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41.183.0.21
In Reply to: RE: cPlay - the open source high-end audio player using ASIO posted by cics on May 05, 2008 at 12:31:58
Refer to ReadMe.txt for important details & specifications.
Change Log (2.0b27 release):
- Minor ASIO refinements
- DSP refinements (new advanced design implemented) giving efficiency improvements
- Disable keyboard processing when file browsing
- Faster 24 bit WAV processing (improving RAM load times)
- Compiler optimisation done (for FLAC)
Details on SoX settings and output measurements can be found under Release 2.0b26 Notes.
Please REMOVE previous versions before installing cPlay 2.0b27. Normal (SSE2), SSE3 B9, SSSE3 B9 and SSE4 B9 versions are available. Running cPlay on a CPU not supporting the required instruction set will cause cPlay to exit immediately.
For cMP² users, review these BIOS changes (underclocks FSB, CPU & disable additional USB items). New settings are in effect allowing for lower power consumption (below 20W). This release allows for further CPU underclocking under maximum load (192k SRC 145db SNR output) where CPU Host frequency can be lowered to 140 giving CPU frequency of 840MHz! This setting is only recommended for WAV files (for FLAC, use a minimum of 150). Recommended Gigabyte mobo GA-G31M-S2L is no longer available, use either GA-G31M-S2C, GA-G31M-ES2L or GA-EG45M-UD2H (advanced settings discussion).
Hi,
I have a little suggestion related to audio file loading using cuesheet.
Would it be possible that cplay be modified in the following way:
- If cue file mention FILE "foo.wav" WAVE
-- try to load foo.wav from current directory and if it fails fallback to the loading of foo.flac and if it fail display an error.
This could be usefull for people using flac as modification of cue files generated from EAC or other software would be necessary anymore.
If you don't have time for this, I would be interested in sending you a patch for that feature if you can send me the source code to pbmtp AT free DOT fr
Thanks for this software
What will be most useful is a playlist tool. I'd like to remove the "File Browse" button and replace it with a more general playlist tool button. Alan has built a standalone cue sheet creator / playlist tool in Java.
Idea is when you hit this button, an elegant playlist tool takes the place of the old file browser. One can either select a file / track or build a new playlist and send it to cPlay for playback.
This will need to be built in c/c++ using either WTL 8 or native WIN32 api (preferred). Also, avoid a resource editor.
I ripped the whole cd into one large image FLAC file + a CUE file using EAC. With the cplay "File Browser", I just load the CUE file and play the music. That works very well with the existing cplay file browser.
If we move to "playlist tool" instead of file browser, is it possible to create play list selected tracks from these CD images base on the information of image CUE file? That would be ideal. I don't want to rip all music again into "one file per track".
s
YES,
You CAN create a cue sheet playlist. Alan Jordan who posts on the computer asylum created such a program. I am pressed for time, but doa search for somthing like "cue sheet playlist creator" or "recursive" and look for posts from his moniker "aljordan".
It is a fantastic program.
using cuesheets? Playing the WAV file, playing the FLAC file or displaying an error.
Rip one of your cd with EAC in flac mode, ask EAC to create a .cue file.
Once it is done load the cue file with cplay and you will get an error as inside cue files have .wav extension whereas on disk they have .flac extension.
To fix you need to open the cue file with a text editor and replace all occurence to .wav with .flac.
My idea of trying to load .wav file and if it fails trying to load .flac file would fix such issue without the need of editing all of your .cue file
.
I had upgraded cPlay from b15 to b27 (I know I am a bit lazy but I was away from my main system until a week ago) and the different is huge. The sound I am getting now is very close to the analogue (LP with Infinity RS1) sound twenty years ago. Thanks to cics for getting me close to what I have been missing for so long, the emotion of the music.
I have been trying out the FLAC option in cPlay last night and am totally puzzled! The sound is quite different from WAV from which the FLAC file was derived. I expected that the difference would be minor and that WAV would sound better. On the contrary, the difference is quite noticeable on the get go and what is most surprising, FLAC sounded better, more analog! (There is one case-Joni Mitchell's big band version of 'Both Sides Now' which I haven't decided yet on which is the better version. But the difference is there.)
