wtfplay project - it's official

[satshanti]

Glad to hear that your experience is exactly the same as mine and my 'sweet spot' ended up at -f4096 -n2 -p60 (uWTFPlay Kernel 12 which is clearly the best one).

Yes, that was my "provisional" sweet spot as well. :-) And I also found that uwtfplay was better than wtfplay. I don't have an Intel CPU so I used the Core2 version that offers 2 kernels (9 and 10), of which 10 is better. I do hope that one day Fryd will make a dedicated AMD version. I remember during one of the phases in the MQn development there were mostly SSE and AVX2 versions released, and upon my request at least for a few iterations Gordon cooked up some dedicated AMD AVX1 versions, and they were awesome compared to the other versions on my system, so I guess that something can be said for a chipset-tailored solution. Anyway, no pressure, Fryd, I'm sure your to-do list is long enough as it is already. :-)

I am amazed that several people say that they cannot hear any clear differences between different settings.

Yes, the differences are quite pronounced. Who knows? I guess everyone's not only got different systems, but also different ears and brains. :-) Glad to hear there's someone else who's on the same wavelength.

[jrling]

I am quite pleased with my 67 year old hearing devices then!

[Fran]

I got this running at the weekend - wouldn't run on an older MAD based laptop (fairly ancient mind you), but ran no probs on a newer one. Have yet to evaluate the sound.....


fran

[cvrle59]

I'm playing with -f 4096, -n 2 right now, and it does sound better than default parameters.
Thanks guys for sharing it!
Btw, this player makes my system to sing, I just can't wait for DSD feature...:)

[jrling]

I'm playing with -f 4096, -n 2 right now, and it does sound better than default parameters.
Thanks guys for sharing it!
Btw, this player makes my system to sing, I just can't wait for DSD feature...:)

Pleased to hear it.

I don't think though that these settings will work best for everyone's gear. I would encourage you to try some others if you time and inclination. Could be rewarding and you now have a benchmark setting to measure alternatives against.

Jonathan

[joelha]

I'm playing with -f 4096, -n 2 right now, and it does sound better than default parameters.
Thanks guys for sharing it!
Btw, this player makes my system to sing, I just can't wait for DSD feature...:)

Pleased to hear it.

I don't think though that these settings will work best for everyone's gear. I would encourage you to try some others if you time and inclination. Could be rewarding and you now have a benchmark setting to measure alternatives against.

Jonathan

I used these settings as well last night and boy, did that ever cement my opinion of this player.

Soundstage, black background, and detail were just remarkable.

I've sent a donation of 25 euros to the author of the program.

I hope others will do the same. The people who go off on their own to better the hobby deserve our support.

Joel

[cvrle59]

"I hope others will do the same. The people who go off on their own to better the hobby deserve our support."
+1
I just did!

[frd1996]

Guys,

Thank you for your support and I am glad that you enjoy wtfplay.

F

[satshanti]

"I hope others will do the same. The people who go off on their own to better the hobby deserve our support."
+1
I just did!

+1 thanks a lot!

[satshanti]

Wow, I had quite a musical journey last night, a marathon session of 3 hours with the sole purpose of finding the best -p setting. I wanted to be thorough so I did it systematically. I used -f 4096 and -n 2 of course.

I started with a comparison of 30, 50, 70 and 90, with the last two being the winners.
I then used 60, 80 and 99, and the clear winner was 80 here, in fact I was blown away by the sound.
Still, I then used 75, 80 and 85, with 80 still the winner.
By then I had acquired a good sense of the difference between being too low and too high. It's hard to describe the difference, but it was like focusing through a camera lens. On either side the frequency response was "off" and out of focus. By this time the differences were getting more and more subtle, but I was so attuned by now to the focusing that even going forward, I managed to find the sweet spot without any doubt.
I used 78, 80 and 82, still 80 was best, and I even used 79, 80 and 81, and differences could be heard, with 80 still smack in the middle in the sweet spot. This was clearly perceivable for a number of test tracks.

I then used -n 2 and -p 80 and wondered about revisiting the -f setting. I compared 4096, 2048 and 1024.
Unfortunately I couldn't find a sweet spot. On my system there doesn't seem to be an optimal version that is clearly the best across all test tracks. The differences are not subtle, but all three of these settings sound marvellous. These are the flavours:

4096: detailed, textured, direct, deep and powerful bass, but slightly congested and tight sound stage
1024: open, smooth, liquid, musical, PRAT, harmonious, deep and wide sound stage
2048 (default): you would expect the best of both worlds, but alas, that is not the case. There is a mixture of the above qualities, but of the deficits as well. As we say in Holland, this makes it "neither flesh nor fish", a middle ground that lacks character and it's all somewhat boring and muddled. It does have one quality that's better than the other 2, and that's definition and quality of sound stage. It's not as deep and wide as 1024, but it's very consistent, almost holographic. This was the only setting in which the solo piano piece I was playing made me really see the instrument in the space.

So until new wtfplay versions come out, I think I might have to choose the best setting for each genre of music. In my case this would be:

4096: few instruments and vocals, acoustical, folk, jazz
2048: solo piano
1024: orchestras, rock, pop, etc

Looking forward to find out if the -p 80 setting works better for others as well.