Music PC and CA DACMagic

[moserw]

Actually no player gets selected as the default player in my system! I like the convenience of choosing my player and then picking songs using its interface or dragging and dropping from explorer.

Hmmm. I like music playing all the time, even in the background when I'm working on the PC, etc. so library feature as well as queuing files is very useful to bordering on the essential for me.

cPlay is to be heard to be believed. In fact I am feeling jaunty and stupid enough to feel that it will need CD Players costing upwards of 50K at the least to get near the sound quality that I am experiencing right now. Who knows?

I'm totally with you on this. I'm blasting Richard Marx - Right Here Waiting, a song I've been hearing for years (yeah years) and yet Mr. Richard Marx's vocals have taken on a new dimension with cPlay. Its like I can almost hear him breathe. Whether it will beat all CDPs under 50K I'm sure will be debated by lots of people, but one thing I'm sure of. This is the future. The PC is absolutely going to beat every other music player out there. Only a matter of time.

I have tried replacing the CUE player (cicsPlay by default) with Foobar/Winamp. But basically it either plays a CUE which is an album. In file mode (WAV or FLAC) you basically only get to play a single song, which is, frankly quite irritating. I guess it is only imitating a typical CD player's behaviour in that it will play only one CD.

Even if it plays one album it will be great. Just one track though is going to be a headache especially when I like to queue songs for when I'm under the shower (yeah I'm a bathroom singer). The thing is my collection was previously ripped in MP3 at 320 kbps which I'm now converting to FLAC, but all individual files. The solution will be to make a cue file for each album and load that in cPlay which will fix it to at least playing one entire album.

Looking at it from another viewpoint maybe since the application uses the RAM to load the songs, there is an inherent limitation as to how many songs can be loaded at one go? Just guessing...

The previous version did allow for queuing of files, rather songs.

I would love it if cPlay can play every audio file (including the lossy ones; yes I still have many GBs worth MP3 files) and give me playlist management and such. But for the audio quality that it gives me, I am not complaining too much right now. Maybe after a month or two I would get used to this and then start griping about the lack of this or that. Lets see what happens. I will be watching Audio Asylum very closely, thats for sure.

In total agreement with this. But like you even I'm ready to compromise most things just to hear music being played at a different level. Wow man! Thankfully the wife is out visiting her mom and spending the night there. I'm going to be blasting cPlay quite late into the night and try to find more ways to tweak it (not that it needs any tweaking the way it sounds right now).

I'm sure we both must sound like school kids the way we are going on about cPlay, but man the sound truly rocks.

 

[thevortex]

Yeah, we are excited but then I think cPlay is something to be excited for sure. I, for one, did not think that I would listen to something better than Foobar with SRC on.

About playing one album, that cPlay will surely do. The trick is to use CUE sheets. If all your current albums are FLACS, you can use Foobar to convert them into multi-track WAV files (this will automatically create CUE files). Yes, it means some additional space is being used, but I am willing to make that compromise for the sound. Now, if only I could get back that control over my media player that would be the proverbial having-the-cake-and-eating-it-too scenario.

And I have checked something. Even your 320K MP3s can be converted to WAV with CUE sheets and you can listen to them on cPlay.

There is one thing I have learned over and over in this Hifi business (not that I have been in this hobby for a long time anyway) - there are many many ways to optimize your existing equipment and your listening area to keep deriving the maximum from your current investment. It all depends on how much time and effort we are ready to spend in this endeavour.

I am going to be introducing a new Integrated amp to my chain later on this month and cant wait to imagine how good the sound could be if it is already this good with my Marantz AV Receiver.

 

[moserw]

Eureka cracked it. Just load all FLAC files in Foobar. Select all of them. Right click and select "Utils" and in that "Save as cuesheet". Just save the cuesheet along with the rest of the FLAC tracks and load it in cPlay or make cPlay default player of cue files and that's it. No need to convert FLAC to WAV. Checked it and it works perfect. Let me see if it works for MP3 files too...

Yeah, we are excited but then I think cPlay is something to be excited for sure. I, for one, did not think that I would listen to something better than Foobar with SRC on.