Does anyone have the same experience or am I just delusional? And can someone explain the difference in sound? I thought the FLAC file was first decoded when load and that would not be any difference at all.
I have given the system another listen this morning and discovered another recording that I prefer WAV over FLAC: Van Morrison's Astral Weeks (Remastered)--Japan import only. My guess is that:
-- there is more high frequency content in WAV playback (easily detectable but why?)
-- less high frequency in FLAC renders some recordings more analogue sounding
But why is there difference between WAV and FLAC playback?
Jumping from b15 to b27 is massive! Analogue together with recreating that natural "un-electrified" sound remains the only reference - doing 192k SRC output of 44.1k material to an external high-end DAC is very special and pure...
Depending on mobo / CPU / RAM setup and power supply, FLAC will have an impact. cPlay decodes all FLAC material into RAM before playback (thus ensuring exact same audio data). FLAC decoding is however intensive ito CPU load. This intensive decoding process should be seen as a severe electrical storm being unleashed. We get a large PS load being generated. How your PSU and mobo setup handles this will affect SQ thereafter. All my music is stored in WAV thus avoiding this issue. A way to reduce this PS spike (which can last several seconds) and its "after effects" is to cap your CPU, i.e. set maximum CPU frequency to lowest stable level ~900MHz.
By turning off alias in SOX, I find the 'electronic' sound of WAV files playback deminishes
I have settled on using juli@ latency of 64 and it in combination with cplay 2.0b27 has been favorable. I can now lower my host clock to 144 and voltage to .85 and I get excellent sonics with sox @ 192 and very few metallics. I'm still not sure about buffer size in cplay. I like small the best for the pristine highs but large is not bad either for the good mids, bass. But I'm confused on what is theoretically the best for cpu usage and sonics. There was a lot of discussion in AA pc audio on this but I was lost in all the debate. Can anybody clarify this?
Relative to 27's sonic impact vs 26 I believe Serge has nailed it for me as well.
Also try SRC and Medium buffer size as host frequency of 144 should not be a problem.
ok will do
I have been running src and 192 sample rate(64 latency in Juli@) for a day and a half ---digital out into my Benchmark---no metallics and the rabbit sounds wonderful!!! I don't know what happened but I am at 140 host clock control, .85 volts in bios and it is rock stable. I always thought that power supply had something to do with it. Now I have cpu on a linear supply, all hdd's on gd's, no fans and I guess the only thing running off the Antec is digital power and analogue power. So with digital out that is a very low load on the antec. Maybe this is the reason, maybe not but any way real nice!!!!
Major thanks to cics for requesting I try it.
Have you removed Juli@'s analogue PCB?
latency now at 48, analogue board off. Please remember I was getting some metallics from juli@ analogue outs with sox. Now nothing @ 64 latency.
Edits: 06/22/09 06/22/09
Got to shut down , going out for awhile. No metallics aftwer 1 hour.
m
.
it goes an hour or so then metallicca. sorry I changed parameters midstream but I have been planning/building the battery supply for some time.
Alfred these are LiFePO4 from a usa company in california.
...they are everything you said. Soundstage becomes large, hardness is eliminated, timbre is spot on.Thank you for this maybe best tweak ever on cmp^2.
One interesting phenomena on the metallics... I am running 50% cpu usage with 192/-146 src but I think I remember usage in the 30% range yesterday before the batteries with src. I get mid teens with sox. But I thought cplay 2.0b27 was an improvement on efficiencies. Can someone who is running 27 with 192/-146 src get a read from task mg on cpu usage? Certainly 50% usage was consistent in the past with metallics for me so that is not a surprise.
ok now I'm getting 25-27% cpu usage with src @192, what the heck would cause it to jump to 50% before??
I have gone 1 hour src / 192 no metallics @ 25% cpu usage. But but the sonics of the battery are overwhelmingly great---several discs I heard as if the first time. One is a classical piece wherein the depth gets 30-40% deeper. Another one with 2 female vocalists singing 'Walk away Renee' it sounds as if they both stepped forward several feet into my room. The air around them is uncanny (you can hear around them). Alfred thank you again!!
