Bug Head Player

[manniraj]

I honestly don't want to invest in new hardware but seeing how much this player has raised the quality of my playback even with my humble PC config, I want to hear it at its best.

On another note, over at the JPlay forum, someone reported that the BHE developer has announced that version 5.56 which is already available for download, is the best ever, and cannot be improved further, so he's ceasing further development.

@manniraj, install Bug Head if you have a regular PC with at least 4 GB RAM. You'll like what you hear. Promise

I have a all-in-one small factor Gigabyte PC with 8GB RAM running Win2012R2 and the only thing stopping me for trying it out is that I do not use a monitor as it is connected to the TV and just use the Foobar app on my phone to control it. So in effect its headless and I just switch the TV only when I have to change some playlists. Is it possible to use an app to control BHE?

 

[jls001]

I'm not aware of any remote app. Consider it a digital turntable You need to walk up to it to make any change.

Is it possible to use the TV as PC display?

 

[manniraj]

I'm not aware of any remote app. Consider it a digital turntable You need to walk up to it to make any change.

Is it possible to use the TV as PC display?

Ok I just installed the player and the count down has started for playback after the settings as you and others have described in the thread. The TV is being used as a PC display. The CPU peaks to 99% and the Memory to 45% for a WAV/FLAC song to optimal settings.

 

[jls001]

Reduce some parameters. I don't think it will be able to sustain 99% load. It will soon say "CPU performance not satisfied"

Give your new Soekris a good workout with some x4 upsampling.

 

[kartick]

Josh, my SSD upgrade coincided with my decision to build my AudioPC a few months ago for DSD playback.
But I even had my old Dell Latitude upgraded to SSD a little before that.

Booting up in seconds is a beautiful thing!

BTW a Transcend 32GB SSD is approx Rs 2,360 on Ebay. (64GB is Rs 2,980)
Plenty of space for running a pure Audio machine IMO.

Hi Nikhil, I have also been contemplating getting an SSD for my PC. But the sole reason was for booting purposes. Bringing in SSDs here in this thread sprouts some questions in my mind.

Do you find SSDs bringing in any improvement in your audio playback? Do you hear any differences when you play the same song from your SSD vs the normal HDDs ? I suppose anyways that a 64GB SSD can't suffice storing anyone's elaborate lossless music collection?

Would be great to know your impressions.

 

[manniraj]

Reduce some parameters. I don't think it will be able to sustain 99% load. It will soon say "CPU performance not satisfied"

Give your new Soekris a good workout with some x4 upsampling.

No I did not get this error so far as it peaks for couple of seconds and then reduces to 85%. Will give a good listen to it tomorrow . Also I noticed that when the player is exited all the settings go for a toss and we need to set this up again including the playlist the next time its started. Am I missing something in the settings!

 

[jls001]

Also I noticed that when the player is exited all the settings go for a toss and we need to set this up again including the playlist the next time its started. Am I missing something in the settings!

That's normal.

 

[Nikhil]

Do you find SSDs bringing in any improvement in your audio playback? Do you hear any differences when you play the same song from your SSD vs the normal HDDs ? I suppose anyways that a 64GB SSD can't suffice storing anyone's elaborate lossless music collection?

Would be great to know your impressions.

Kartick, yes SSD is a major improvement over HDD in audio.
Much faster plus no moving parts. Makes for big improvement IMO.

 

[Nikhil]

I have a all-in-one small factor Gigabyte PC with 8GB RAM running Win2012R2 and the only thing stopping me for trying it out is that I do not use a monitor as it is connected to the TV and just use the Foobar app on my phone to control it. So in effect its headless and I just switch the TV only when I have to change some playlists. Is it possible to use an app to control BHE?

My AudioPC is headless. I use Remote Desktop to operate it.

 

[rikhav]

My AudioPC is headless. I use Remote Desktop to operate it.

Hi nikhil
headless as in you can control the OS via a browser interface like some linux based OS for raspberry pi?

 

[manniraj]

My AudioPC is headless. I use Remote Desktop to operate it.

I do not use Remote desktop as it utilises lots of processing power but I had Teamviewer personal edition earlier when I was using a Win7 PC. But now moved to Win2012R2 and its completely free with any software except the Foobar with some tweaking available online which makes the Remote desktop disabled including the wifi and other unwanted services.

 

[rikhav]

I do not use Remote desktop as it utilises lots of processing power but I had Teamviewer personal edition earlier when I was using a Win7 PC. But now moved to Win2012R2 and its completely free with any software except the Foobar with some tweaking available online which makes the Remote desktop disabled including the wifi and other unwanted services.