About playing one album, that cPlay will surely do. The trick is to use CUE sheets. If all your current albums are FLACS, you can use Foobar to convert them into multi-track WAV files (this will automatically create CUE files). Yes, it means some additional space is being used, but I am willing to make that compromise for the sound. Now, if only I could get back that control over my media player that would be the proverbial having-the-cake-and-eating-it-too scenario.

And I have checked something. Even your 320K MP3s can be converted to WAV with CUE sheets and you can listen to them on cPlay.

There is one thing I have learned over and over in this Hifi business (not that I have been in this hobby for a long time anyway) - there are many many ways to optimize your existing equipment and your listening area to keep deriving the maximum from your current investment. It all depends on how much time and effort we are ready to spend in this endeavour.

I am going to be introducing a new Integrated amp to my chain later on this month and cant wait to imagine how good the sound could be if it is already this good with my Marantz AV Receiver.

 

[thevortex]

Eureka cracked it. Just load all FLAC files in Foobar. Select all of them. Right click and select "Utils" and in that "Save as cuesheet". Just save the cuesheet along with the rest of the FLAC tracks and load it in cPlay or make cPlay default player of cue files and that's it. No need to convert FLAC to WAV. Checked it and it works perfect. Let me see if it works for MP3 files too...

Moser - you are something else. I will need to try this. If this works, then we are in for some bliss and otherworldliness!

 

[moserw]

Moser - you are something else. I will need to try this. If this works, then we are in for some bliss and otherworldliness!

Forgive me. I was in a hurry. You need to add Cuesheet Creator from Index of /foobar. Just add to components folder of Foobar like for any other plugin and that's it. Yeah it works. Yet to try on MP3s though.

 

[moserw]

@thevortex - I'm getting ahead of myself now. It works and creates cuesheet for MP3 files, but cPlay does not handle MP3 format. I guess like I said I'm getting ahead of myself now. Still great it works for FLAC and saves on all the conversion part. Now I can switch to cPlay as the default player for all FLAC files at least.

 

[thevortex]

@thevortex - I'm getting ahead of myself now. It works and creates cuesheet for MP3 files, but cPlay does not handle MP3 format. I guess like I said I'm getting ahead of myself now. Still great it works for FLAC and saves on all the conversion part. Now I can switch to cPlay as the default player for all FLAC files at least.

Actually Moser - this just about works the same way as if you create the Multi-track Wav files. In that you can play a particular album (because I have stored my FLAC files in separate folders based on album).

Only thing is you save on space because you dont need to covert to WAV. Which is a very good thing

I just wish there was a way to add multiple albums at the same time and keep cPlay on loop (indefinite preferably)

 

[anm]

All this sounds very exciting, but very confusing too at the same time. Can someone create a new thread explaining what it is, how it works and steps to get it working?
This page cplay - What is cplay says cplay uses other players. If that is true, how does it make that much a difference?

Has anyone tried streaming with cplay (maybe over wireless?)

regards

 

[moserw]

All this sounds very exciting, but very confusing too at the same time. Can someone create a new thread explaining what it is, how it works and steps to get it working?

Will do, give me a day or two...

This page cplay - What is cplay says cplay uses other players. If that is true, how does it make that much a difference?

That's for Linux OS. Guess they worked out frontend tools to play cPlay in Linux. Not sure though and will need to read up more.

Has anyone tried streaming with cplay (maybe over wireless?)

No, have not tried and probably will not. Quite tough to stream music without losing packets in my home at least and from my own personal experience.

 

[thevortex]

All this sounds very exciting, but very confusing too at the same time. Can someone create a new thread explaining what it is, how it works and steps to get it working?
This page cplay - What is cplay says cplay uses other players. If that is true, how does it make that much a difference?

Has anyone tried streaming with cplay (maybe over wireless?)

regards

Anm - please visit Audio Asylum to get more detail on this player. Further information can also be found at this site:

The Art of building Computer Transports

Feel free to post if you have any questions.

