Recent comments in /f/headphones

Nadeoki t1_iydc3aw wrote

Reply to Is this min-maxing obsession or are there benefits to be had by tweaking things on the OS or digital side and using 'audiophile' footers? by Orangutan_Ulti

iirc linux has crappy audio implementation (that's why you'd need some of these for instance.) And yes Windows Direct Audio sucks too. Not too sure about all of them but for Dolby stuff for example you specifically need some licensed software also. I wouldn't call it min-maxing obsession to use software designed to perform audio better than perhaps a general use driver that isn't well optimized for example to play DSD, SAC, Dolby Atmos 7.1, etc..

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PeetTreedish t1_iydbz3f wrote

Reply to Is this min-maxing obsession or are there benefits to be had by tweaking things on the OS or digital side and using 'audiophile' footers? by Orangutan_Ulti

That person has OCD. Not audiophelia. There are benefits to having quality made gear. There is also very limited returns on spending tons of money on even more expensive stuff. Sure using the best electronic parts that are made will have measurable results, but not with any human ear. None of them.

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MachineTeaching t1_iyd965v wrote

Reply to Is this min-maxing obsession or are there benefits to be had by tweaking things on the OS or digital side and using 'audiophile' footers? by Orangutan_Ulti

I honestly can't tell if this is a joke or not. Memory jitter reduction?

Anyway, the short answer is, none of this really matters.

The long answer is found in the following link. Windows actually does some processing and if you want to be really anal about things you can disable that stuff.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/ending-the-windows-audio-quality-debate.19438/

It's unlikely that the perceivable improvement goes beyond placebo though.

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tekszi t1_iyd7c0z wrote

Reply to Is this min-maxing obsession or are there benefits to be had by tweaking things on the OS or digital side and using 'audiophile' footers? by Orangutan_Ulti

As someone who is a tester of a heavily customized Windows os used by thousands, I can tell you for 100% that the answer is no. You can achieve a lot lower audio latency but that doesn't mean better quality, setting CPU processor affinities to your desired audio player or driver (for example ASIO) could theoretically help but even though I've been testing this for months, it seems like a complete placebo when it comes to actual audio quality. I'd still recommend setting affinities if you are running lower audio buffers since windows has this tendency to focus most processes to core 0 and by making it run on a different core, processing audio shouldn't be as resource-heavy as it is typically. And even this is a very rare case that I can only imagine happening on 25-year-old hardware.

Regarding "optimization"/"tweaking" software, most of their code has been sourced out by information you can access freely, or most of it can be plain wrong or hardware dependent which means they may not even work. Please do not consider ever buying such products for audio, gaming or any use case where it could come to mind.

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TheFrator t1_iyd3h8v wrote

Reply to comment by Exact3 in Going from the Sennheiser HD 560S to the HD 800S by Lapralapso

Hey not to get too macabre but I feel it my duty to tell my fellow crazy audio people to have a will and designate who the equipment goes to. I say this from a place of caring and experience with in-fighting over a lack of a will when someone in my family passed. Since audio means a lot to you, be sure it goes people who wold care enough about these things in the off-chance of something happening to you.

Happy listening!

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