by "something". FWIW, draw your own conclusions from this. But, I digress. On with the show, guys. Bughead is indeed very interesting and sounds good. Let's not call it or presume it to be bit perfect because it's not! Not that it matters just as long as it sounds good.
rikhav
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Mar 27, 2008
- Messages
- 2,666
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- 113
I agree with Keith
Because it changes the bits, applying algorithms or whatever the sound is different from other players and the creator knows the trick and makes it sound good
All the CPU power goes into modifying the bits as it involves millions of calculations
I think there is no harm if its not bit perfect. Ultimately it sounds good and that's what should matter to all
Because it changes the bits, applying algorithms or whatever the sound is different from other players and the creator knows the trick and makes it sound good
All the CPU power goes into modifying the bits as it involves millions of calculations
I think there is no harm if its not bit perfect. Ultimately it sounds good and that's what should matter to all
IMO bug head is an advanced live DSP program, it manipulates the sound makes it more pleasant. Nothing wrong in that. Its like "photoshop" of audio world. Some people love it for its capabilities and what it can do. But like we cannot have one preset setting for all the photos in photoshop, same is the case with any DSP program. If a player has got so many different sounds and possibilities, initially it will attract but after sometime it will felt that some songs sound good and some songs sound worse, thats when we move back to neutrality. Atleast that happened with me and I am back to foobar.
There seems to be a groundswell of opinion against Bug Head. Some deserved, some not so. Allow me to explain:
On the second setup screen, you can click your last good configuration which gets saved. This saves you lots of clicks, unless of course you want to try a variation of the earlier configuration.
On the main player screen, you just have to make four-five settings, provided of course you've taken the time to arrive at these settings by experimentation. There's a shortcut - you can use settings recommended by other users, or you can discover for yourself what you like best. I do believe it's worth the time and effort finding settings you like only because what one person likes can be very different from what you like. Case in point being a friend who came visiting me some days ago. I tuned the sound to replicate what he liked. By the end of an evening of faffing around with settings, I also thought the sound we arrived at sounded rather good, but on extended listening over days I realized that it wasn't really my type of sound. Some minor tweaks later, I arrived at something which was much more agreeable to my ears.
I totally agree with those who point out that it takes too much time before you ever hear the first notes of what you're trying to listen. Also, skipping to another track is a royal pain in the nether region. As is the need to Rewrite songs, drivers, etc.
But what is incontrovertible is the rightness of the sound on each version, though some versions are such resource hogs.
I'd like to quote something fellow forumer IndianEars said (though on a different issue): "Pink Floyd does not make tracks. They make albums." The point being: listen to full albums as intended by the artists, and not sample scatterings of it. A remote control, whether a hardware handheld one or a tablet, tends to make us flit listlessly from one track to another. We've forgotten the joy of listening to albums. The playlist seems to have played havoc with our ability to appreciate an album holistically. Perhaps it's time we got back to old-fashioned ways of listening to music?
Don't you sometimes feel that computer playback is very akin to turntable playback?
So many parameters to tweak on both the hardware and the software sides. And then there is the question of the quality of the content
On the second setup screen, you can click your last good configuration which gets saved. This saves you lots of clicks, unless of course you want to try a variation of the earlier configuration.
On the main player screen, you just have to make four-five settings, provided of course you've taken the time to arrive at these settings by experimentation. There's a shortcut - you can use settings recommended by other users, or you can discover for yourself what you like best. I do believe it's worth the time and effort finding settings you like only because what one person likes can be very different from what you like. Case in point being a friend who came visiting me some days ago. I tuned the sound to replicate what he liked. By the end of an evening of faffing around with settings, I also thought the sound we arrived at sounded rather good, but on extended listening over days I realized that it wasn't really my type of sound. Some minor tweaks later, I arrived at something which was much more agreeable to my ears.
I totally agree with those who point out that it takes too much time before you ever hear the first notes of what you're trying to listen. Also, skipping to another track is a royal pain in the nether region. As is the need to Rewrite songs, drivers, etc.
But what is incontrovertible is the rightness of the sound on each version, though some versions are such resource hogs.
I'd like to quote something fellow forumer IndianEars said (though on a different issue): "Pink Floyd does not make tracks. They make albums." The point being: listen to full albums as intended by the artists, and not sample scatterings of it. A remote control, whether a hardware handheld one or a tablet, tends to make us flit listlessly from one track to another. We've forgotten the joy of listening to albums. The playlist seems to have played havoc with our ability to appreciate an album holistically. Perhaps it's time we got back to old-fashioned ways of listening to music?
Don't you sometimes feel that computer playback is very akin to turntable playback?
