wtfplay

[shpongle]

Long time BH was my number 1 Player together with a fostex hp a4 dac and server 2012r2 core 10 gb fira ramdisk(3gb the OS rest for load Music files into ram).

 

one month ago i bought a jlsounds dac Combo:Products - I2S over USB Audio

 

now i've with wtfplay the best Sound i ever had!

 

i think Os plus Music files load in ram makes a big SQ improvement.

 

what i still miss is dsdiff Support and full Album load.

 

thanks to frd_for this exellent Player!

[bodiebill]

Thanks frd! I ordered this:

Mele F10 Deluxe fly-mouse review - AndroidPCReview

Hi frd, the above fly-mouse works well, there is just one thing: it has no TAB button.

Would it be possible to add an option to use 't' as an alternative for TAB? (Just like 'h' can be used as an alternative for F10?)

Then the remote control would be perfect!

[frd__]

@bodiebill: Of course, I will add another key for 'wtfcui' to switch the panels.

 

However, the TAB key is one of most desirable, as by default it provides autocompletion in Linux command line. If one decides to learn just one thing about Linux command line, that should be autocompletion. In other words, TAB is your friend.

 

 

All, the current roadmap for wtfplay features is as follows:

 

* add playback navigation (that is virtually finished)

* add support for CUE files and playing the whole album without gaps

* add support for Apple formats for audio file, e.g. ALAC

* probably add support for SOX resampler

 

If there is an opportunity to boost SQ due the course, that will take the priority.

 

I think that the work listed above would conclude the current wtfplay.

[skypickle]

has anyone switched to this from moode? I found that purpose built arm distro very good sounding and appreciate that it runs on a pi. I hesitate to invest in YET ANOTHER BIG PC to run one specific app. But I would do it if the sound was remarkably better.

[bodiebill]

@bodiebill: Of course, I will add another key for 'wtfcui' to switch the panels.

That is great, thanks frd!

I do appreciate this wonderful player and your dedication to further improve it!

[robocop]

frd

 

My music is currently on another computer connected by ethernet through the router to my Audio computer. I found sound wise this to be much better than usb music drive connected directly.

 

Is running wtfplay from Linux better than Windows? What Linux desktop would you recommend? Or makes no difference.

 

Robert

[AudGuy]

A weekend of playing music using WTFPlay on various machines has taught me that it does work on most machines, but not all machines. The machine that I use for music is connected via USB to a UD-501. On this machine WTFPlay works very well, I really like this player and the music it makes is outstanding.

 

Other machines I have suggest that analog out from onboard audio is all I can do, but even that sound is quite good. However I also have ASUS ST and STX audio cards for doing analog and digital output. But WTFPlay does not see these cards so I cannot use them. Is it possible that there is a way to get WTFPlay to recognize the Asus cards, or perhaps it is like Windows and a driver is required for any operations to happen ?

 

 

Nevertheless, I will continue using WTFPlay with the setup I have working and expect to continue enjoying this wonderful new player. Now I will try some of the alternative settings to see how they react to my setup and see if there is any improvement to be had over the default settings.

 

WELL DONE ... and THANKYOU !!!

[blue2]

I don't see any mention of drivers for different DAC's. Does WTFPlay use a generic USB driver so any DAC is supported - if not is there a list of supported devices? Anyone got this working with T+A DSD DAC 8?

[frd__]

@robocop: I am not sure if I understand your question correctly. wtfplay-live

is the Linux distribution and has nothing to do with Windows.

 

As for your other question regarding a Linux desktop distribution I am not

the best person to ask. I use highly customised Archlinux and Gentoo.

These distributions may be too difficult to use for an average user. I know

that some recommend Linux Mint, because it is very easy to use, is pretty

fast and is not overloaded with gadgets.

 

 

@AudGuy: Somebody has already asked me about Asus sound cards from Xonar

family. The next release of wtfplay-live will have the driver for them.

 

 

@blue2: wtfplay-live uses the generic USB audio driver. It supports UAC1 and

UAC2 compliant devices. Unfortunately, the device's compliance level with

these standards is debatable. Especially when we are talking about UAC2.

Sometimes a device specific code needs to be added to the generic USB audio

driver. There are may cases if this in the current Linux driver.

 

I should also be noted that there is no USB audio standard that covers

native DSD transmission from/to the audio device.

[bodiebill]

@bodiebill: Of course, I will add another key for 'wtfcui' to switch the panels.

That is great, thanks frd!

Oops, I now realize that something similar applies to the Ctrl button, which is used to stop the music.

So would it perhaps be possible to also have a one-letter alternative (such as c or s) to stop the music, alongside Ctrl-C?

[blue2]

wtfplay-live uses the generic USB audio driver. It supports UAC1 and

UAC2 compliant devices. Unfortunately, the device's compliance level with

these standards is debatable. Especially when we are talking about UAC2.

