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Author Topic: alsa/mpd/gmpc support for 24 bit audio  (Read 32012 times)

Offline gavs

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Re: alsa/mpd/gmpc support for 24 bit audio
« Reply #15 on: November 26, 2010, 03:17:20 PM »
Thanks for the suggestion tinypoodle. I created a song.wav file in S24_3LE format. Now, when I issue the command
   aplay -Dhw:0,0 song.wav
the sound plays. This is further confirmation that the dac only accepts S24_3LE format and that alsa can handle this format.

As to source for the statement that mpd version 0.15.9 handles 24_3 format, scroll down about one quarter of the way to a message submitted by mbognar on this link
http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/Bit-perfect-audio-Linux-882-and-1764-now-possible
Further down on this link there is also discussion about using * in the format specification.

It appears that a recent release of Voyage MPD uses mpd version 0.16~alpha2
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=87560.0
but they are looking to push the sampling rate to 192Khz which requires the latest USB Audio Class 2 drivers (my dac does not support rates higher than 96Khz which can be accommodated by USB Audio Class 1).

I have not tried Voyage. Tiny Core, with selection of only essential modules and loading of the entire system in ram, seems well suited for building dedicated music appliances.

Offline gavs

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Re: alsa/mpd/gmpc support for 24 bit audio
« Reply #16 on: December 07, 2010, 08:35:28 PM »
I guess the posting related to MPD version 0.15.9 was misleading. The 2 features in the format specification that I was trying are new to version 0.16 (see http://www.musicpd.org/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=b50a48fae4acbb60ecfcf808744b2e0c&topic=2377.0 ).

Thanks to all for the suggestions to sort this out.

Offline hiro

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Re: alsa/mpd/gmpc support for 24 bit audio
« Reply #17 on: December 08, 2010, 05:22:02 AM »
will someone pacckage this up? it is released, right?

Offline gavs

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Re: alsa/mpd/gmpc support for 24 bit audio
« Reply #18 on: December 09, 2010, 02:32:52 PM »
MPD 0.15.15 is the latest released stable version. MPD 0.16~alpha4 is the latest released development version.

Offline hiro

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Re: alsa/mpd/gmpc support for 24 bit audio
« Reply #19 on: December 09, 2010, 07:43:26 PM »
Oh, sorry. In the rush I missed the alpha. I guess I can wait then.

Offline gavs

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Re: alsa/mpd/gmpc support for 24 bit audio
« Reply #20 on: December 13, 2010, 10:55:14 AM »
MPD version 0.16 was released as the latest stable version on Dec 11.

Offline hiro

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Re: alsa/mpd/gmpc support for 24 bit audio
« Reply #21 on: December 13, 2010, 09:13:09 PM »
Ok, so who's gonna take the burden? :D

Offline TaoTePuh

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Re: alsa/mpd/gmpc support for 24 bit audio
« Reply #22 on: December 15, 2010, 06:02:10 PM »
I'm going to compile version 0.16,  but there are many new libraries and dependencies ... please hold the line ...

Offline gavs

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Re: alsa/mpd/gmpc support for 24 bit audio
« Reply #23 on: December 17, 2010, 11:05:00 AM »
Thank you for your continued interest and support. I appreciate your efforts. I am new to this and have never packaged an application. However, I will aim to learn how to do this and perhaps be able to help in the future.

Offline TaoTePuh

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Re: alsa/mpd/gmpc support for 24 bit audio
« Reply #24 on: December 17, 2010, 05:36:45 PM »
I have just submitted mpd 0.16 and some stuff for usage.

Offline gavs

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Re: alsa/mpd/gmpc support for 24 bit audio
« Reply #25 on: December 20, 2010, 04:22:26 PM »
I updated to TC3.4 and tried mpd 0.16. I was able to use hw instead of plughw as device. Also, I was able to specify the format using
      format   "*:24_3:2"
Reportedly, mpd 0.16 and these settings permit passing of the sound stream by mpd directly to the hardware with minimal processing (also using mixer_type   "hardware" to avoid software manipulation of volume). My initial impression is that the sound is cleaner and crisper. If there is interest, I can post my opinion after further critical listening.

Many thanks for your efforts.

As an aside, I am using gmpc as the client. The gmpc icons all appear as Xs. Has anyone else experienced this? Is there a dependency I'm missing? The only apps I have downloaded and installed are ntfs-3g (for external usb ntfs drive with music), mpd (this gets the alsa dependencies) and gmpc.

Offline hiro

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Re: alsa/mpd/gmpc support for 24 bit audio
« Reply #26 on: December 20, 2010, 04:25:01 PM »
That's cool. Although I doubt that there *should* be any difference. Did you have your volume at 100% before that?

Plughw doesn't resample, and I can't think of any other sources for noise/distortions in that comparison.
« Last Edit: December 20, 2010, 04:26:48 PM by hiro »

Offline curaga

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Re: alsa/mpd/gmpc support for 24 bit audio
« Reply #27 on: December 21, 2010, 04:43:10 AM »
@gavs

If the icons it uses are generic (not distributed with the app), you'll need an icon theme that has them. The Gnome one is fairly complete.
The only barriers that can stop you are the ones you create yourself.

Offline hiro

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Re: alsa/mpd/gmpc support for 24 bit audio
« Reply #28 on: December 21, 2010, 06:50:21 AM »
Well, then it *should* work as gmpc has these icons as a dependency:

$ grep icon *dep
gmpc.tcz.dep:hicolor-icon-theme.tcz

Offline curaga

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Re: alsa/mpd/gmpc support for 24 bit audio
« Reply #29 on: December 21, 2010, 07:24:05 AM »
The hicolor theme is a placeholder - its size is 8kb.
The only barriers that can stop you are the ones you create yourself.