Maybe after I modded my juli@ for batteries it takes several hours to settle. I believe now I can use cpu usage as an indicator of whether metallics will come. If its 50% they will come if 25% they will not.
2 + hours no metallics
6 hours on src 145 / 192 sample rate / 48 latency on juli@ and small buffer on cplay---no metallics. The metallics I suffered from earlier was probably due (I'm surmising) to the soldering on juli@ not settled in yet and the power supply being off while I modded the sound card.
It was really unusual that I was getting 50% cpu usage (when metallics ocurred) and now I'm getting 25-28%.
My first impressions after listening for a number of hours, very very impressive!
This is superb. I have a CD which was recorded while I was in and around the orchestra videotaping, and I remember the sound very clearly. This version is the first time where I really feel I am back there in that same hall. Every instrument is clear and distinct and I can tell exactly where it is on the stage, exactly where it was in reality.
CICS, you have performed quite a feat here, thank-you for all the hard work. This has to be one of the few ultimate ways to listen to digital audio.
Daniel Gauthier
Montreal Canada
Gigabyte GA-G31M-S2L, E7200, 2 x 1 gig HyperX LL Memory, Antec SLP-450WR PSU, WinXP sp3 on Compact Flash Drive, Jili@ Analog Out direct to Electrocompaniet Ampliwire II Amplifier, Apogée Convergence Speakers
- Have you tried using just 1 RAM module (reducing memory to 1GB)?
- How is music accessed if using CF drive?
- Any mods on Juli@? By ESI's own admission, Juli@'s 114db SNR DAC is not the best (they instead went for better ADC). The big advantage is using 192k cPlay output which bypasses AKM's internal 192k interpolater. This way, SQ is exceptionally good (including digital VC) from this "average" AKM DAC chip. Very interesting.
1. Have you tried using just 1 RAM module (reducing memory to 1GB)?Actually I was mistaken, I'm using 2 x 512megs of Kingston ValueRam, The 1gig modules are in another PC at the moment, but as soon as I have a chance I want to swap and test different configurations of memory to see what sounds the best. I think I wouldn't go below 1gig as I listen to a lot of classical music and I like the possibility of loading an entire movement into memory.
2. How is music accessed if using CF drive?
Only Windows and software (C drive) and a spare backup drive of a total of 4 gigs are on Compact Flash, the music is on a 2.5" 120 gig hard drive at the moment, but it's much too small. I'm thinking of getting an external SATA box to put 4 drives in RAID 0. The box would be mounted on the other side of the wall in the next room.
3. Any mods on Juli@? By ESI's own admission, Juli@'s 114db SNR DAC is not the best (they instead went for better ADC). The big advantage is using 192k cPlay output which bypasses AKM's internal 192k interpolater. This way, SQ is exceptionally good (including digital VC) from this "average" AKM DAC chip. Very interesting.
No mods yet, I plan to power the card through a dedicated 5 and 3.3 volt linear supply and cut the power connections to the PCI bus. I would love to get an external DAC, say like the Apogee, or the Benchmark since people seem to get very good results with them, but it's not in the budget for a while yet.
I am also using only an Antec PSU to power the computer itself, no mods there yet, but I'm planning to add caps and later to use dedicated linear supplies for everything.
I've got these monster power supplies made for the Meridian-1 phone system that gives all the necessary voltages, I want to try that first, if it works you could probably get them cheap on eBay, but they are heavy, about 25 pounds!
Daniel Gauthier
Montreal Canada
Gigabyte GA-G31M-S2L, E7200, 2 x 1 gig HyperX LL Memory, Antec SLP-450WR PSU, WinXP sp3 on Compact Flash Drive, Jili@ Analog Out direct to Electrocompaniet Ampliwire II Amplifier, Apogée Convergence Speakers
Edits: 06/22/09
Thank you Cics! I agree with other fellows :) I feel the focus of sound has improved, resulting (1) less booming (2) deeper and wider sound stage (3) I can turn the volume louder without losing the sound stage or feeling fatiqueHowever for some reason I miss the "booming effect" in v26... Because I am using bookshelf speaker haha
And I have deleted all my up-sampled files (300MB+ each) and now only rely on SoX.
