wtfplay project - it's official

[rickmcinnis]

From my experience with WTF - I found all of the usual minimalist tricks make WTF even better.

If you have been playing with SERVER and AO you will have to unlearn many things. This came naturally to me since frd is in the mold of my beloved cics of cMP. WTF is the true successor of cMP/cPLAY and is in another class but one would hope so with ten + years between them. Turn off as much stuff as you can in BIOS. If this is not a dedicated music machine you should have, at least, two BIOS profiles: one for WTF is important.

Use as little memory as you can get away with and run it at a low voltage. ! gB is all you need and 2 gB is a good compromise. Lowest latency you can buy.

Play with the memory settings in BIOS - I set mine as low (numerically) as they could go.

I cannot imagine using a laptop for music so I will stop there.

I used a SATADOM for booting - turned off USB in the BIOS (you will need a PS2 keyboard) - you can unplug the SATADOM after startup though I never heard a difference.

These kooky things make a difference along with Nigel's powering schemes and the fancy USB cables and pci-e cards, etc.

Now if frd would come up with the ultimate LINUX based ripper!!!! This side of this equation is important and this has just become obvious to me.

[frd1996]

Hi,

Thanks for the interest and the discussion.

Re network storage: request noted. Will do some experiments in free time. At this stage, I can say there I have more few other things on my TODO list which probably will get higher priority.

F

[cvrle59]

Hi,

Thanks for the interest and the discussion.

Re network storage: request noted. Will do some experiments in free time. At this stage, I can say there I have more few other things on my TODO list which probably will get higher priority.

F

First of all I want to thank you for this fantastic player. It is very simple to implement and use, it is well rounded, with pretty much all formats except DSD, and most importantly, it does sound great.
Some people probably already mentioned this, but if nobody did, I would like to ask you. If it's not big deal, to add a feature, to save command line to either music drive, or OS USB stick (it would be wiped off during new version installation, probably not the best idea), please. This could be loaded automatically on power up, or by pressing a function key.
As I owe battery operated PC (most of the other user too, I guess), I power it down once my listening session is over to charge batteries, and that long command line has to be typed every time after power up.
Direct DSD playback would be my second wish, but I see you have it in your plans already.
Thanks!

[jrling]

+1

I always turn my PC off. I always type the same command line - in my case to load wtfcui with the same parameters, and so some means of saving the script, would be excellent and for the less experienced Linux user, a reassurance.

I discovered the hard way that inputting the incorrect syntax for 'Frames'/'Buffers' just results in WTFPlay using the defaults. But it doesn't tell you that!

Jonathan

[satshanti]

I was eager to try it out, but encountered an issue I can't explain.

I must first mention that I've got and AMD FX8120 (Bulldozer) CPU and you did state somewhere that there is no dedicated build for that yet. I tried the Core2 version however, which I assumed would work, and it did in fact work, just not as I would have hoped.

I got the music to play, but funny enough it was at a much lower volume level than through any other players and OS's I've tried until now, including Windows 7, Server 2012, MQn and Foobar. It sounds as if it's playing at a volume level that's between 6dB and 9dB lower. When for my normal relatively loud noise level listening I have the volume knob at 11 o'clock, in this case turning the volume all the way up didn't even reach that same volume level.

Considering the output is digital and I assume bit-perfect, how on earth is it possible that the volume is affected at all? It's a mystery to me... any thoughts... anyone?

[frd1996]

I got the music to play, but funny enough it was at a much lower volume level than through any other players and OS's I've tried until now, including Windows 7, Server 2012, MQn and Foobar. It sounds as if it's playing at a volume level that's between 6dB and 9dB lower. When for my normal relatively loud noise level listening I have the volume knob at 11 o'clock, in this case turning the volume all the way up didn't even reach that same volume level.

Considering the output is digital and I assume bit-perfect, how on earth is it possible that the volume is affected at all? It's a mystery to me... any thoughts... anyone?

Very interesting. What USB chip does your USB DAC have?
Try to run 'alsamixer' command (without quotes), press F6 to switch to your USB DAC and check what's going on there (ESC exits, arrow keys to adjust controls). I suspect that your DAC may have internal digital volume control. If there is nothing suspicious in the mixer settings then we move the investigation further (I will ask you to type more commands).

F

[sima66]

I discovered the hard way that inputting the incorrect syntax for 'Frames'/'Buffers' just results in WTFPlay using the defaults. But it doesn't tell you that!

Jonathan

Are there different "settings" that can be applied?!!

[jrling]

RTFM!!

Frd has spent a long time writing very clear and comprehensive documentation to answer your question and all others regarding operation of WTFPlay, unlike most other 'one-man' enterprises.

http://wtfplay-project.org/manual.html#_advanced_topics is where to find it.

Well worth spending the time to experiment with the three settings' parameters. In my experience, they can make the default settings player from very good to outstanding. The ability to tune the settings to your own hardware is one of the great appeals of this player. The experience of the beta testers was that their own particular sweet-spot could be very different to other users. So you have to try them out on your rig. It's fun!

Jonathan

[satshanti]

I got the music to play, but funny enough it was at a much lower volume level than through any other players and OS's I've tried until now, including Windows 7, Server 2012, MQn and Foobar. It sounds as if it's playing at a volume level that's between 6dB and 9dB lower. When for my normal relatively loud noise level listening I have the volume knob at 11 o'clock, in this case turning the volume all the way up didn't even reach that same volume level.

Considering the output is digital and I assume bit-perfect, how on earth is it possible that the volume is affected at all? It's a mystery to me... any thoughts... anyone?

Very interesting. What USB chip does your USB DAC have?
Try to run 'alsamixer' command (without quotes), press F6 to switch to your USB DAC and check what's going on there (ESC exits, arrow keys to adjust controls). I suspect that your DAC may have internal digital volume control. If there is nothing suspicious in the mixer settings then we move the investigation further (I will ask you to type more commands).
F

It's a SA9023. I've done as you suggested and that was it! The volume level was set at 40%, equivalent to -20dB. I raised it to 100% and all is well. Now I can start listening and comparing. Thank you!

Due to the live-OS, I assume the device settings aren't saved, meaning I'd have to raise the volume to 100% everytime I boot up? Or is there some way to make it stick?

Just out of curiosity, would a dedicated AMD version potentially sound better than the core2 version?

Anyway, thanks for all the work so far, and well done on the very clear instructions that are easy to understand.

[sima66]

RTFM!!

Frd has spent a long time writing very clear and comprehensive documentation to answer your question and all others regarding operation of WTFPlay, unlike most other 'one-man' enterprises.

http://wtfplay-project.org/manual.html#_advanced_topics is where to find it.

Well worth spending the time to experiment with the three settings' parameters. In my experience, they can make the default settings player from very good to outstanding. The ability to tune the settings to your own hardware is one of the great appeals of this player. The experience of the beta testers was that their own particular sweet-spot could be very different to other users. So you have to try them out on your rig. It's fun!

Jonathan

Thanks Jonathan,
I had no idea about those settings!