Do you hear what I hear (bit perfect files sounding different)?

[manueljenkin]

I was recommend this audio player from a company called junilabs in another thread.

 

http://www.junilabs.com/fr/products/audioplayer.html

 

There are extravagant claims, but atleast in my system it has worked wonderfully.

 

The music player is quite good. The output is MME by default, I recommend changing to wasapi.

 

What gets me more interested with the junilabs player is not the player itself, but rather the file optimizer that comes with the player. It is another executable in the same folder. The process is you drag and drop a music file, press optimize it'll take two minutes (and advisable to not do any background tasks during this time) and after that the save command will export a new file that is bit identical copy of the original, yet sounds better (to me and a few others who have tried it atleast). You can also do multiple rounds of optimization before saving (I do 3-5x for my music on my machine). Since you would have both the unoptimized and optimized files you could easily a/b between the two and compare when playing on the junilabs player. You can use this new file with any music player that copies to RAM directly (like playpcmwin) and plays to enjoy the benefits, as long as you don't move or edit the file (moving between different local drives, making a copy and editing would likely nullify the optimization).

 

Playback system is surface book 2016 256gb SSD with gt940m feeding a few usb dacs.

[manueljenkin]

2 hours ago, idiot_savant said:

Hi @manueljenkin, maybe this is the old grizzled non-believer in me, but I’m assuming you’ve compared the “before” and “after” files -

“fc unoptimised_file.wav optimised_file.wav” /b 

 

This is a ( pedantic) first step? We can all speculate, but we can *prove* the file is bit identical before we start, no? This way no one can claim identical CRC’s etc

 

your friendly neighbourhood idiot 

Yes I've done testing comparing the two sound files both in junilabs player and xxhighend. I can hear the difference.

 

I have also compared the files. They are bit identical. I even checked the waveforms in audacity and also tried nulling them.

[manueljenkin]

2 hours ago, idiot_savant said:

I’m afraid I’ve committed the cardinal sin here in going all command line, so let’s start at the very beginning - there is a claim that files can be optimised *without* changing their contents, so being even handed the first thing to verify is that the contents are *unchanged^
 

if you’ve done this, grand, and you’ll be happy to share how this was done?

 

I’m interested, but before we go into the subjective realm, a quick objective check - which matches the objective claim - is worth it? Does this seem common sense?

 

your friendly neighbourhood idiot 

I have used commandline players earlier (wtfplay is one of my favourites). But over time I have found tools that sound as good as, if not better than commandline players. The junilabs player is one, xxhighend is another (playpcmwin with ramdisk tweaks where I load the driver, software and music all to RAM also came very close). I feel the improvement this file optimizer brings is worthwhile addition to the general player improvements I got.

[manueljenkin]

2 hours ago, Currawong said:

I presume that the software writes a non-fragmented version of the file to disk, such that reading the file reduces electrical noise generated by multiple disk reads. If that's so, putting one's music on a separate hard disk and defragmenting it would solve that issue.

 

However, the site states (translated):

 

I have a lot of trouble with this, as would most people. 

 

I am running it on a SSD anyway and the players I use fully cache the song into RAM before playback. It is relating to access noise for sure but it's unlikely due to defragmentation.

[manueljenkin]

18 minutes ago, andrewinukm said:

The Juniwave 2 is a Schumann resonance generator. So it seems that the player generates/imparts/simulates "Schumann resonance" onto the HDD or music file.

 

I love voodoo tweaks that science cannot explain, and bought a cheap Schumann device to try. I am unable to hear any changes, but I know friends who could hear a difference with vs without Schumann device turned on. In the case of Junilabs player, I probably won't be able to hear a difference using this software. But I'll still give it a try.

 

On a side note, the Schumann device did have an impact on my sleep. I'll leave you guys to debate the science and fiction behind it. I aint' doin' no double blind trials or null tests of my sleep.