Edits: 06/18/09
Sox is available to use as a standalone program
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=10706
May be you can compare offline upsampling as well
Hi everyone, I have been on another planet for the past 6 months but am now catching up on all the posts, as well as updating my system to the latest versions.About the composer name issue in cue sheets, there is a tag specifically for this in the specs called SONGWRITER. Me and my friend have been working on this issue and are transferring huge collections of music to hard disc, I've got now over 1000 CDs with the same number of cue sheets to edit and this is a big issue, not to mention managing the GENRE tags as well.
It would be nice if there was a way to support this eventually in cMP and cPlay to make it a little easier to navigate a big collection of music.
I've included a part of one of our cue sheets as an example below as well as the cue sheet standard description for that tag.
Frodan
REM GENRE Classical-Symphony
REM DATE 1977
CATALOG 4988005503473
REM ORCHESTRA BPO
REM FIRM DG SHM-CD
SONGWRITER "Brahms"
PERFORMER "Karajan"
TITLE "Symphony No. 1 in C minor Op. 68"
FILE "Brahms - Karajan - Symphony No. 1 in C minor Op. 68 - 1977.wav" WAVETRACK 01 AUDIO
TITLE "I. Un poco sostenuto - Allegro"
SONGWRITER "Brahms"
ISRC DEF058702021
INDEX 01 00:00:00TRACK 02 AUDIO
TITLE "II. Andante sostenuto"
SONGWRITER "Brahms"
ISRC DEF058702022
INDEX 00 13:22:02
INDEX 01 13:26:00
SONGWRITER
Description:This command is used to specify the name of a songwriter for a CD-TEXT enhanced disc.
Syntax:SONGWRITER [songwriter-string]
Parameters:songwriter-string - Name of songwriter. If the string contains any spaces, then it must be enclosed in quotation marks. Strings should be limited to 80 character or less.
Example:SONGWRITER "Paul McCartney"
Rules:If the SONGWRITER command appears before any TRACK commands, then the string will be encoded as the songwriter of the entire disc. If the command appears after a TRACK command, then the string will be encoded as the songwriter of the current track. Note: If your recorder does not support CD-TEXT, then this command will be ignored.
Daniel Gauthier
Montreal Canada
Gigabyte GA-G31M-S2L, E7200, 2 x 1 gig HyperX LL Memory, Antec SLP-450WR PSU, WinXP sp3 on Compact Flash Drive, Jili@ Analog Out direct to Electrocompaniet Ampliwire II Amplifier, Apogée Convergence Speakers
Edits: 06/17/09
I don't know if you are aware of the interim solution I have been using which is to list composers from the flac files' Composer tag as genre in the case of classical files. Al Jordan has included an option for this in his Recursive Cuesheet Creator. This accomplishes much though not all of what you are after. Under genre display, if one selects a given composer then his works are listed by performer-title.
If you want to use Songwriter in the cuesheets, you have to have a way of entering composer data from the music files into this and then a way of displaying Songwriter as you have described or some other way.
Next cMP release (much later) will look into this.
I have a few suggestions on how to implement it in cMP2.1. Have an ini setting to turn it on or off, Songwriter=True.
2. If it's on, you could have 4 buttons along the bottom for searching:
IF Songwriter=.F.
- Show buttons as they are now.ELSE Songwriter=.T.
- IF button = GENRE --> After selecting a GENRE offers a list by
- - SONGWRITER, after selecting a SONGWRITER, offers a list by TITLE,
- - then offers a list by PERFORMER.- ELSE IF button = TITLE --> After selecting a TITLE, offers a list by
- - SONGWRITER, after selecting a SONGWRITER, then offers a list by
- - PERFORMER.- ELSE IF button = SONGWRITER --> After selecting a SONGWRITER, offers a
- - list by TITLE, after selecting a TITLE, offers a list by PERFORMER.- ELSE IF button = PERFORMER --> After selecting a PERFORMER, offers a
- - list by SONGWRITER, after selecting a SONGWRITER, offers a list by
- - TITLE.
