Well I think I answered that quite clearly in my various postings on 20 November. I originally thought the issue was due to some misconfiguration of the app on my system. But when I saw @elan’s smug observation
I realised that no one here who actually could do anything was interested.
Also, as noted in my posts, I have alternatives. So rather than try and work out what logs @elan was after (and where they are, and how to find comparators with the apps that don’t sound bad … and so on - none of which was coming from those asking for the logs) it is much much easier to simply give up wondering and use an app that works.
I completely agree - but as your comment suggests, it seems easier to assume I’m the one misleading people than imagine that I might have gone to the trouble to start this thread and engage with people because there actually was an issue on my system.
I know saying this doesn’t help, but I think you’re jumping the gun here. My intention was never to insinuate that you’re trying to “mislead” anybody. I actually stumbled upon this thread because I was having a similar thought as you. I was just hoping that you’d actually engage in the discussion rather than give up. But I get it, moving on is easier than try to actually solve the issue.
In cases like this, the onus is on us to prove that Plexamp is actually degrading music quality apart from just saying that it “sounds bad”. Human ears are non-linear devices and can often create “audible” distortions that aren’t actually present in the original signal. Not to mention, unless the playbacks are perfectly volume matched, comparison is going to generally skew in favor of the louder source even if they may be of the same quality.
I wish someone who can record audio streams chime into our discussion so we can actually compare waveforms and see if there are indeed differences. Like you, I think there are differences, but it’s also possible that it’s just all in my head.
I agree, but it takes two to tango; even if it was clear how to assemble conclusive information about the sound quality produced it would only do any good if it then lead to someone in Plex deciding to act upon it. Nothing I’ve seen in this forum generally or this thread specifically indicates to me that such an outcome is likely.
So I’m reconciled to not using plex or plexamp for audio on my system - Audirvana has its own issues (UI mostly), but the sound quality it provides (on my system) makes it my preferred solution.
let’s take a deep breath here. nobody’s calling anyone a liar or trying to be “smug”. my observation was just a factual statement which was that we hadn’t heard about poor audio quality before.
clearly if there’s an issue, we’d love to hear about it, but audio quality is one of those notoriously hard-to-pin-down things, and can be subjective at times.
if you want the “purest” audio inside Plexamp, disable loudness leveling and the EQ.
FWIW:
My experience on the Mac is that the player does indeed affect the quality of the sound! I have my speakers connected to the caldigit ts3plus analog out, and the thunderbolt to the computer. So I am assuming I use the DAC in the dock!
Using VLC to play audio, it is no pleasurable output, it sounds like crap, especially on high volume! Using plexamp, it sounds great on the speakers I have! Far from as good as on my main stereo, but still very enjoyable. So the app does indeed affect the audio on the Mac!
The source is the same 320Kbit bitrate mp3.
Just wanted to throw my “me too” in here. Mostly FLAC audio. Loudness disabled. Tried with two external high-quality DACs and going straight line level to a dedicated headphone amp. Some things are decent, others are really bad (seemingly overdriven). On 11.2 on a 2015 iMac, but it has been this way for a while. The same file on a different player (even VLC) is substantially better.
with loudness leveling and EQ disabled, it should be pretty much straight path through (32-bit float pipeline), so i can’t explain why you might hear some as “overdriven”
It does, because when one that is particularly gross pops up, I will load that track up in VLC or something else and A/B it.
Note that one of my DACs has an intentionally fixed output volume in that the OS mixer has no control of the output volume. It’s done this way because it’s made to pair to a specific amp (which it is, in my case) so that the output level is exactly what the amp expects. When I A/B plexamp against VLC or something else, the software volume controls in something like VLC are set at 100%, and definitely yield a louder result than plexamp does at 0dB gain, no loudness leveling, and no EQ. I guess I would expect that the software control in VLC is unity gain at 100%, especially since it actually goes to 110% or something, and thus I would expect 100% in VLC to be equal to plexamp with no gain setting(s).
So, even though the distortion is characteristic of clipping, I feel like it’s probably happening somewhere earlier in the chain than like plexamp pumping something into the OS audio system that results in clipping at the mixer, DAC, etc.
not knowing VLC (maybe it takes into account replaygain??) i would expect the same. n.b. that you need to restart playback in Plexamp once you’ve changed the loudness leveling setting.
you could test this theory by changing macOS output to something other than the DAC, right?
Yeah, like I said, I’ve used two USB Async DACs (one with fixed volume, one with variable) as well as the system analog output. The only thing I’ve noticed that makes it better is swapping out the app. That’s why I don’t think it’s clipping at the system mixer or later - because even the louder VLC output doesn’t seem to clip. I adjust the VLC volume output to try to get them to be the same when comparing.
only other thing to check would be to make sure you have the limiter disabled in advanced settings. that’s the only other thing i can think of which might influence the output chain.
one other question—does the issue reproduce on mobile?
please provide a sample if you can of a particularly gross file.
The only files I’ve noticed it on are copyrighted, so…
Good question about mobile. In general, I’m not using very nice headphones (or bluetooth) on mobile, and generally am not in a good environment for quiet listening so I probably wouldn’t have noticed.
TBH, I had given up on plexamp for real listening at my desktop several months ago when I realized where the problem was, so I don’t even remember what specific files I could go test with. But, in the coming weeks I’ll try to go back to it for my everyday listening and when I find an obvious offender, I’ll listen to the same thing on android and let you know.
I have a caldigit TS3 plus, and use the analogue out from it, VLC sounds like crap/distorted on higher volumes on my macOS, plexamp sounds great via same output/speakers (for the speakers I have connected)! Have no idea what DAC caldigit uses in their docks.
