4 ms·

Nice. PI's built in audio processing is extremely crappy and the analog 3.5mm output is almost unusable for music.

by VexXtreme 13y ago

jablan 13y ago
How can I actually hear this? I am no audiophile, but I can't notice any audio problems with my Pi.
- throwawayaway 13y ago
  apparently the DAC for the RCA out is 11bit - but I can't really find any definitive proof of that.
  - jrabone 13y ago
    That should be pretty easy to demonstrate by feeding the output back into a decent 16-bit soundcard - the noise floor should reveal any dithering going on (and if there's no dithering it will be painfully obvious that there's only 2048 discrete output values...) I might have a go tonight.
    - throwawayaway 13y ago
      http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=103330 http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=103330 Might be of interest to you.
  - jablan 13y ago
    RCA? Isn't the RCA output for video only? I was referring to 3.5mm green audio output.
    - throwawayaway 13y ago
      right you are - that's what I meant.
- jrabone 13y ago
  I find quality in-ear headphones extremely revealing of poor quality output. Shure e5c, to pick an older set that I own, are especially unforgiving of noisy output stages and cross-coupled interference. The additional acoustic isolation really helps your brain focus on the audio by cutting out the masking effects of environmental noise. This isn't always a good thing. For example, the Cowon S9 audio player was supposedly designed for high output quality, with a pile of DSP presets for EQ etc. With the e5c's you can really hear the poor quality processing of the EQ, especially on reverb tails. Have to turn the EQ off completely to eliminate them.
  - jablan 13y ago
    By EQ you are referring to equalizer? So if I don't use EQ on RPi (which I don't), I'm good? Is there some particular audio clip which I can sense the crappiness when listening to?
    - jrabone 13y ago
      I was talking about a specific hardware player, but in general any additional signal processing has the potential to add artefacts. To hear these sorts of things, listen for reverb tails on drum hits, high frequency percussion like cymbals, high-hats, solo human voice (we're quite good at hearing unnatural artefacts in voices) - that sort of thing. Beware it has to be good quality source material to start with though!
- yardie 13y ago
  I used my Pi as an Airplay receiver connected to our hifi. It was pretty bad. But I have a v1 Pi a lot of corners were cut to get it out and under budget for early adopters.

Nice. PI's built in audio processing is extremely crappy and the analog 3.5mm output is almost unusable for music.

jablan 13y ago

How can I actually hear this? I am no audiophile, but I can't notice any audio problems with my Pi.

throwawayaway 13y ago
apparently the DAC for the RCA out is 11bit - but I can't really find any definitive proof of that.
- jrabone 13y ago
  That should be pretty easy to demonstrate by feeding the output back into a decent 16-bit soundcard - the noise floor should reveal any dithering going on (and if there's no dithering it will be painfully obvious that there's only 2048 discrete output values...) I might have a go tonight.
  - throwawayaway 13y ago
    http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=103330 http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=103330 Might be of interest to you.
- jablan 13y ago
  RCA? Isn't the RCA output for video only? I was referring to 3.5mm green audio output.
  - throwawayaway 13y ago
    right you are - that's what I meant.
jrabone 13y ago
I find quality in-ear headphones extremely revealing of poor quality output. Shure e5c, to pick an older set that I own, are especially unforgiving of noisy output stages and cross-coupled interference. The additional acoustic isolation really helps your brain focus on the audio by cutting out the masking effects of environmental noise. This isn't always a good thing. For example, the Cowon S9 audio player was supposedly designed for high output quality, with a pile of DSP presets for EQ etc. With the e5c's you can really hear the poor quality processing of the EQ, especially on reverb tails. Have to turn the EQ off completely to eliminate them.
- jablan 13y ago
  By EQ you are referring to equalizer? So if I don't use EQ on RPi (which I don't), I'm good? Is there some particular audio clip which I can sense the crappiness when listening to?
  - jrabone 13y ago
    I was talking about a specific hardware player, but in general any additional signal processing has the potential to add artefacts. To hear these sorts of things, listen for reverb tails on drum hits, high frequency percussion like cymbals, high-hats, solo human voice (we're quite good at hearing unnatural artefacts in voices) - that sort of thing. Beware it has to be good quality source material to start with though!
yardie 13y ago
I used my Pi as an Airplay receiver connected to our hifi. It was pretty bad. But I have a v1 Pi a lot of corners were cut to get it out and under budget for early adopters.