Any GNU/Linux audiophiles here?

[Welly Wu]

I have a Lenovo IdeaPad Y510P notebook PC and I use Ubuntu 14.04.2 64 bit LTS GNU/Linux. I have tried most of the popular free, libre, open source media players especially the music ones and my favorite is Banshee. DeadBeef is a close second choice because it can playback high resolution PCM music albums. Almost all of my music library consists of either lossy AAC or MP3 (VBR V0) audio files. I backed up my ALAC, FLAC, APE, etc. lossless music albums to my CrashPlan+ account and I transcoded to MP3 (VBR V0) as much as possible in order to save a significant amount of disk space. To my ears, there are distinct differences between lossless and lossy audio codecs, but 256+ kbps bit rate lossy audio codecs sound good to my ears.

What kind of music do you listen to?

I listen to new age, classical, crossover, singer songwriter, smooth jazz, rock n' roll, and pop. I like the older artists and albums especially from the 1980s - 1990s.

What kind of audio system do you have?

I own this:

Oppo Digital HA-1 32 bit 384 kHz PCM and DSD 256 DAC and headphone amplifier
CEntrance HiFi-M8 LX XL4 USB 2.0 and TOSLink 24 bit 192 kHz PCM portable DAC and headphone amplifier
Sennheiser HD-800
Shure SE-846 CL quad driver earphones

$4,400.00 USD.

What are your experiences with using GNU/Linux to listen to your music?

I found no differences in sound quality with my music library when using Apple Macintosh OS X, Microsoft Windows, or GNU/Linux. The only difference is that GNU/Linux does not officially support DSD albums yet. That's it. Most of my music library consists of PCM digital recordings.

If you have the time to reply with your opinions and experiences along with tips, then please do so. Thank you.

[Unterseeboot_234]

I have a McIntosh stack for my hardware and that reveals the limitations of any source material. Note the spelling in 'McIntosh'. The best sound is still LP. A record has a lot of surface noise but offers the most dynamic volume fluctuation to reproduce musical tones. I can think of one LP title that sounds better as the original 1958 vinyl than as the 180-gram, modern re-issue. However, most of the new re-issues are good enough.

Because of a solid-state pro-audio recorder just recently bought, I have become fascinated with the DSD sound. Interestingly, the DSD downloads are the type of music I would buy as vinyl. The MP3 is just a catalogue of 'bah-bah-bah..." MP3 is a hammering woodpecker sound at a constant loudness.

So, I can record 192/24 but getting it to play back... that is a whole another issue. Most folks are using computers for their playback. There is software for Linux even. You have to buy it, but you gain access to meta data and track editing. http://www.signalyst.com/consumer.html. It takes Ubuntu 64-bit and an optimized kernel. That gets you to a headphones setup. I want audiophile capabilities and that requires a DAC or DAW. I like the idea of a box that plays SD cards and has the cable connections to my stereo -- a DAC, Digital-to-Audio-Convertor . A soundboard with the row upon row of volume sliders would be a DAW -- Digital-Audio-Workstation. I don't want my stereo to look like a recording sound stage so I am still hunting for an affordable DAC. The best DAC I have heard is the Resonessence Labs, Invicta/ (www.resonessencelabs.com/). I am holding off because already there are even higher density files than 192/24. The Invicta plays the newest 352.8kS/s 24bit file format.

Any of the DAC players are filtering through all that data to approximate analog sine waves.

So, as far as I'm concerned DSDIFF is a work in progress. The real capabilities in DSD correlate to hardware. The hardware is pro-audio equipment. The gremilin in using pro-audio hardware is the cable connections into CE. A desktop computer with an add-on PCI board could work if somebody made one with the right connectors to the stereo.

But then again, maybe I can win the lottery and have them express freight that Invicta to my front door.

[Welly Wu]

That is interesting about sigalyst software. I did not know about that so I learned something new tonight. Right now, I'm good with Spotify Premium and LAME MP3s, AACs, or Vorbis lossy audio codecs. This is blasphemous for an audiophile, but different strokes for different folks. DSD does sound excellent, but how do I get Ubuntu to playback DSD audio files? I am a middle aged padawan when it comes to that.

[Welly Wu]

I'm not interested in the analog or digital recording, editing, and mixing side of audio. I'm interested in the consumer playback side of audio.

I just had a great listening session. I connected to my Spotify Premium account and launched my desktop client and I listened to Yo-Yo Ma Plays Enrico Morricone and Hilary Hahn's Bach: Violin Concertos and they were splendid. The music and the sonics were just right in the early hours of this day and listening was pure bliss and mesmerizing. I closed my eyes and easily envisioned Yo-Yo Ma and Hilary Hahn playing their cello and violin respectively while the orchestra provided great support. It's easy to visualize every bow movement, every finger caressing each string, and the wonderful vibrato.

This is why I spent a small fortune on my high end audiophile headphone system. To be taken away into a musical and sonic oasis in the middle of the night.

