wtfplay project - it's official

[frd1996]

Hi there,

It has been a while since the last release, but here it is. wtfplay-live 0.7 is available for download. No new features, but many new things under the hood: new kernels and everything smaller. Hopefully SQ won't disappoint. Please check out the release notes here: http://wtfplay-project.org/rnotes.html.

Enjoy!
F

[jrling]

It does not disappoint. Very useful tick up in SQ.

Thanks frd1996!

Jonathan

[Ken Moreland]

wtfplay-live 0.7 is a significant improvement over previous versions. Exceptionally clean and detailed sound. Highly recommended.

[frd1996]

Hi,

wtfplay-live 0.7.1 is now available for download. Please see the release details at http://wtfplay-project.org/rnotes.html

F

[hudo]

Hi,

wtfplay-live 0.7.1 is now available for download. Please see the release details at http://wtfplay-project.org/rnotes.html

F

Hey frd1996, since you're an expert in this field, can you please recommend decent PC hardware to run your player?
I have Asus laptop, but it leaks a lot of EM noise into USB to the DAC, even I galvanically isolated (well, disconnected) USB power lines and left just data. I can hear CPU and mouse through the speaker, even tho its very faint, but I can hear the noise, no matter to which channel I switch on the preamp, it just leaks EM into the system.
So I was hoping to find a good barebone PC, laptop, NUC or something similar, which has a proven, good quality USB port.
Other idea was to use iFi micro iUSB3 to reclock and regenerate USB signal/
Any advices or experience?

[jrling]

On my set-up, wtfplay 0.7.1 is clearly the best SQ I have heard yet.
Well worth a try.

One aspect of the release, which I hadn't thought about, is the ability to disable the drivers on the motherboard audio chip at boot time, if like most of us I suspect, they are not being used when playing music via USB/SPDIF/I2S converters or extra PCI sound cards to DACs. Some PC BIOS allow disabling on board sound cards in the BIOS settings, but mine does not and nor do others.

WTFSetup utility now provides ability to show all sound cards detected by wtfplay at boot time and automatically disable any that are not being used by wtfplay. Of course, as with all wtfplay functionality, changes to the PC software are only temporary and revert to BIOS default at shut down.

In my case, just disabling the on board audio made a significant improvement in SQ and I recommend trying it, if not already done so. It makes sense that it would be beneficial, as if nothing else it reduces the load on CPU if it only has to deal with one sound card, but there could be other reasons too.

[jrling]

I never thought a PC-based player could reach such good SQ; having tried many Window-based players in the past, some with extreme tweaking and other Linux-based players using MPD or Squeezelite under the hood, they all fell short.

SD card players are approaching the absolute minimum hardware required to play music (good) and PC-based players are more complex with unnecessary functionality. Wtfplay is determinedly minimised Linux player software (only 24MB total for the ISO install package) optimised for maximum SQ and can be improved and modified easily, whereas the 'firmware' that comes with a SD Card player is fixed by the manufacturer and rarely updated to improve it. It is also probably not the prime focus of the vendor, who may focus more on the hardware side. Wtfplay though has shown how much contribution to SQ is made by the player software.

I don't have a SD card player to compare with wtfplay, but it would be very interesting to hear from others who do and have done a comparison.

[frd1996]

can you please recommend decent PC hardware to run your player?

In terms of PC recommendation is hard for me to advice something. Believe or not, but I do not have a large experience in this particular field. I have not tried many configurations myself. I often use my laptop for the listening (old Thinkpad).

Many people have various ideas about PC for audio - there is no single recommended configuration.

If I was to choose a new PC hardware for wtfplay I would go for something low power, with a passive cooling. A single power supply input (no ATX) would also be an advantage. It would be much easier to use such board with a linear power supply (pimped up with batteries/supercaps). From the storage point of view, I wold be looking for M.2 slot and SD card reader (bootable if possible).

The mentioned NUC would be a good starting point to investigate.

F

[tony]

I never thought a PC-based player could reach such good SQ; having tried many Window-based players in the past, some with extreme tweaking and other Linux-based players using MPD or Squeezelite under the hood, they all fell short.

SD card players are approaching the absolute minimum hardware required to play music (good) and PC-based players are more complex with unnecessary functionality. Wtfplay is determinedly minimised Linux player software (only 24MB total for the ISO install package) optimised for maximum SQ and can be improved and modified easily, whereas the 'firmware' that comes with a SD Card player is fixed by the manufacturer and rarely updated to improve it. It is also probably not the prime focus of the vendor, who may focus more on the hardware side. Wtfplay though has shown how much contribution to SQ is made by the player software.

I don't have a SD card player to compare with wtfplay, but it would be very interesting to hear from others who do and have done a comparison.

Early days but I think Fryderck's new version is making it very close. I am away for the next few days but will put some effort into doing a decent comparison when I get back. Even with SD players there are big differences Jonathon. As per usual Pearse's willingness to experiment and push the boundaries his sd player set up on the group buy dac is the benchmark. His dac just beats mine. He has oven clocks and some other stuff that just gives it an scarily great sound. Pity they look so different as it makes it impossible to swap his with mine!

[jrling]

Thanks very much for the offer, Tony.

I appreciate that it is difficult to get close to any apples and apples comparison as they work on completely different ways from each other and most are modded too; the best one could say is whether each acting purely as a transport is generally better than the other. As I understand it, Pearce's latest SD player (SD 3.75) is a transport.

Safe travelling