Sometimes a device specific code needs to be added to the generic USB audio

driver. There are may cases if this in the current Linux driver.

I should also be noted that there is no USB audio standard that covers

native DSD transmission from/to the audio device.

 

Fryderyk, it works very nicely with T+A DSD DAC8, PCM and DSD64 on AMD K10 processor. Thank you!

I noticed that "reboot" command works from the command line. Although I found that I was unable to navigate to my music HDD which is on a separate PCI interface, the SSD boot drive is visible and I copied some music files for testing.

Do you plan to eventually release this as a bootable HDD/SSD partition system? It will be interesting to see where you go from here Nice work

[frd__]

@blue2: what is the PCI disk controller that you use? Can it be switched to AHCI mode?

[robocop]

I have been playing with tuning the audio buffer size and this is well worth trying. I'm currently at -f 8192 -n 3 -p 60.

 

Going from -f 2048 to -f 4096 then -f 8192 each one an improvement over the other. I tried -f 16384 but seemed to loose some bass impact. I also tried -n 2, -n 4, -n 6. -n 3 seems to be best in my setup. I have yet to try -p.

 

This program is so simple to operate and sounds excellent. I have had to readjust subwoofers and reduce sub volume due to the extra bass extension. The bass has never performed like this in my system. Love the less is best approach.

 

Robert

[blue2]

@blue2: what is the PCI disk controller that you use? Can it be switched to AHCI mode?

It's a generic cheapo with VIA chipset "Ebest-2 Port ATA/133 HDD PCI IDE". Works fine under Windows 7/8/10 as Standard PCI IDE Controller, but not detected by BIOS so doesn't look like AHCI mode is an option.

Thanks

[Norton]

@bodiebill: Of course, I will add another key for 'wtfcui' to switch the panels.

 

However, the TAB key is one of most desirable, as by default it provides autocompletion in Linux command line. If one decides to learn just one thing about Linux command line, that should be autocompletion. In other words, TAB is your friend.

 

 

All, the current roadmap for wtfplay features is as follows:

 

* add playback navigation (that is virtually finished)

* add support for CUE files and playing the whole album without gaps

* add support for Apple formats for audio file, e.g. ALAC

* probably add support for SOX resampler

 

If there is an opportunity to boost SQ due the course, that will take the priority.

 

I think that the work listed above would conclude the current wtfplay.

 

Frd____, perhaps I'm in a minority but just a plea that wherever development of Wtfplay goes in future, you still offer a variant on the current simple package without networking, upsampling etc. Maybe I'm wrong, but I got the impression that it was precisely the lack of such features and their attendant system demands, concentrating instead on getting the best possible bit-perfect replay without compromise, that made Wtfplay sound so good. Hate to see Wtfplay lose it's originality and turn into a "me to" player.

 

But anything that could be done to get Wtfplay working in raw DSD with a wider range of capable DACs than Linux currently recognises would be good. Would love to be able to play my DSD 256 files via Wtfplay.

[bodiebill]

About file systems:

 

For wtfplay, NTFS has a small performance penalty and the main HFS+ partition of OSX Lion and above cannot be accessed.

 

So does this mean that FAT32 is the best file system to be used by those who do not use Linux except for wtfplay, and want read/write compatibility with either Windows or Mac?

 

Is exFAT (successor of FAT32 without 4GB/file and 8TB/partition limitations) not supported?

[bodiebill]

So does this mean that FAT32 is the best file system to be used by those who do not use Linux except for wtfplay, and want read/write compatibility with either Windows or Mac?

Just tried with a disk formatted with Mac OX Extended (journaled) on the latest MacOS (Sierra), and the files appear in wtfp.

So I am not exactly sure what "the main HFS+ partition of OSX Lion and above cannot be accessed" exactly means. Can anyone explain?

[frd__]

@Norton: Thank you for your post. Notes taken.

@bodiebill: Yes, we can clearly say FAT32 is the most portable filesystem at the moment.

 

Unfortunately - wtfplay-live does not support exFAT. In general Linux kernel does not natively support exFAT. The support for this filesystem is done with additional application - similar business to how NTFS is handled.

 

As for HFS+ it is supported and if you format a partition using HFS+ then wtfplay-live will see files. The problem is that the newer releases of OSX do not just use HFS+. They use a sort of logical volume manager. It provides features such as encryption or snapshots. By default OSX uses it for system partition. Here is the link to the Wiki page:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_Storage

 

F

[bodiebill]

As for HFS+ it is supported and if you format a partition using HFS+ then wtfplay-live will see files. The problem is that the newer releases of OSX do not just use HFS+. They use a sort of logical volume manager. It provides features such as encryption or snapshots. By default OSX uses it for system partition.