Thank you very much. I've never thought of this aspect. I had tried to do RAMdisk playback (loading entire song to RAM) and I couldn't get it to sound as good as junilabs optimized audio file, even if I stored it for more than 5 minutes before playing. Maybe I should explore that Schumann resonator thing (last time I saw some discussion on other forums). If it doesn't work for audio, it'll atleast be useful in sleep 😁.

[manueljenkin]

Just to make it clear, the author has never mentioned defragging. It is a guess @Currawong had and there is no evidence for the software to be doing it. I am using a SSD and all the tests showing differences were done in SSD, so there's that too. Hence I have removed all off topic comments relating to defragmentation.

 

The author already mentioned that the files are bit perfect and the data is unaltered, I'm not sure why March audio has to make it look like a flaw by his narratives. The title of the thread makes it clear already and I've checked the files, they are bit by bit identical when it comes to the data.

 

[manueljenkin]

It does load the file to memory. Windows Task manager is also just another algorithm, it may not reflect actual instantaneous usage. I have done the optimization with 1GB iso file to make things clear and here is the results.

 

Before running Optimization:

 

After Running Optimization:

 

 

You can also check the code, it surely has a copy to RAM operation! Fyi, each operation usage, doesn't necessarily need to reflect in the same application instance in windows task manager, the optimizer can spawn a new instance of the application with a different/generic name (just look at the number of instances for Edge update, or if you have multiple chrome tabs, look at the number of instances).

 

I'm sorry, the software dev cannot be held responsible for March Audio's oversights and flawed correlations. His tool does what he mentioned.

[manueljenkin]

This is a proprietary software so source code is unlikely. But there are ways to atleast partially see what an executable is doing. I'm not a software dev, so I don't know how to do it but I had another person who checked and found a move to RAM operation in the code.

[manueljenkin]

And also a two minute timer as expected. I don't know what the middle part of the code does. I wondered if it could be as simple as copy to RAM, wait a couple of minutes, move back to hard drive, but my similar attempts using RAMDISK didn't give me anywhere near as good a result as the junilabs player optimization.

 

[manueljenkin]

The objective-fi thread for the same topic : 

 

[manueljenkin]

4 hours ago, manueljenkin said:

It does load the file to memory. Windows Task manager is also just another algorithm, it may not reflect actual instantaneous usage. I have done the optimization with 1GB iso file to make things clear and here is the results.

 

Before running Optimization:

 

After Running Optimization:

 

 

You can also check the code, it surely has a copy to RAM operation! Fyi, each operation usage, doesn't necessarily need to reflect in the same application instance in windows task manager, the optimizer can spawn a new instance of the application with a different/generic name (just look at the number of instances for Edge update, or if you have multiple chrome tabs, look at the number of instances).

 

I'm sorry, the software dev cannot be held responsible for March Audio's oversights and flawed correlations. His tool does what he mentioned.

In case you didn't notice the difference, the memory usage changes from 33% before running optimizer to 64% after running optimizer. I have repeated this multiple times to ensure. The Total RAM in my system is 8Gb and 30% of it would be roughly 2.4Gb. It is pretty clear the file is loaded to RAM as per the dev claims.

[manueljenkin]

@idiot_savanthas tried looking into the code. Pasting snapshots of the code findings

 

"it’s written in C#. there are functions called scintillate and harmonize. it opens a couple of files inside the windows page file, that it seems to write random numbers into before swapping them around in a ping pong, using a number of threads."

[manueljenkin]

1 hour ago, idiot_savant said:

If you’re going to quote me, could you do me the courtesy of not being selective?

 

”The decompilation doesn’t help, but whatever  it is trying to do looks pretty pointless to me - but it *is* trying to do something, even if misguided - I’m not sure if there’s a magic sequence it’s trying to write to the disk whilst copying a file at the same time? 
 

anyway, I’ve seen nothing ( so far ) that could explain any difference in sound”

 

your friendly neighbourhood idiot 

I've posted the relevant findings about the player code. You have exercised your option to share your personal feelings in this comment of yours.

[manueljenkin]

2 hours ago, Confused said:

My experiment with the Junilabs player is off to a poor start.

