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Are you computer audiophile? If so, Fidelizer will help you enjoy the music on computer even more.

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Developer’s self-interest scribbles

Optimize MQA sound quality for Tidal Masters Guide

 in Article

After Tidal launch Tidal Master update that works only on desktop applications right now, there’s a few Fidelizer users asking about getting the best sound with Tidal Master so I think it’s good idea to write up step-by-step guide here.

 

STEP 1: Get Tidal for Windows app

Download most recent version of Tidal for Windows then sign up or login with your account.

 

STEP 2: Setup Streaming audio for best sound quality

Click on “Streaming” tab, you’ll see Streaming dialog with Quality and Sound Output options. Select “HiFi / Master” for Quality and audio output device of your choice. Don’t choose “System Default” because it doesn’t support exclusive mode.

You’ll notice settings icon when you move your cursor to audio output item. Click on that icon and select all options there. If your audio output doesn’t support MQA, uncheck “Passthrough MQA” option so Tidal will perform software decoding of MQA instead.

 

STEP 3: Use Fidelizer with Tidal

After setting up Tidal software, you can improve Windows sound quality further with Fidelizer software. You can run Fidelizer, click “Fidelize” button, choose “Yes” to launch music player application after optimizations, and select Tidal shortcut icon on Desktop.

If you’re using upgraded version, you can choose “Network Player” audio profile for better streaming audio performance.

 

And now you’re ready to play music with best sound quality from Tidal Masters. If you want to use Tidal Masters with JPLAY, I recommend ASIO Bridge software to allow bridging audio output with JPLAY ASIO driver.

Experiment about hidden improvement from Fidelizer 7.5 update

 in Article

As I posted before in Plus/Pro users about Fidelizer update, I only fixed music player application selection bug which took me a while to figure out which method will handle the unexpected cases better. However, there’s also another change I didn’t inform anyone before. Well, to be honest, I don’t expect it to have clear improvement so I didn’t write it down.

When I was releasing version 7.4, I uninstalled FIdelizer Pro to do some tests about permission problems to support customers. But when I was about to release version 7.5, I reinstalled Fidelizer CAS which is a special version developed for Fidelizer Nimitra. So software will be compiled and packaged from Fidelizer optimized machine.

After a few customers reported the improvement in version 7.5, I was convinced that Fidelizer can also benefit from optimizations before performing code generation too. I did inform one customer saying Windows 10 update might improve itself too but he told me he also tested reverting back to version 7.4 and still found 7.5 sounding better.

That makes me wonder if audio player software will sound better if they have Fidelizer on his machine before compiling. That’d be interesting to find out. 🙂

Radio frequency interference sound in CD ripping?

 in Article

Today I heard something that was beyond my understanding. There’s a customer who asked me to build USB interconnects using Nordost Valhalla cables for his CD ripping project with AK320 + AK Ripper. Sound quality is superb like no others that’s for sure. However, he told me some CDs he ripped contains sound from radio station near his house.

I was like…..seriously? That’s digital data transmission sending pulses of 0 and 1. If anything, it should be 0 and 1 pulses sending with jitter affected by interference. It shouldn’t be possible to technically record sound from radio frequency through CD ripping. And the cable is only 10cm, very darn too short to have anything to be affected like that.

Have you guys heard such case before? I’ve been ripping CD from many devices and never find such case like this.

Why I receive error “Unrecoverable playback error: Exclusive mode not allowed” with foobar2000 + WASAPI

 in Article

Some people asked me this question for a few times, some even mistook it as Fidelizer error so allow me to elaborate why this happens.

Using foobar2000 + wasapi is optional recommendation for bit-perfect playback. I believe you may also need to learn about bit-perfect playback and exclusive access for why error happens. Using WASAPI exclusive will need to have audio output locked to specific application, in this case it’s foobar. If you have other processes occupying audio output like playing YouTube or having other software using audio, it won’t work.

Please keep in mind that using bit-perfect playback will require audio device to support source format. You may need downsampling to play hires tracks using bit-perfect output for audio devices that doesn’t support. You can change to DirectSound so it won’t require to acquire exclusive access though sound will come through system mixer with default sampling rate applied. Anyway, it’s error without foobar playback by itself and has nothing to do with Fidelizer. You can still use Fidelizer effectively with VLC and others.

I hope this will clear out the confusion about bit-perfect playback in foobar2000 software I suggested.

Forget storage comparison. Even the same storage can sound different with different file copying methods

 in Article

I know this sounds a bit hard to believe but it’s true since it was done without pretense to get better sound. Well, some people who use Rewrite Data maybe familiar with this concept already.

We did some ripping experiments and my friend who owned AK380 tested the song from micro sd to compare between players.

On later days, he told me copying music from AK’s file manager system in device sounds worse than copying from his ripping machine. He made a dedicated ripping machine with linear PSU and even built a new aluminum chassis to improve it.

 

Ripping machine's Aluminum chassis

 

So, we did another test. I tried copying music from laptop using default file copy from Windows 10 and ones from another file copier software call Copy Handler with different buffer size.

Guess what? It all sounded different. I was stunned. I’m aware that different micro sd cards can affect and different machines used to copy songs can sound different. But THIS! The same machine, same device, with only different changes of buffer size also affected it. That’s nuts!

OK. Let’s take this to next level. I use my desktop to copy 4 files named A, B, X, and Y to micro SD card, plug it into user’s portable DAPs and let them listen. They all can notice the changes effortlessly and all said the same thing. B and Y sounds very different. Here’s why.

A: Default USB connection using Windows 10 file copy
B: JCAT USB Card connection (with built-in PSU and filter) using Windows 10 file copy
X: JCAT USB Card connection (with built-in PSU and filter) using Ultracopier file copy
Y: JCAT USB Card connection (with built-in PSU and filter) using Ultracopier file copy with sequential write and 4kb buffer

And this is blind test without telling them how each file was copied before. I also did some research and found app similar to Rewrite Data written over 3 years ago here.

http://www.fact-reviews.com/info/diskfresh.aspx

He gave an interesting explanation about music files storage improvement on both magnetic and flash memory in SSD too.

I have yet to find anyone not noticing the different. Is it placebo effect? You can try this experiment yourself and test it with your friends. Happy listening. 🙂

Regards,
Keetakawee