- ENDIF
ENDIFBTW I love the fact that with a keyboard one can type the first few letters of a search and cMP goes directly to the first entry that starts with those letters. It makes things a little easier when navigating though a collection of 1000 titles!
Daniel Gauthier
Montreal Canada
Gigabyte GA-G31M-S2L, E7200, 2 x 1 gig HyperX LL Memory, Antec SLP-450WR PSU, WinXP sp3 on Compact Flash Drive, Jili@ Analog Out direct to Electrocompaniet Ampliwire II Amplifier, Apogée Convergence Speakers
Edits: 06/22/09 06/22/09 06/22/09 06/22/09 06/24/09 06/24/09
Hello, Cics, hello everybody! We are happy to get one more wonderfull version. This one is less "intensive" as 26, but much cleaner. Soundstage is very detailed, and the instruments and their respective lines are naturally separated, which was not so evident before. Also the highs are on a new level of intelligibility, being sharp and "furry" but smooth. Like sable fur. With this version SRC is gaining up, especially for me, with Sox my best setting was 97 minimal no alias. Overall a shining new development of my only player. I also have to report that, even after minlogon, I had been having short dropouts-hiccups appr. every 12-17 minutes with 26, while with 27 I experienced only 1 and much less pronounced. So, if any changes were done in this area, they must have been beneficial as well. I really enjoy 27.
Serge.
My question to Cics - can You tell me how does volume control affect the resolution? I am afraid to touch it, it is always 0.
First, I'd like to thank CICS for his wonderful contribution to audio. I agree with Serg in his observations on 27. It is wonderfully musical while remaining precise. On my system much better bass. Wider presentation of sound stage. I am running on a dedicated lap top with most of the cmp mods applied. Perhaps with less availble cpu power the code optimizations have an even bigger impact.
Last section of this post explains modern digital VC. cPlay offers 53 bit numerical precision, i.e. no resolution loss. I'm currently using this digital VC [-24db .. -30db] into DAC.
Analogue VC only has advantage when preamp's SNR betters DAC's. Juli@'s DAC offers a SNR of 114db - not sure if you can get an affordable preamp that better this!
This is an excellent software volume control.
I am using the lightspeed attenuator posted on diyaudio and find it a wonderful companion to cmp/cplay. Very affordable and to my ear allows the full potential of cplay to come through. No question that with cplay at 0.0 and the lightspeed handling -40db of attenuation the sonics are much more complete.
Dear cics,wow, 840 MHz and my system is still running absolutely stable and without any dropouts or so - maybe I should even try to get lower... ;-)
I had settled on CPU Host Control voltage of 0.76875V, couldn't go any lower - tried again today and it seems as if i can go lower now - quite a surprise, I had to do a CMOS reset before when going any lower - is the system "burning in" or somehow getting adjusted to lower voltages over time...?
Anyhow - look forward very much to see how 2.0b27 will perform in a few days - I really believed it when you said "no more new releases in mid-erm", and here we are with (i) a release that has implemented a new and very promising upsampler (I'm not using it currently due to Buffalo32S though) and (ii) a new release with major refinements re footprint and performance - thank you so much cics, life is good :-)
Best,
Robert
Edits: 06/15/09
Lower CPU frequency allows for lowering CPU VID. In my setup, I have VID @ 0.73750V (one notch lower than before). At this level, CPU temperature (at max load) as measured in BIOS is 35°C and through RealTemp its 46°C/45°C (core 0/core 1).
No, sorry, I have to correct my yesterday's post - a cold boot (system was off overnight) is still not possible with VID values below 0.76875, even with CPU Host frequency now at 140 MHz.
When doing a cold boot before, the system as kind of "standard procedure" always had failed to come up at 900MHz so BIOS always reverted CPU Host Clock Control to "Disabled", System Memory Multiplier to "Auto" and DRAM Timing Selectable to "Auto", which I then always reset to "Enabled", "2.00" and "Manual". A warm reboot was always possible without that procedure if the system hadn't been idle too long (~5-10mins).
So it really seems I can't get any lower than 0,76875V. I would have loved to do so though, since every notch or two down brought what I considered still another (although small) improvement in relaxed audio reproduction with a tad more transparency and less distortion.
Or did I miss something?
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