I'm new to ABX'ing, so.. topic mostly says it all.. I've read about people ABX'ing ogg vs mpc vs mp3 and so on, but.. how? when the ABX apps only accepts wave files as input.. ? or am i missing something here?

Decompress them.

The more concerning question would be. How can you compare your WAV files with ABX if it only supports playback via WAVout!

Unless you are running Win9x or use an RME sound card under W2K/XP kmixer modifies all PCM bit streams running through it. This is true even if you do not use any digital attenuation.

You will hear something coming out of your sound card but it is not what you think it is. This makes you wonder about a lot of the results posted in that area....

Cheers

Thomas

even if so, both versions you compare are "mangled" in the same way. i really don't understand your point here.

True, both versions get mangled the same way and many people report that different streams sound quite the same .....


Thomas

And because ABXing tools don't have builtin decoders it is possible to ABX external decoders (like mpg123 vs mad (btw: I can't hear differences))


btw: zZzZzZz, what are you doing here?! Get back to work with foobar v0.36 release. You promised it within "next hours". We need it desperately.

for your information, most of people here listen to "mangled" music (according to your philosophy) and it's absolutely fine with them and their ears.
can you abx recorded output from ASIO from recorded output from waveout ? (if so, you most likely have broken drivers / hardware, but that's another story)

Yes I can ABX a stream played via waveout and ASIO. They do sound different. Obviously, you have to use ASIO output to play an original and a digital recording of a waveout playback.

Why do you think the drivers are broken? If I use ASIO for playback and digitally record the stream, the bits I record are identical to the source. If I use wavout or direct sound they are not. This happens independent of the driver being used in the kmixer component of WDM audio. This is one of the reasons Microsoft just published the kernel streaming code. If there is a trick I am missing please enlighten me.

I am not saying the outcome of comparing one codec to the other would be any different with bit transparent playback. I am just saying that what you get out via waveout or DS playback is not what you put in.

Cheers

Thomas

that's exactly what i wanted to hear.
though it would be better to know what kind of modifications are those (resampling ? scaling ?)

I don't know what algorithm is applied to PCM streams going through but this issue drove me nuts a couple of month ago when I could abx the digital output from my CD player from my computer. Many people pointed to jitter but it turned out to be kmixer.

It happens even if only a single stream is playing. They somehow translate a 16/44.1 stream into another 16/44.1 stream with different samples.

Cheers

Thomas

Using waveout in Winamp 2, Win98, Marian Marc 2 soundcard, the SPDIF digital output is bit exact identical to the wav file.

Togusa says : "Fuck, man ! You scared me !"

Yep,

now try that on W2K or XP. I was not just a little surprised when I upgraded my HTPC to XP a while ago and suddenly a whole range of things stopped to work correctly.

Cheers

Thomas

This is interesting, I had missed this post. I will investigate this as soon as I install WinXP at home, hopefully in a few days.