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"Follow source frequency"


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FiiO M11 and either Creative Outlier Air wireless earbuds or Sony MDR-7506 wired headphones, or if I'm in my car, I'm using lineout through the 3.5mm jack.

...although I suppose it's worth asking: would a feature to follow source frequency have any benefits over just setting output to a fixed frequency (right now I have Poweramp set for 96kHz) and letting everything be resampled?

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There have been a number of user requests for follow source frequency and bitrate over the past year or two, and while there are a number of pitfalls - non-supported rates for the current device, glitches between tracks when rates change (not a problem within one album I suspect, but shuffled play would be an issue), etc - I would have thought that with suitable warnings when enabling the mode it would still be a popular feature, and a plus in the specs list at least.

Andre

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13 minutes ago, NickIst said:

I would not be so sure, recently I've found out that the last Metallica album in Hi-res edition  is recorded in two frequencies.

Also some compilation hi-res albums have tracks at different frequency and bit rates.

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5 hours ago, Mountain Man said:

I'm curious if this feature would have any benefits over simply setting a fixed frequency.

Technically, the sound ought to be better if it stays at the same sampling rate etc throughout the whole  audio chain - in the same way that a 2000x2000 pixel photo file will look better if you keep it at that resolution rather than up-scaling to 6000x6000 for editing and then reducing it back down again later. Whether your ears can tell the difference is another matter though.

Andre

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6 hours ago, Mountain Man said:

I'm curious if this feature would have any benefits over simply setting a fixed frequency.

I'm not a big audio known person my library is small and only contains CD rip mp3s from 90s and few other digital sources like play store Bandcamp etc

I noticed 1 one thing that if I set maxed out put 24bit 192khz + dvc it sounds way better than 16bit 48khz + dvc it feels like kinda similar to old Poweramp V2 sound quality. I'm not saying it's bad but no where near to hi res output it's less powerful less punchy less enjoyable

Poweramps hi res out put is loud crisp and the bass is too good overall it sounds great even better than soundmods

Im not an audiophile i can't hear extraterrestrial sounds or frequencies but i can easily recognise which sounds better or which one is best. People will disagree with me but I don't feel any difference between mp3s vs FLAC ( if they were properly ripped or the source is genuine) to me FLAC is waste of space i can say one thing for sure play store copies are better than some of my cd rips i don't know why but they sound really good

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5 hours ago, Prosenjit said:

I'm not a big audio known person my library is small and only contains CD rip mp3s from 90s and few other digital sources like play store Bandcamp etc

I noticed 1 one thing that if I set maxed out put 24bit 192khz + dvc it sounds way better than 16bit 48khz + dvc it feels like kinda similar to old Poweramp V2 sound quality. I'm not saying it's bad but no where near to hi res output it's less powerful less punchy less enjoyable

Poweramps hi res out put is loud crisp and the bass is too good overall it sounds great even better than soundmods

Im not an audiophile i can't hear extraterrestrial sounds or frequencies but i can easily recognise which sounds better or which one is best. People will disagree with me but I don't feel any difference between mp3s vs FLAC ( if they were properly ripped or the source is genuine) to me FLAC is waste of space i can say one thing for sure play store copies are better than some of my cd rips i don't know why but they sound really good

If your CD rips sound inferior to those you buy from the Play Store (I assume you mean Google?) then you're either doing something wrong such as encoding at too low of a bit rate or have some other sub-optimal configuration, or you're using a subpar encoder (Apple iTunes, for example, is notoriously bad at encoding MP3 files).

I prefer FLAC whenever I can get my hands on it, either ripped directly from the CD or downloaded from a seller like Qobuz, simply because I know it is without compromise.  MP3 encoders toss out an astonishing amount of information in order to get the file sizes so small.  Even if I can't always hear the difference, I prefer knowing that I'm listening to my music at the highest quality possible.

Which brings us back to the topic of this thread and having a feature in Poweramp that eliminates resampling and the possible calculation errors that come with it.

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2 hours ago, Mountain Man said:

If your CD rips sound inferior to those you buy from the Play Store (I assume you mean Google?) then you're either doing something wrong

Or the downloaded files have simply been processed differently (for example they may have dynamic range changes to improve subjective listening loudness) and your ears just happen to prefer that different sound, even if it might be technically less 'accurate'. 

Andre

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On 11/19/2019 at 12:21 PM, Prosenjit said:

noticed 1 one thing that if I set maxed out put 24bit 192khz + dvc it sounds way better than 16bit 48khz + dvc it feels like kinda similar to old Poweramp V2 sound quality.

On 11/19/2019 at 8:17 PM, andrewilley said:

Or the downloaded files have simply been processed differently

I think it's just a different mastering. It's not about frequency and bit-depth itself, but about marketing policy of some labels which issue in high-res recordings with different mastering. For example ZZ top complete studio box-set has no reverberation as in first press CD of the same albums. Also Metallica post 1991 Hi-res albums are slightly better than the same original CDs. The same is for a couple of Motorhead albums. In all that cases it's just mastering, as a proof I can assert that the sound/mastering result does not depend on frequency, as I listen to all the mentioned above as FLACs on my PC and as lossy (AAC) on my smartphone.

So look for mastering, but not exclusively for hi-res.

P. S. If the Hi-res version doesn't have better mastering (and of course worse one) you can use it to prevent resampling on the target device though

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