Re: [proaudio] Real-time for audio

[Mark Knecht <markknecht@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 1:38 PM, Grant <emailgrant@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
<SNIP>
> It sounds like real-time lowers both latency and jitter.  Jitter
> absolutely affects sound quality.  I wonder if jitter could be the
> cause of all this.

If a system is exhibiting severe jitter, possibly more typical in
consumer level sound cards and assuming that's the sort of card you
are using, then possibly the real-time kernel helps. I wouldn't argue
that at all.

I'm using a studio quality external DAC (Benchmark) with a low jitter
external studio clock source (Apogee) driving a good quality digital
sound interface. (HDSP9652) I stand by my earlier statement that says
when I use industrial quality components the real-time kernel makes no
difference that I can hear. On the other hand I'm so old and dusty who
knows what I can hear anymore? ;-)

As for the wave vs FLAC thing one must prove that we're talking apples
to apples. Wave is lossless by definition. (As far as I know.) It's
just 16 or 24-bit words bits packed into a file. FLAC may or may not
be lossless depending on how it's encoded. If it's lossless, and if
it's encoded from the exact same original data then the two formats
should produce exactly the bit stream and if the bit streams are
identical, and if they are delivered to exactly the same reproduction
hardware at the same settings on the same day at the same time then
they are going to produce the same sound.

One thing digital audio has going for it is you can compare the two
files objectively. The problem with the old A sounds better than D
discussions is it's not apples to apples.

Have fun,
Mark