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In Reply to: RE: The Art Of Guessing posted by Mercman on July 10, 2014 at 05:40:02
review the two, using the same hardware, player, and music HDD connection method
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You can be 100% sure they will interact differently with the OS, reflecting their creators level of experience programming for each of them.
Aren't players such as Winamp, available for both platforms, be close enough for the comparison?
This shows that you primary exposure is to computers rather than computer audio.
Are you saying there is hardware in existence which can have either OS installed and work well enough to run the test? The results of that test would be fascinating to see.
With a Mac, you essentially get two computers for the price of one. ;-)
The Mac can run Windows natively if you allocate a separate partition on it's disk drive. Apple provides the necessary drivers. When you boot, you choose whether to bootup into Mac OS or Windows.
The other method is to run a virtualization platform like VMware Fusion, Parallels Desktop, or VirtualBox. With these, you do not need a separate dedicated partition on the HDD for Windows. You just boot and run the Windows virtual machine 'on top of' Mac OS. This is extremely convenient for those times when you need to use Windows on the Mac. Since you have Mac OS and Windows running simultaneously in this scenario, it is super easy to switch back and forth or share files between the two environments.
For 'audiophile' use, the preferred method is to run Windows 'bare metal' natively on the Mac hardware, not through virtualization.
I would think the way to go for testing is to not let windows emulate but maybe not. Can you count usb errors w/ your setup?
I'm not aware of a method for checking USB errors on the Mac but it probably exists as I'm sure developers would need it. I've never had USB related issues with audio like clicks, pops, dropouts, stutter, that some folks encounter.
I couldn't find any references to USB error counters on Windows, either. Probably there is some way of checking in hardware or firmware, but drivers may not bother, due to extra software overhead. (Compile time option.)
If you are really curious about hardware capabilities, get a flashlight and magnifying glass and copy down chip numbers from your motherboard and then look up chip specs. This should answer questions as to how the USB hardware detects and reports errors.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
System Report from "About this Mac", or System Profiler Dump
Root Hub Controller is Intel. Notice no other devices attached besides DAC.
Slower Speed Device on Broadcom Hub.
Full hardware & driver info available via System Profiler dump to text. Partial listing here for brevity.
My MacBook Pro with Boot Camp runs OSX Mavericks and Windows 8.1 Pro 64.
Is that running windows natively? Can you do error counting like these others?
The error counters that fmak and I have discussed come with the Rigisystems USBPAL control panel. With other USB devices there might or might not be a packaged display that shows counters. Incidentally, these counters are not particularly useful, because the documentation that comes with them is cryptic. For example, on my system I get continual "FIFO Error Count" counts when I set the streaming buffer size to 1 msec and play music at 192/24. I don't get any counts with the identical cable, USB port, and DAC when I set the streaminhg buffer size to 2 msec. The cryptic documentation for this counter reads:
"This counter is incremented if an interruption in the isochronous USB stream is detected by the hardware. This could be caused by CRC errors on the USB. Try to use another cable, or a short cable, or try to use a different USB port on your PC."
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
interesting. That set of circumstances sure would lead to confusion about the source of the problem.
Edits: 07/11/14 07/11/14
I'm not sure what you mean exactly by reviewing the 2? A PC with similar specs to a Mac?
You have a MAC with W8.1x64 installed, so I understand. Presumably the two OPs share the same hardware.
I mean compare the 2 in a review using the same player you have ie JR19 with the same or similar settings.
I can do that.
It will be most useful.
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