So many parameters to tweak on both the hardware and the software sides. And then there is the question of the quality of the content
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M
mpw
Guest
We've forgotten the joy of listening to albums. The playlist seems to have played havoc with our ability to appreciate an album holistically. Perhaps it's time we got back to old-fashioned ways of listening to music?
Don't you sometimes feel that computer playback is very akin to turntable playback?
perhaps those lines are more apt for computer music wallahs.. who are most prone to making play lists and listening to the " Greatest Hits !!! " :lol:
A TT doesnt come with a Remote though so they are totally dis-similar - IMO. Tweaking a TT is much more an art than tweaking a few parameters for playback etc..
I am sure you will agree on this one.
Baaki - to each his / her own
Lage raho :lol:
BTW - i was to call you home for a music session - am trying to make it happen before i wrap up my rig. Will be in touch.
dheerajin
Well-Known Member
6.47 is out...this time it is available on Bug head
.....there is no relief it seems
Absolutely right...still I prefer source(tweakable) +neutral amp than source(neutral) +amp(coloured)....I hope you get what I mean...
If amp is coloured or not neutral then what is the benefit of having neutral source..as Foobar is neutral player
and rest depends upon users friendliness towards computer, thats why you will find not many takers for bughead even critisizing it without giving it a purposeful try...
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I doubt whether Foobar is also a neutral source , for that matter even the dacs that are built now.If they all use the same bits of information why do they sound different?
So the purest sound is the best sound that your system can give , doesn't matter what tweaks we do to reach there. Yes , I personally prefer to have a transparent chain and control the balance at the source.I think its more of a balancing act to get the right recipe of spices.God knows what was the actual sound of the album when it was recorded.
So the purest sound is the best sound that your system can give , doesn't matter what tweaks we do to reach there. Yes , I personally prefer to have a transparent chain and control the balance at the source.I think its more of a balancing act to get the right recipe of spices.God knows what was the actual sound of the album when it was recorded.
I was curiously looking at the link provided by one of the members. I came across this line
' [5.24] NEED Additional BURN IN 400+ hours '.
I sincerely hope that the translation is stupid and the author is referring to burn in of something else like an amplifier or a speaker.
But, if he is asking for 400 hours of burn in for digital extraction, I cannot but, at the cost of being offensive to every member in this group, reflect on this with a roar and ROFL.
IF he is, in all earnest, referring to 400 hours of 'burn in' for digital extraction, the guy does not know what he is talking about. Whether the 'burn-in' is 4 milliseconds or 40,000 years, the bits are NOT going to change even one bit. It is possible he is randomizing the post extraction processing of data. In which case what he is doing is to get YOUR ears tuned to his post extraction data processing.
Frankly, with all the time it takes to play a song, the lousy UI, and other shortcomings, to me, this looks like a guy who is sitting at home and having fun at the expense of a lot of people.
No offense to any member of this and other threads, but I just could not help penning my thoughts on this.
Cheers
' [5.24] NEED Additional BURN IN 400+ hours '.
I sincerely hope that the translation is stupid and the author is referring to burn in of something else like an amplifier or a speaker.
But, if he is asking for 400 hours of burn in for digital extraction, I cannot but, at the cost of being offensive to every member in this group, reflect on this with a roar and ROFL.
IF he is, in all earnest, referring to 400 hours of 'burn in' for digital extraction, the guy does not know what he is talking about. Whether the 'burn-in' is 4 milliseconds or 40,000 years, the bits are NOT going to change even one bit. It is possible he is randomizing the post extraction processing of data. In which case what he is doing is to get YOUR ears tuned to his post extraction data processing.
Frankly, with all the time it takes to play a song, the lousy UI, and other shortcomings, to me, this looks like a guy who is sitting at home and having fun at the expense of a lot of people.
No offense to any member of this and other threads, but I just could not help penning my thoughts on this.
Cheers
It was also interesting to note that the application has been written in Basic. An extremely inefficient language for this type of software. Unless he is using a compiler, he is transferring the runtime DLL with every download. That could be the reason for the application being a resource hog.
Cheers
Cheers
regeHA
Well-Known Member
Quite a coincidence... I've moved to the dark side - small SOC, wireless streaming, randomly generated playlists, access to my entire library of over 35,000 tracks, etc. Queuing 100 random tracks is the norm for me, I do still listen to complete albums, but random playlists is more of a commonality.
Anyways to get back to the coincidence, was listening to a random selection when popped in Pink Floyd with Keep Talking, a track from The Division Bell. I pretty much stopped everything, and queued the entire album.
Pink Floyd does that, still has the power to do that. I'm lost in the guitar riffs on Marooned.
