I don’t take it as a joke, I think it is fair and valuable feedback. Please be respectful.
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The least “bit-perfect” part of your audio chain is likely speakers / headphones. Even for super high-end equipment, check out the frequency response and you will see they are not even remotely flat in the audible band, and if you go back far enough you’ll find that the studio monitors that the music was mixed against were not remotely flat either. Some people even really like intentionally added distortion; see tube amps.
We all know why Plexamp will not support DSD passthrough, so if bit-perfect for the one step between your computer and DAC is critical for your ability to enjoy music then perhaps Plex is not the product for you. With the exception of DSD passthrough (*), in a normal configuration all the audiophile players are likely doing something to make playback not bit perfect, whether it is sample rate conversion, volume levelling, equalisation, fades, just like Plexamp. Well-performed digital conversions can be super-accurate. Plex could be doing more here, and for the examples I gave above with very little effort, to show due care for its part of the audio chain, making it more competitive with purpose-designed audiophile products, and shifting focus from “bit perfect” fixations to the features that make Plexamp shine.
(*) Even then, Roon and HQ Player, and probably others, will do DSD volume levelling and DSD rate conversions (e.g. DSD 64 → DSD 512) without conversion through PCM, which would also make DSD Passthrough on those products not bit-perfect. Non-bit-perfect DSD conversions are as essential as the PCM conversions discussed above, to avoid DAC settings changes during playback of mixed media, and for volume levelling.
Are we really wanting bit-perfect anyway, considering how limiting that is? “Bit-accurate” is much more useful. At the moment I’m just not sure Plexamp aims to be bit-accurate, and whether psychological or real that does affect my enjoyment.
We do, and it should be clear from all the work we’ve done over the years, including:
- Smart/strict sample rate matching (great example of the tradeoff between being perfect and accurate).
- Sample rate switching on an increasing number of platforms (macOS, Linux, iOS, Android on most many devices with most recent OS, will come to Windows).
- Making sure any features which “taint” the source (e.g. loudness leveling, limiter, EQ) can be disabled.
- Probably more stuff I’m forgetting…
We’ve had that request from one of our testers and we’ll likely add that feature.
We use the BASS audio libraries under the hood, which have a high quality (but not SOX AFAIK) resampler integrated. We’ll likely expose the quality knob that offers in the future, right now we use the default setting.
Thank you @elan. I’m looking forward to trying out the fixed sample rate option. Exposing the sampling rate converter options would also be great, but BASS doesn’t seem to have much in the way of options, just the number of points for the sinc conversion. r8brain and SoX have more options that the user may want to configure like the filter characteristics.
The Plexamp page (https://www.plex.tv/plexamp/) talks a lot about features, but not about sound quality or the work that you have put into making Plexamp as accurate as possible. Maybe worth publishing something, even a technical page in your knowledge base (like the documents around how to structure your library properly)?
It sounds like the Plex web version audio chain (based on ffmpeg?) is different to the Plexamp app (based on BASS). What about when running a headless Plexamp (e.g. running on RoPieee on a Pi) – does it work like Plex or Plexamp?
Thank you again for responding and considering my feedback.
I wonder how in a thread like this about bit-perfect and it is agreed that in the end the WASAPI Exclusive solution is (rightly) a very good compromise someone proposes some sort of upsampling that will still have to go (or did I misunderstand?) through the Windows mixer can be a viable solution. If then the discussion is about DSD then the subject changes, it may be interesting for those who have such content but I think 99% of us have our flac albums fixed at a certain frequency and want to listen to them “as is” without manipulation. Then everyone will come to terms with their own electronics and speakers but at least they will be assured of a “clean” digital signal.
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Headless is Plexamp audio pipeline.
No one said you can’t have both a way to avoid Windows mixer, which only affects Windows users, and a better approach to consistent sample rates, which affects everyone. @elan indicated Plex has looked at ASIO and will not be implementing, but is considering WASAPI exclusive mode.
Testing the code and it seems to work well.
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Sort of related on the side, since talking about bit perfect playback. Audiofiles like to see their signal path and how it goes through to the speakers. So a simple visual of “file” -->> Sample Rate/Bit Depth -->> DAC → speaker. Something like that. Its a visual thing but it gives user immediate feedback. Just thought Id tag that on here.
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Agreed, something like that would be very nice to show.
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I agree, we really need WASAPI！
It will be added.
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A post was split to a new topic: Option to disable software volume when used in exclusive mode with DAC
Any news with this?
Having to use plex at the moment on a PC for hires audio, rather than plexamp, and it’s a pain.
I’m afraid there isn’t one. The Windows version hasn’t been updated for more than four months. I don’t know what they’ve been busy with recently…….
When I asked in another thread one of the devs said they will be implementing bit perfect playback, though wonder if that was just to stop people asking/complaining.
It’s hard to say, but I hope they can pay attention to the version function update of Windows, the platform with the largest user base.
I read that they did the tests in April… maybe they’ll give us a little Christmas present.
Uhh…definitely smaller than mobile😅
Of course I mean the desktop platform, the Mac and Linux versions are more functional than the Windows version, which is obviously not reasonable.