 

[anm]

This document seems good, but it talks about windows only. Is it possible to make a great system on linux?
Any suggestions on low power consuming, small form factor good looking hardware to make this transport?

 

[thevortex]

This document seems good, but it talks about windows only. Is it possible to make a great system on linux?
Any suggestions on low power consuming, small form factor good looking hardware to make this transport?

Well, anm, Linux does not lack for options by any means! You could have one powered with Geexbox, XBMC, LinuxMCE, Myth, Freevo or a host of other specialist distributions like Dreamlinux etc.

Amarok is a very nice music player in Linux. They have a beta version out for Windows but it requires us to download the KDE framework - so not for me right now.

Do check these options out and let us know what you decide on.

 

[anm]

Well, anm, Linux does not lack for options by any means!

I meant such optimizations for dedicated music only computer.

 

[reignofchaos]

Actually linux has a chance of being a far better OS for audiophile purposes *if* the hardware makers release proper drivers with ASIO support and someone builds a soundcard with proper ASIO drivers for linux.

One can use the rtlinux kernel and run the player with real-time process priority. This will more or less ensure perfect playback with least possible bit error problems.

 

[thevortex]

anm - I guess the point is that Linux probably does not need all these bucketloads of optimizations. There is no intrusive Windows Explorer to deal with. There is no kmixer to get rid of and there is not an evidence of the ham handed memory management as in Windows.

So, it is pretty much optimized out of the box, so to speak. I have seen Geexbox powered HTPCs run on age old machines with just 128 MB of RAM!! And by HTPC I do refer to video and audio playing facility. So, Linux is not a bad base to have for a HTPC.

 

[anm]

vortex, but is this not a larger issue?

*if* the hardware makers release proper drivers with ASIO support and someone builds a soundcard with proper ASIO drivers for linux.

if not, what hardware would you suggest that should beat the windows system suggested in that pdf?
Not that I can not afford a license to windoze, but then I would need to worry about antivirus, and what not!

 

[reignofchaos]

vortex, but is this not a larger issue?



if not, what hardware would you suggest that should beat the windows system suggested in that pdf?
Not that I can not afford a license to windoze, but then I would need to worry about antivirus, and what not!

As of now nothing. None of the soundcard drivers are mature enough to do anything useful in Linux.

 

[anm]

As of now nothing. None of the soundcard drivers are mature enough to do anything useful in Linux.

but, aren't almost all devices like squeezebox, popcorn hour, wd digital etc running on linux? are they all junk? Even for digital transfer to external dac?

 

[doors666]

Will do, give me a day or two...



That's for Linux OS. Guess they worked out frontend tools to play cPlay in Linux. Not sure though and will need to read up more.



No, have not tried and probably will not. Quite tough to stream music without losing packets in my home at least and from my own personal experience.

I just saw that xmms2 and some other gui variants work on linux as a frontend for cplay. For windows, you can use cygwin along with its inbuilt xserver and maybe you will be able to run those front ends on top of cplay and get all the nice features.

Too bad, right now I am out of town and only with my stupid laptop, which doesnt even have asio i believe. Will try cplay & co once I get back home.

 

[gobble]

See this for optimizing linux as an audio platform

Low latency howto - AlsaProject

Linux is screwed because h/w vendors do not hire programmers who can write linux drivers when they release the product. Or they only hire one where they should be hiring three for a savvy complete driver with installer. There is no concept of ISV like with M$ where drivers are developed in-house by vendor then certified by OS vendor (aka whql certified). How many hardware products do you buy that come with a linux driver CD. Open source drivers appear to work until after a lot of experimentation you realize the features that make the product worth extra $$ are not supported in the open source drivers. Most open drivers are demo's by a programmer who wants compensation to write a full featured driver - and why not? They have already done us a favor by giving a functional driver to the community.


The vendors are to blame or maybe they have a secret "agreement" or pledge with M$ never to develop drivers for Linux (arm-twisting?) if they want to be certified by M$ and see their products on 70% of desktops in the world .. who knows

Then because the product hardware is closed source due to patenting and licensing issues not all h/w registers and details can be opened to the world without inviting legal issues.

Regards