9.0.x sound quality.

[yannig]

Some friends and I found that the 9.0.x versions of moOde gave us an overall more aggressive and tiring sound (to the point that I personally went back to version 8.3.9).

Have others noticed this?

In a way, this seems a bit strange,
until now, new kernels often seemed to me accompanied by better sound quality.

[the_bertrum]

I've personally never noticed the slightest difference from the linux kernel, and this time is no different. I think I'm lucky not to hear such things

[philrandal]

Some friends and I found that the 9.0.x versions of moOde gave us an overall more aggressive and tiring sound (to the point that I personally went back to version 8.3.9).

Have others noticed this?

In a way, this seems a bit strange,
until now, new kernels often seemed to me accompanied by better sound quality.

Give us a hint or two, please.

What Pi model(s)?

Which DAC(s)?

Thanks,

Phil

[yannig]

Some friends and I found that the 9.0.x versions of moOde gave us an overall more aggressive and tiring sound (to the point that I personally went back to version 8.3.9).

Have others noticed this?

In a way, this seems a bit strange,
until now, new kernels often seemed to me accompanied by better sound quality.

Give us a hint or two, please.

What Pi model(s)?

Which DAC(s)?

Thanks,

Phil

Allo Boss V1.2 hat dac, but with a lot of very audiophile tweaks.

And Raspberry Pi 3B or 4B.

within fairly high-end hi-fi systems
(300B amplifiers, Onpenbafle Altec 420A + ribbon tweeter, or bass reflex EMS LB12EX + OEM Audax tweeter).

[muddiver]

Hi folks,

i am wondering why a Linux-Kernel or a new version could affect the Sound-quality..
As far as i know, the DAC-Hats, both amplifiers and analog out, get the audiostream via the I²S-Interface on the Raspberry Pi GPIO header.
The sound is still in digital condition while being transfered to the hat. We can affect things like using equalizers by manupilating the stream, but the magic happens in the DAC.

Please correct me when i'm wrong, but the only hearable difference with the new Version 9 is,
that when i connect my Player to a Bluetoothdevice, and the source aka the playing app changes, i hear a cracking noise.
I had that in Moode 8 too, but far less often.
I read an article about pipewire, and the summary was, that pulseaudio had a time after the streamstart where the cracking sound was "swallowed" by latency.
Pipewire seems to be quicker, what results in cracking noises when changing the source..

At last, i wanted to state, that i don't want to start an audiophile fight or blame someone, i just want to understand the system a bit more..

Thanks in advance!, Tomas

[yannig]

Hi folks,

i am wondering why a Linux-Kernel or a new version could affect the Sound-quality..
As far as i know, the DAC-Hats, both amplifiers and analog out, get the audiostream via the I²S-Interface on the Raspberry Pi GPIO header.
The sound  is still in digital condition while being transfered to the hat. We can affect things like using equalizers by manupilating the stream, but the magic happens in the DAC.

Please correct me when i'm wrong, but the only hearable difference with the new Version 9 is,
that when i connect my Player to a Bluetoothdevice, and the source aka the playing app changes, i hear a cracking noise.
I had that in Moode 8 too, but far less often.
I read an article about pipewire, and the summary was, that pulseaudio had a time after the streamstart where the cracking sound was "swallowed" by latency.
Pipewire seems to be quicker, what results in cracking noises when changing the source..

At last, i wanted to state, that i don't want to start an audiophile fight or blame someone, i just want to understand the system a bit more..

Thanks in advance!, Tomas

I do not understand either, but I already heared some differences when kernel changed in the past.

A well-implemented listening protocol makes it possible to clearly highlight listening differences, even if we not explain in detail the physical phenomena involved.

I don't have anything else to offer at the moment, sorry.

[DRONE7]

Bookworm and kernels are not doing it for me either.  But hopeful that improvements will come with longer running.

After some more listening I am of the opinion that Bookworm indeed has more detail though not as rounded and full.
Might be just needing to soak  audio device that has been offline for some weeks  will look ahead to tweaks and time :-) to fix.

[Tim Curtis]

Are u sure it's not just your mind playing tricks on you?

Humans "want to believe" all sorts of things without proof especially if there are others that reinforce those beliefs. In the audio enthusiast space try to avoid the Tsunami of misinformation about software.

And, if you think there is a bug in the Pi Linux kernel or in some part of Pi Bookworm OS affecting audio then post an issue to the appropriate Git repo and see if the engineers find something to investigate.

[yannig]

Are u sure it's not just your mind playing tricks on you?

Humans "want to believe" all sorts of things without proof especially if there are others that reinforce those beliefs. In the audio enthusiast space try to avoid the Tsunami of misinformation about software.

And, if you think there is a bug in the Pi Linux kernel or in some part of Pi Bookworm OS affecting audio then post an issue to the appropriate Git repo and see if the engineers find something to investigate.

In one word : yes.
(I made enough listening tests)

But since it seems that you don't believe in it and especially that it doesn't depend on your job, I suggest not worrying too much about it.

And I don't think this is the result of a "bug" in the current kernel, but who knows.

I'll keep my fingers crossed for a future RaspiOS kernel update

In the meantime, I'll stick with the previous version.

[Tim Curtis]

It didn't take long for the discussion to devolve into the tired old assertion of listening tests attributing something to "the software" without any proof or any acknowledgement of powerful and unavoidable human biases.

Thread closed.