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Check out Album Player

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majikbear
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2020/11/29 02:54:47 (permalink)
I spent a lot of time looking for an application that could play audio at the astounding bitrates supported by the Nu Audio, and found that there were numerous problems with most applications.
 
Winamp, Fubar, VLC, etc.; all of the popular players take a high bitrate source then re-sample it based on the assumption that Windows and most sound output devices can only handle audio up to 44.1KHz.
 
Some of them will even go up to 44.8KHz but almost without exception they will not go above that. There are a couple of applications that can exceed that mark but they are extremely complicated to use and/or very expensive to license.
 
Enter .
 
This application is very simple. It has several write modes, but the one I am most concerned with is the Alpha-II WaveOut transport, which bypasses Windows' internal sound codecs and writes audio directly to the sound hardware at the same bitrate as the source, resulting in bit perfect audio transport to the onboard DACs.
 
A few notes: 
  • You'll want to right-click the UI, go to Output Mode, open the settings for the WaveOut transport and check the box "force direct output."
  • You might have to adjust the buffer size in the Nu application (it says "ASIO Buffer Size" but it is actually the overall DAC buffer, not just for ASIO), especially if you're playing DSD content.
  • To play DSD 32-bit float content without jitter or drop-outs you'll need an extremely fast SSD and RAM or play the content from a RAM drive (imdisk works).
  • The device needs to run in with administrator privileges in order to write directly to the sound card.
  • DSD audio takes a while to start playing because the application has to read the index table before starting playback.
  • Switching "Safe Mode" on or off in the Nu Audio settings causes the sound driver to crash because EVGA did not change the application to accept the new API response when that setting is toggled in in v.0.2.1.5 driver, so if you switch it you'll need to reboot.
Now when you start to play your DSD or FLAC content, you'll see that the player output bitrate matches the bitrate of the source content. As well, if you go to Settings > Advanced in the Nu Audio application you can see that the sample rate being played is the rate you specified on the Sound page rather than whatever sample rate is being forced by Winamp/Fubar/etc.
 
Thus far this is the only way I've found to directly play 32-bit float DSD content straight to the DACs on the card. Now I can get the same quality on my sound card as I get on my Fioo M11.
 
Edit: It looks like I can't insert links, so I guess I can't tell you where to get the application.
post edited by majikbear - 2020/11/29 03:06:38
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    DIRTRAT11
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    Re: Check out Album Player 2020/12/01 16:18:04 (permalink)
    What's the name of the application? This information is great except the users have no way to benefit from it.
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    BizSAR
    EGC Lead Admin / EVGA Forum Moderator
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    Re: Check out Album Player 2020/12/01 17:53:25 (permalink)
    I believe it is Album Player.

    BizSAR
    EVGA 3090Ti FTW3 Ultra / ZOTAC 4070Ti Trinity OC - ASUS ROG PG279QM
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    DIRTRAT11
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    Re: Check out Album Player 2020/12/01 19:05:02 (permalink)
    WOW! The name was right in the title! Not sure how I missed that. My new card is being delivered tomorrow and I would like to check this out. Thanks for your help.
     
    post edited by DIRTRAT11 - 2020/12/01 19:08:50
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