But how many of today's boy bands, girl bands, hip hoppers, etc. will get you to do that. They still make tracks, chartbusting tracks too, but not albums.
PS: To get back to Bughead, I do listen to it, just not often enough. I've a powerful PC, even by gaming standards, but the Bug does not let me queue up multiple albums, does not let me listen to a previous track or skip one... too much of a hassle even when starting up. Sometimes you just want to listen to music, a glass in the hand, a soft cushion on the back, and a smartphone app that will let me pick anything I want or will decide for me (with random playlists).
BHE is for people who have the resources (PC/Hardware) and patience to tweak a tune to their liking.
It is good exploratory work by a few pioneers on this forum; hoping that a greater number will benefit eventually from these experiments.
Keep at it guys; we lazy folk will jump in when you give the green signal.
Coming to the point of burn in!!
In solid state electronics there is no burn in, there is only burn out. Tubes have this bias/unbias thing and warm up time. Speakers, being moving parts, can claim a bit of break-in.
In speakers, I believe in 90-10 phenomenon; 90% of break in happens in the first 10-15 minutes and the remaining 10% happens over time required for ear-brain remapping.
To burn or break in speakers, I suggest that the first song to be played on new speakers is Iron Man by Black Sabbath.
It will scare the crap out of any set of soundboxes and achieve the above 90%
Cheers,
Raghu
It is good exploratory work by a few pioneers on this forum; hoping that a greater number will benefit eventually from these experiments.
Keep at it guys; we lazy folk will jump in when you give the green signal.
Coming to the point of burn in!!
In solid state electronics there is no burn in, there is only burn out. Tubes have this bias/unbias thing and warm up time. Speakers, being moving parts, can claim a bit of break-in.
In speakers, I believe in 90-10 phenomenon; 90% of break in happens in the first 10-15 minutes and the remaining 10% happens over time required for ear-brain remapping.
To burn or break in speakers, I suggest that the first song to be played on new speakers is Iron Man by Black Sabbath.
It will scare the crap out of any set of soundboxes and achieve the above 90%
Cheers,
Raghu
keith_correa
Well-Known Member
It's written in PureBasic which is anything but inefficient. It's extremely powerful and very well suited for writing games or applications like this. Executables are also natively compiled.
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My bad. When I read a little about PureBasic, it does compile into a compact executable code. At the same time, it has very poor GUI capabilities, and that may be the reason why BHP has poor GUI.
If I have play around with data in close to real time, I would look for a way to be able to handle the data directly instead of using APIs. When we talk to jitter, we are talking about milliseconds, and APIs do insert a time lag, however small.
All that aside, the following link does provide a balanced view on PureBasic.
https://freeshell.de/~luis/purebasic/about/index.php
Cheers
keith_correa
Well-Known Member
What are you referring to here? How do you know he is using API's? API's for doing what?
BTW, thanks for the link. Nice read!
spirovious
Well-Known Member
My observations are similar.
There have been 20 odd pages of comments without negative comment by folks with credibility on this forum.
It's called respect - respect for a fantastic player created by a genius mind.
Folks the player is free - it's not like the guy is gouging you for you money.
The price of admission is an investment in a good processor (Core i5 and above) and RAM (at least 16GB).
Bughead will make short work of anything less.
Increasing the RAM to the limit is the easiest way to get to "High Class Professional" mode - the top level mode for playback.
I have Foobar, JRiver and HQPplayer.
BHE will mop the floor with them - exception being HQPlayer. Period.
It's called respect - respect for a fantastic player created by a genius mind.
Folks the player is free - it's not like the guy is gouging you for you money.
The price of admission is an investment in a good processor (Core i5 and above) and RAM (at least 16GB).
Bughead will make short work of anything less.
Increasing the RAM to the limit is the easiest way to get to "High Class Professional" mode - the top level mode for playback.
I have Foobar, JRiver and HQPplayer.
BHE will mop the floor with them - exception being HQPlayer. Period.
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He can take a well-deserved rest
and allow us some respite to absorb the latest version.Version 6.47 is very good, but bass-heavy even on my regular Normal and x4 settings. Bass heads will love this one:licklips:
I will try to find an optimal config that's to my personal taste.
On another note, being forced to use Normal mode by version 6.40 being such a resource hog, I'm developing a liking for Normal
It seems Normal is a bit more hard hitting and x4 seems more mellow. I never gave Normal a real listen, and now that I have, it definitely has its merits. It's so nice to be able to "voice" one player to different signatures. Only trouble is it's not straightforward achieving those voices without repetitive changes and nearly bursting your head listening to the same track over and over again But in the end it's always worth it :thumbsup: Follow HiFiMART on Instagram for offers, deals and FREE giveaways!