Using something similar to teamviewer does not make the OS truly headless, true or not?
Because its still utilizing all the resources for the graphical interface of the OS

 

[manniraj]

Using something similar to teamviewer does not make the OS truly headless, true or not?
Because its still utilizing all the resources for the graphical interface of the OS

Not sure technically it is termed as headless but I think if their is no monitor connected for visual purpose it should be treated as headless. But because you are going to use either a remote desktop connection or other softwares like Teamviewer you are increasing the processing at the PC to run these services continuously. When we say headless its just that we do not want to utilise some screen to have a look at the player and control it visually. This anyway you can control using an app over a phone completely getting rid of your monitor.

Edit: I have not installed any graphic drivers on my music PC as I am not going to use it. So its default 1024 resolution which is sufficient to just make use for some checking/adding playlists.

 

[Nikhil]

Hi nikhil
headless as in you can control the OS via a browser interface like some linux based OS for raspberry pi?

Windows Remote Desktop comes built in to access a remote machine.
It opens as a RDP session in a separate window.
For all practical purposes it's like sitting on the remote machine.

 

[rikhav]

Okay, finally I could run BHE (infinity blade SQ) smoothly after trying out for few days.
I only have a laptop to my disposal and its not possible for me to look at laptop screen for more then 30 mins

As done by everyone I was also using asio4all driver. But I was getting a distorted sound for anything above 44.1 kHz. One whole day I tried various different settings on the player assuming my Laptop could not handle the load. After trying everything and issue still not getting solved I finally tried some generic USB driver which I am not sure when I installed
But after using the generic driver, playback was absolutely smooth without any distortion or cracks and pops

I have set the player as per instructions by JLS001 as of now. There are so many variables that it will take a while to most optimum setting for ones liking

I don't know what the Bug Head Player does but the digital glare is almost gone and sound is very analogue like. Bass has nice texture to it

Biggest drawback of this player is that it needs some hefty cpu performance and ram. Infact I feel it needs more cpu power then RAM as we select higher settings

Thanks Joshua for this great find

 

[keith_correa]

Do you hear any differences when you play the same song from your SSD vs the normal HDDs ? I suppose anyways that a 64GB SSD can't suffice storing anyone's elaborate lossless music collection?

Would be great to know your impressions.

Am not Nikhil, but allow me to chime in. The benefit of an SSD is not in the music file being loaded from the SSD. That should make absolutely no difference (SQ wise) as opposed to it being loaded from a magnetic HDD since buffering takes care of the load lag. The difference is in the OS components (media player software too) being loaded from the SSD and THAT is what makes a difference. Most people use the SSD to load and run the OS and some critical programs off it, not the data (in this case - music files).

 

[kartick]

Yeah thats what i feel makes sense too rather than just playing music off of an SSD per say.

 

[rikhav]

Am not Nikhil, but allow me to chime in. The benefit of an SSD is not in the music file being loaded from the SSD. That should make absolutely no difference (SQ wise) as opposed to it being loaded from a magnetic HDD since buffering takes care of the load lag. The difference is in the OS components (media player software too) being loaded from the SSD and THAT is what makes a difference. Most people use the SSD to load and run the OS and some critical programs off it, not the data (in this case - music files).

Very true Keith
Even I have installed a SSD in my pc and I have installed the OS and softwares I use on the SSD
All the data goes on the normal HDD

I maybe wrong but what I believe is that loading music via SSD would have none to negligible difference in SQ

 

[keith_correa]

On another note, over at the JPlay forum, someone reported that the BHE developer has announced that version 5.56 which is already available for download, is the best ever, and cannot be improved further, so he's ceasing further development.

Man, I hope that's not true. If it's true, I hope he only means that he cannot improve on the kernel of the "player" and that he will continue to work on the UI and functionality. But if I know the core techie types (and I think I know - having spent 15 odd years in the industry), UI would be the last thing on their/his mind - it takes another animal to get that right. I only hope someone else teams up with him to take this ahead where it deserves to go and not to just let this get relegated to a fringe cult player where it is now.

 

[keith_correa]

I maybe wrong but what I believe is that loading music via SSD would have none to negligible difference in SQ

In a friend's Alienware machine, I once A/B'd the same file loaded from SSD and from magnetic drive and found no difference at all in SQ. But, I have cloth ears so, YMMV!!