Hi,

I am using Foobar to convert MP3 to Wav. It's pretty slow at about 6 times speed and uses 100% of CPU. This surprises me as it's 3.4 Ghz. It is dual core so wonder if this is the issue here. I tried it on my other PC which is somewhat slower (less than 3Ghz processor and 'not' dual) and files are converted at about 30 times speed and uses only about 25% of CPU. Is there an issue with dual processors and if so is there a fix.

Help here would be appreciated.

Many thanks.

Bob.

Have you considered the possbility of it being a bad or outdated driver thats causing the bad performance? Or even a bad BIOS configuration?

Hi,
They're most recent drivers but i'll check the bios configuration.
Cheers.

is your hdd running in PIO mode?

Hi Terrestrial, don't know but will find out. Any reason why this should be a problem? I actually have four SATA hard drives of 300 gig and it doesn't matter where i convert from, the usage is the same.
Cheers.

OK, i finally worked out the problem. I'm using an off ramp turbo with M Audio drivers. I was advised to set the output from the M Audio software at 96khz and this is one of the problems. In addition, I'm converting all the MP3 files to Wav at 24 bit and using a DSP resampler tp 96khz (again advised by Empirical Audio). I found that even when not outputting any signal the M Audio is CPU hungry which along with the resampler etc it was running pretty hot. By putting output at null while converting it now is down to 50% CPU which is still ridiculously high. Now I understand that I would have been better converting to 16 bit and 44.1khz but I now have the majority of my files converted and will have to live with it I guess The CPU is at about 17% when playing a 24 bit 96khz track up to 35% when using a resampler. The M Audio is resource hungry as even when I try it at 16 bit 44.1 it uses even more processing power

I'm very happy with the sound that I'm getting so this is not the issue. Is using the CPU at 17-35% during playback going to cause any issues with the CPU or can I just relax and enjoy the music?

Cheers.

Bob.

Everything you read at Empirical Audio is bullshit. Try reading HA for a minute instead.

Wow - none of that conversion and upsampling and munging of your audio will make it sound better. The best case is that you won't notice any difference, and the worst case is that it will actually sound worse. Put everything back to default settings. For a real M-Audio card, the only time a resampler is appropriate is if you are using ASIO (and no, ASIO won't make your audio sound 'better' either) and need to ensure that all audio is sent to the card at a compatible sample rate.

The best settings for almost all situations are the defaults. Stop changing them. Put everything back to where it was before you messed with it and you'll get better quality and a solution to your problem. If that is a real 24-bit card, the only setting you might want to adjust is setting the output data format to 24-bit in the Output preferences. Best performance will be had with DirectSound, the default choice.

You really only need to change this if you need to push non-PCM data through your SPDIF output, require the use of an external DAC, or have a complicated ASIO setup, such as one with non-standard surround speaker mappings.

that's why I'm here

Hi,
I have tried setting the M-Audio to 16 bit/44.1 but the CPU uses even more power so reverted back to 24/96. It is a real 24 bit card which converts USB to SPDIF. Then the signal goes into an external DAC. You're absolutely right that there is very little difference in sound quality. I've tried various things with and without resamplers, 16 and 24 bit, 44.1, 48, and 96khz and there 'is' a difference but whether one's better than the other is a mute point
Virtually all of my music is in wav format, some 16/44.1, and some 24/96. I was considering changing to FLAC to save space and ultimately time. Are you saying that I should save the FLAC files as 16/44.1 or may I leave them as they are?
On the other hand, if I was to convert all my files to 24/96 this would negate the need for resampling when playing them so this should help reduce CPU usage....shouldn't it?
I'd like to point out that I've recently sold a highly regarded CDP (MF Nu Vista 3D CD) as the quality of the sound from this was far superior (to my ears). I'm pretty happy with it and any help from you guys to improve will be gratefully received.
Many thanks.

Bob.