Myths of Digital Music Part 3
Myth 1
Different software players sound different (eg foobar2000 is better than Winamp, etc.)
To understand why this is not the case, you need to understand what a software player is. In fact, it is a decoder, drivers (optional), an output plugin (to one of the interfaces: ASIO, DirectSound, WASAPI. Etc.) and of course the GUI (graphical user interface). Since the decoder in 99.9% of cases works according to the standard algorithm, and the output plug-in is just a part of the program that transmits a stream to the sound card through one of the interfaces, the reason for differences can only be manipulative. But the thing is, the drivers are usually disabled by default (or should be disabled, since the main thing for a good player is to be able to transmit the sound in its “original” form). As a result, only possibilities can be compared here. processing and output, which, by the way, is often unnecessary. But even if there is such a need, this is already a comparison of handlers, not players.
Here I would also like to mention my article on how to configure sound output on a computer and perhaps annoy users who admire the “colossal” changes in sound after the configuration described in it; in 95% of cases, this is self-hypnosis (except, of course, when during setup some “enhancer” or other driver was turned off and messed up the whole picture). Unfortunately, the gains from all of these tweaks with ReplayGain, resamplers, and limiters are slim. Read more in the article “One more time about the sad truth: where does good sound really come from?” …
Myth 2
Different versions of drivers sound different
This statement is based on a banal ignorance of the principles of sound cards. A driver is software necessary for the effective interaction of a device with the operating system, and generally also provides a graphical user interface to control the device, its settings, etc. A sound card driver ensures that the sound card is recognized as a Windows sound device. , informs the operating system of supported formats, provides uncompressed PCM stream transfer (in most cases) to the card, and also gives access to settings. Also, in the case of software processing (by means of the CPU), the controller can contain multiple DSPs (controllers). So, with effects and processing turned off in the first place, if the driver doesn’t provide accurate PCM transfer to the card, this is considered a fatal error. critical error. And it happens extremely rare. On the other hand, the differences between the controllers can be in the updating of the processing algorithms (resamplers, effects), although this does not happen often either. Also, effects and any controller processing should be excluded for maximum quality.
Therefore, driver updates are mainly focused on improving stability and fixing handling errors. In our case, neither one nor the other affects the playback quality, so in 999 cases out of 1000 the driver does not affect the sound.
