Grant wrote:
> I'm kind of an audiophile and I'd like to make sure there is no
> digital alteration being made to my music between the time it is
> decoded from FLAC and passed to the DAC via USB. We could argue about
> whether it makes a difference, but I'd just like to make sure there is
> a straight "pass-through" happening.
>
> The ALSA volume control and mute functions have no effect whatsoever
> on the volume of the sound, which is good. I used to use Rhythmbox
> which incorporated a software mixer for volume control. I now use mpd
> which does not use a software mixer, the volume control doesn't work,
> and that is good. It sounds a lot clearer.
>
> Can you guys tell me how else I should inspect my system's
> configuration for digital manipulation of my music? Would pulseaudio
> introduce this type of manipulation?
>
> - Grant
>
>
There are two additional reasons your sound will be altered between the
decode and the play.
1. Conversion to your cards internal format e.g. from 16 bit signed
LE to 32 bit float
2. Rate conversion if it has a frame rate that isn't supported by your
card. e.g. The file
is encoded at 44100 frames/second, your card only supports 48000
frames/second.
The second one is the one you want to avoid. That requires resampling,
and depending on
the resampling algorithm used, can mangle your sound.
There really is no way to avoid the first one. Your card has to get the
sound in a format
it can understand, and if you have it in another format, there has to be
a translation.
I'm not sure about puleaudio, but I think, like jack, it opens the card
at a fixed rate, and
everything is converted to that rate.
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