Tír Na HiFi

I've only just started reading the first few pages of this thread, then skipped to the last post . . . and choked on my coffee! Reminded me a bit of Brazil in the World Cup semi-final . . .

Que pasa, Jesus?

Didn't see this being discussed elsewhere here, so thought I'd bump JC's long-dead thread:

There's been some talk over at Computer Audiophile's software forum among a few other places about playback software programmed by a Japanese computer hi-fi enthusiast named Hiroyuki called "Bughead Emperor", which, as far as I can tell, is based on a complex, potentially processor-taxing set of upsampling/interpolation filter algorithms, here's the pertinent Computer Audiophile thread discussing it:

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f11-s ... ror-19966/

Anyway, the same programmer has just released a separate utility aimed at improving SQ called "Rewrite Data", as someone over at the JPlay forum pointed out in the last few days with a new thread. How the utility works is somewhat of a mystery primarily due to the language barrier - it somehow analyzes a set of music files (it accepts most codecs as well as WAV/AIFF etc.) it's pointed to in a directory and rewrites them to make them more "bit-perfect" and have less resultant jitter than before. Windows X, the developer of fidelizer, suggested in the JPlay thread about Rewrite Data that it works by defragmenting the files in real time - or some such - which results in a smoother more "continuous" reading by the music drive and eliminates the need for it to search for packets. It seems a novel program, whatever the methodology, and is getting high marks by a number of people for SQ improvement. I'm testing it out tonight, and believe it is indeed making a SQ difference - using MQn, re-writing the WAV files with the utility results in a smoothing, analog-ing-like quality with more ease to the music and some increase in inner detail, which is what one might expect with jitter reduction.

Here's a link to the utility download (which also has a Bughead Emperor link):

http://1drv.ms/1nBAKyD

Here's a link to the JPlay thread concerning the utility:

http://jplay.eu/forum/computer-audio/dr ... -data-1.0/

Interested to hear JC's thoughts if he's around.

A Japanese developer told me "BugHead performs some sort of maximizer DSP to compress dynamic range so small signal is somewhat emphasized and people feels the sound is more revealing and BugHead has enthusiastic support for headphone users"

Interesting, SBGK. You certainly seem to be more aware of the boutique audiophile playback software scene than most ;).

One of my thoughts, given the author posted a YouTube about Rewrite Data that included comparing before and after files in a Hex Editor, is that the program may do something similar to the header tweaks JC has employed, which themselves were based on shan from foobar XA's own tweak, but without the need to do the hex editing manually. Complete conjecture, though.

internethandle wrote:Interesting, SBGK. You certainly seem to be more aware of the boutique audiophile playback software scene than most ;).

One of my thoughts, given the author posted a YouTube about Rewrite Data that included comparing before and after files in a Hex Editor, is that the program may do something similar to the header tweaks JC has employed, which themselves were based on shan from foobar XA's own tweak, but without the need to do the hex editing manually. Complete conjecture, though.

JC was altering characteristics of the exe file, bhe alters the data section of the wav file which is composed of left/right samples, 44100*2 a second for 16/44.1 eg 10,5,100,55 to 15,7,75,65 etc

sbgk wrote:A Japanese developer told me "BugHead performs some sort of maximizer DSP to compress dynamic range so small signal is somewhat emphasized and people feels the sound is more revealing and BugHead has enthusiastic support for headphone users"

interesting.
It does sound revealing on headphones.

2channelaudio wrote:

sbgk wrote:A Japanese developer told me "BugHead performs some sort of maximizer DSP to compress dynamic range so small signal is somewhat emphasized and people feels the sound is more revealing and BugHead has enthusiastic support for headphone users"

interesting.
It does sound revealing on headphones.

Listening on headphones currently...
Ryan Adams Heartbreaker... sounds amazing on BugHead

Sounds good whatever it does.... lol