Granted, Spotify Premium is not the best sound quality barometer by a long stretch. I still have high resolution PCM and DSD albums and listening to each track is just like being there on stage or in the front row of a concert hall. The mastering quality is definitely there with some, but not all, high resolution audio content. It's like being transported to a plausibly live concert where each star musician, band, or classical performer is at his or her best each time.

I don't listen to music every day. In fact, I rarely listen to music. When I do listen to music, I want to be transported far away from Nutley, New Jersey into the finest concert halls or studios for a brief period of time. Take my mind and ears to a grand performance once in a while and I am happy and content. For me, music is like taking an exotic trip to a foreign destination whereby I can enjoy every intricate sound in a majestic sonic tapestry rich with color and wonders to explore.

GNU/Linux audiophiles have it especially tough when using headphones as their primary listening mechanism on a computer. We have to work doubly hard to get the attention of hardware manufacturers and software developers to even notice us. Fortunately, the deep freeze is thawing a little bit and companies like J River and others are perking up and taking notice of us. It will take years before GNU/Linux audiophiles even get close to features parity and official support.

This is why I thought to create this thread here. Joining an audiophile forum and discussing GNU/Linux is like watching flies on a wall. Bereft of industry support, we often languish as we are left to our own devices. Literally.

[night_sky2]

I like Banshee.. And it's the only thing that works with my Samsung MP3 player so I'll keep it around.

[Bucky Ball]

A thread for audiophiles in an open-source software forum and no mention of FLAC? :-k

VLC or Audacious for me. Don't need bells and whistles.

[Welly Wu]

FLAC is excellent! It really captures the full fidelity of the master tape especially with regard to high resolution material. Yet, I still prefer lossy audio codecs for efficiency. I would much rather be able to store several magnitudes of order more music in lossy audio codecs especially using LAME MP3 VBR V0 rather than fewer music albums and tracks in high resolution FLAC lossless audio codec. That's just me.

[Welly Wu]

Are there any other native GNU/Linux desktop clients available from music streaming service providers other than Spotify? My careful research thus far has turned up nothing else yet. The Spotify GNU/Linux is in preview version which means that Spotify does not offer customer service and technical support for it, but they do ensure to keep it up to date with the Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh OS X versions and it does work well. It is a little bit buggy in that leaving the GNU/Linux desktop client open for long periods of time in an idle manner will cause parts of it to not be responsive. For example, the current album artwork and the control buttons to play, pause, skip forward and backward stop responding if the Spotify GNU/Linux desktop client is left open and it is not playing music for several long hours. A simple exiting and re-opening of this software program fixes this problem, but it does reoccur again if left idle for several long hours.

1. https://www.linux.com/learn/tutorials/791206-three-outstanding-music-streaming-clients-for-linux/

2. http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-killer-resources-for-linux-music-streaming/

Then, there is Clementine especially the development version which is available through a PPA. This is an excellent native GNU/Linux desktop client that can gain access to many popular and paid music streaming services.

The other one is the Nuvola cloud music player which can synchronize to the Google Play Music cloud. You'll need a Google account, the Nuvola PPA and GNU/Linux desktop client, and Google Music Manager for GNU/Linux. You will also need to upload your private music library to the Google Play Music cloud. Currently, Google permits each of its' users to upload up to 50,000.00 tracks for free of charge. Once everything is installed and connected to your Google account, you'll be able to stream your private music library to any GNU/Linux or Google Android device for free of charge.

3. https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/1229970?hl=en

4. http://www.webupd8.org/2014/06/nuvola-player-24-released-with-support.html

If you are using Ubuntu 14.04.x 64 bit LTS GNU/Linux, then you need to add this specific Nuvola Beta PPA:

5. https://tiliado.eu/nuvolaplayer/repository/

In order to make this work with Ubuntu 14.04.x 64 bit LTS GNU/Linux, follow these instructions:

1. Open System Settings -> Software & Updates -> Other Software tab -> Add button (lower left corner of the window)

2. Type this in: https://tiliado.eu/nuvolaplayer/repository/deb/
A. Enter trusty in distribution
B. Enter stable in component
C. Click the close button
D. Reload the package list database

2. Open the terminal
A. sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv-keys 40554B8FA5FE6F6A
B. sudo apt-get update
C. sudo apt-get install nuvolaplayer3

3. Launch Nuvola Player
4. double click on the Google Play Music icon
5. Log into your Google account and put in the two-factor code if necessary

It should connect to your Google Play Music cloud and you should see your music library if you uploaded tracks already.

You will need to download and install the Google Music Manager .DEB file:

1. http://www.sysads.co.uk/2014/08/install-google-play-music-manager-beta-on-ubuntu-14-04/

[Welly Wu]

I upgraded my Spotify Premium subscription to the Family plan in which I and four other people of my own choosing can enjoy Spotify Premium benefits for $29.99 USD plus New Jersey tax. So, I pay $32.09 USD per month, but Spotify has not billed my credit card yet. I think that they will bill me on August 24th, 2015 when my special Spotify Premium $0.99 USD subscription ends. I think it's worth it because my father enjoys Spotify Premium. It's better than Rdio in my opinion by several leagues and there is a preview GNU/Linux desktop client available. I plan to keep this monthly subscription along with CrashPlan+. Spotify makes listening to music relatively easy and painless. The other local music players are a bit more cumbersome to install and set up. I find that getting Nuvola and Google Music Manager installed to be pretty arcane compared to Spotify Premium. Well, you get what you pay for most of the time. I pretty much stopped listening to my private music library. Spotify Premium has all of the music that I'm interested in listening to while it's almost impossible to purchase, download, and grow my private music library at a reasonable cost over time. Renting access to music is preferable to me rather than private ownership of audio files.