F

 

My iMac, although running Sierra, apparently is still using the old 'SATA Internal Physical Disk' instead of the 'CoreStorage LVG' layout for the system disk. I checked this in Disk Utility.

And the USB stick formatted with HFS+ (with the 'Master Boot Record' option although I don't think this matters) works well with wtfp.

Thanks frd!

[jkelly]

I am running 5.1 off a USB stick but can't get persistence to save the setup settings.

I get an error when it tries to save.

 

Do I have to do something when I create the USB or a software command?

 

Jeff

[frd__]

Jeff, did you by chance use Unetbootin to create the bootable memory stick? If you did, then it would explain your symptoms. In this case please use the tools that are recommended in the installation guide: wtfplay-project.org

[AudGuy]

To anybody that might know ... one of my systems is presenting me with a problem that I have been unable to resolve. WTFPlay sets up and runs correctly on the machine in question including recognizing that I am using a USB audio device. The device, a NAD D3020 amp w/onboard DAC, is on and connections are in place and the appropriate input is selected. Alsamixer shows the device as the selected audio device and offers to let me control it's volume which I have set to 100%. I am unsure about something shown on Alsamixer panel, at the bottom of the volume indicator are 2 sets of numbers, one (upper) changes with up/down arrow press, but the lower number above what indicates PCM remains at 00.

 

Since the problem is that while WTFPlay acts like it will play a file and does seem to be playing a file only the playback event only takes at best maybe a quarter of a second. And there is no audio output.

 

I am using the Core2 version with kernel 13/14 and both produce identical results. (Atom CPU) This setup when connected to another system with a different DAC (UD-501) works as expected. So it would seem that my problems somehow stem from trying to use the NAD D3020 amp/dac.

 

The NAD is the only device showing on the machine and is the selected device. When I connect another machine that is a newer i5 to the NAD using the same USB techniques, everything works as expected.

 

When I use the onboard audio from the Atom machine the analog output will allow WTFPlay to work as expected.

So it would seem to be an Atom/USB/NAD stumble of some sort.

 

I am hopeful that someone might have some ideas or even know what is wrong with my setup.

Would be very appreciative if anyone is able to help.

 

Thankyou & Seasons Greetings

[frd__]

@AudGuy: 'alsamixer' looks OK. Nothing unusual here. The "OO" is not a number. This is the indicator whether the control is open (O) or muted (M). You can mute/unmute control with key 'M', You can also mute/unmute a particular channel withing the control. This can be done with keys ',' (coma) and '.' (dot).

 

 

As for the playback issue, I would like to ask you few questions related to your Atom based computer:

 

* What Atom CPU do you use exactly?

* What is your motherboard/laptop model?

* Are you trying to play WAV or FLAC file?

* Is the same file succeeds to play when you use US-501 DAC?

 

You can write here or, if you prefer, we can use emails directly. Mine is [email protected]

 

Kind Regards,

F

[AudGuy]

@AudGuy: 'alsamixer' looks OK. Nothing unusual here. The "OO" is not a number. This is the indicator whether the control is open (O) or muted (M). You can mute/unmute control with key 'M', You can also mute/unmute a particular channel withing the control. This can be done with keys ',' (coma) and '.' (dot).

 

 

As for the playback issue, I would like to ask you few questions related to your Atom based computer:

 

* What Atom CPU do you use exactly?

* What is your motherboard/laptop model?

* Are you trying to play WAV or FLAC file?

* Is the same file succeeds to play when you use US-501 DAC?

 

You can write here or, if you prefer, we can use emails directly. Mine is [email protected]

 

Kind Regards,

F

 

Hello F ... Thankyou for assisting with my inquiry and I understand what you have said re the Alsamixer.

 

* What Atom CPU do you use exactly?

 

My ATOM CPU is a 330 onboard

 

* What is your motherboard/laptop model?

 

The motherboard is an Asus AT3N7A-I

 

* Are you trying to play WAV or FLAC file?

 

Normally, uncompressed FLAC but can be WAVE if needed.

 

* Is the same file succeeds to play when you use US-501 DAC?

 

File plays properly on UD-501 ... and the sound is great.

 

This motherboard is a 2010 vintage, so not particularly contemporary, but still works well.

Usually runs Win7_64 using JRMC22 and/or HQPlayer, no problems doing either.

Machine has 4GB of system memory, 120GB SSD (OS), and a 2TB WD Red data drive.

When Windows driver for NAD is in place, everything works per expectations.

 

Hope this is what you need, anything else I am ready to provide whatever is needed.

 

Thanks again ...

[frd__]

@AudGuy: Initially I considered something wrong with NAD's USB device descriptor, but if you say that it works on you other PC then most likely this is not the issue. I will provide you with a debug image that will collect some info about your hardware and some debug information about the playback process. Just give me some time to make such image. I have one for corei7 but not for core2. I will keep you informed.