I also find that listening to headphones to be more palatable than loudspeakers. I get to enjoy the privacy of listening to my music without disrupting others especially late at night. Loudspeakers are still here to stay, but they don't work with my personal situation well. High end audiophile headphones in particular extract maximum sound quality at more affordable price points compared to floor standing loudspeakers. I doubt that I will buy loudspeakers in the future. Headphones do the trick for me.

[HermanAB]

Hmm, I use Streamtuner. There are thousands of internet radio stations in Europe and it costs nothing.

[coldraven]

Hey Welly Wu, I worked in studios in the 70s and we could encode quadrophonic onto vinyl. The reason that it never took off was that there were three competing systems. People were not going to buy an LP that was encoded in a way that they could not play. MP3s are rather lame by comparison.
I liked the Sansui system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadraphonic_sound

[jsland]

Bump to keep the thread active. Am trying to put together an audiophile or at least high quality setup using Ubuntu at its heart. Cannot add too much at this point and really am only listening. My office setup for years is a pair of Roland 24/96 self powered speakers. This is where I spend most of my waking time being a self employed professional engineer and sound quality is OK with a Pandora subscription. In my workshop/listening room is a box running Ubuntu Studio, a maverick audio Tube Magic D1 and more Roland powered speakers in a sub/speaker setup. Workshop sounds very good streaming Pandora or playing std CDs on a Sony ES unit.

Keep the thread going Welly your observations are helpful.

p.s., to Raven: Back in the day one of the best home systems I listened to was a Sansui 100w RMS played through a pair of JBL century 100s. Clean vinyl was an act 44/16 could never successfully follow on close listening.

[steve208]

FLAC is excellent! It really captures the full fidelity of the master tape especially with regard to high resolution material. Yet, I still prefer lossy audio codecs for efficiency. I would much rather be able to store several magnitudes of order more music in lossy audio codecs especially using LAME MP3 VBR V0 rather than fewer music albums and tracks in high resolution FLAC lossless audio codec. That's just me.

At least use .ogg. The sound quality doesn't suffer quite as much in the downgrade as it does when converting to mp3.

My listening? Vinyl is best, but rare these days. I buy CDs and rip them. Then use SoX for playback. Amarok for streaming is king!

[Bucky Ball]

Been using FLAC since the time people would look at me with their head on the side and a puzzled look and say 'what's a FLAC?'

Heavy metal will sound a bit better, but a symphony orchestra will sound like you are in the orchestra pit in comparison to an MP3 (depending on bit rate/sample rate, of course) ... hang on, there is no comparison between MP3 and FLAC files! :)

[Welly Wu]

While FLAC does have its' own merits, I find that the file sizes are too big. I still have a small collection of high resolution 24 bit 48 - 192 kHz FLAC albums, but I store them on my Transcend StoreJet portable, rugged, encrypted hard disk drive. FLAC has that wonderful quality of preserving the entire recording intact and no lossy audio codec can capture the full majesty of the original mastering of the track or album quite like it. That said, lossy audio codecs have come a long ways from the early MP3 days and I find OGG Vorbis to be the leading contender especially at the 500 kbps bit rate. I can hear very few differences between FLAC and OGG Vorbis at high bit rates using my high end audiophile headphone system. The space savings are substantial too. A typical high resolution 24 bit 96 kHz FLAC album is around 1.2 GB while an OGG Vorbis at 320 kbps is roughly 150 MB or less and there are few audible differences to my ears. I think that Spotify Premium with its' custom Vorbis codec is the best implementation that I have heard so far and theirs is the only lossy audio codec that sounds closest to CD quality music if you are a paying subscriber. I am constantly pleasantly surprised by just how good Spotify Premium sounds and I have no complaints regarding their sound quality.

[HermanAB]

By the time most people can afford hifi equipment, they can't hear the difference anymore...

[Welly Wu]

I must be one of the young and lucky ones then. I started this crazy audiophile journey back in 2003 at Head-Fi.Org and it just built up from there. Listening to music using high end headphones, DACs, headphone amplifiers is pure magical bliss. I have a room mate and I don't want to disturb him with my music late at night. This is why I stuck with audiophile headphones all the way through. My current audio system is the best by far. It tells me the truth heard in the recordings without any colorations so I can trust the sound coming from the source material to be faithfully reproduced. OGG Vorbis is the best lossy audio codec that I've tried thus far and it is definitely near CD quality at 320 kbps bit rate. Listening to music is a passion of mine especially classical, new age, smooth jazz, opera, instrumental, and film scores. Every time I think about music I want to reach for my headphones and be transported to my sonic oasis.