 

Oops. Have you installed the necessary dac drivers and chosen the dac as default device? I've had multiple people report this issue and it got resolved after installing dac driver.

[manueljenkin]

1 hour ago, yamamoto2002 said:

I created the app to inspect fragmentation status of specified file on NTFS formatted volume.

 

https://sourceforge.net/p/playpcmwin/wiki/WWFileFragmentCount2/

 

Thank you very much!

[manueljenkin]

I would recommend to wait for a short while (a couple of days at max), I'm working on something and I feel I could contribute something here.

[manueljenkin]

1 hour ago, Confused said:

OK - Another day and now it works.  I am not sure why, but for me it would not work when set to WASAPI,  Changing the setting to DirectSound and it works fine.

 

Could I hear a difference when playing an "optimized" file? For me it is no more than a maybe.  If there is a difference it is very subtle.  There were a couple of times when I thought that maybe the optimized file sounded better, but it was within the margins where I would consider that I might be imagining things.   I very much doubt I could pass an blind test of otimized versus normal files.

Thank you for trying. I'm not sure why wasapi didn't work, directsound in general is not an ideal candidate for these tests. I'll try to look into it.

[manueljenkin]

@PeterSt @idiot_savant I requested a one day gap. I hope we can continue the analysis with lesser speculations/vague-assertions after that.

 

[manueljenkin]

6 hours ago, idiot_savant said:

@manueljenkin - I guess it really is very deep thinking that's required?

 

 

 

your friendly neighbourhood idiot

I asked a couple of days gap, half more day left.

[manueljenkin]

3 minutes ago, fas42 said:

 

Both techniques are about reducing electrical noise

No. This tool works completely different from the working of an oversampler. If any, the oversampler would be causing more noise due to the processing brute involved, unless it's coded in a super efficient way, like in xxhighend.

[manueljenkin]

@fas42 just wanted to let you know I requested a couple of days gap on this thread, as I'm working on something relevant to this topic and I feel it would channelize things better for the rest of the thread. Everyone else who has been on this thread has shown their part of kindness. Kindly co-operate. Just this one day.

[manueljenkin]

53 minutes ago, idiot_savant said:

@manueljenkin - look, I have no desire to make anyone look foolish - you’ve had a few days now to explain how this phenomenon you’ve described works, we’re still waiting after your self imposed time limit
 

I *can* talk to people on this thread about the values or not of buffers, but not while waiting for your explanation as promised

 

if you can’t come up with anything by the morning ( say UK time 9AM ) I’m going to lose interest I’m afraid.
 

you are, of course, welcome to discuss this, maybe you’ve even changed your mind? A little bit?

 

With the very best spirit of Co-operation and mutual knowledge 

 

your friendly neighbourhood idiot 

 

 

 

 

 

If you're in such a haste, you can do as you wish. Or you can wait a little more. I'm sorry that it's taking a little longer than expected, things like this take some effort.

[manueljenkin]

People who are in touch with me will know the effort I'm putting, and for the rest, my absence from the rest of the threads might be able to let you know that I am working on the same thing.

[manueljenkin]

25 minutes ago, Racerxnet said:

Some effort to understand exactly how it works? Shouldn't you have already known this prior to your post....

Not responding to your speculations on what I'm working on!

[manueljenkin]

7 hours ago, PeterSt said:

 

Is he ?

 

 

If you suggest it is played from RAM ... maybe. But you are guessing that. Abd if you are not guessing that, the "claimant" is guessing that (assumed you refer to @manueljenkin here). The author is not claiming that - at least not that I am aware of.

Yes I'm using SSD and tried with players that buffer the full song to RAM before playback.

 

6 hours ago, idiot_savant said:

@andrewinukm

I’m not trying to hang anyone - @manueljenkin hasn’t measured anything, claims to have an EE background and makes preposterous claims. I’ve given him every opportunity to back out, but he keeps digging.

What a way to skew your narratives. I didn't in this thread invoke anything about my technical qualifications. You were trying for an appeal to authority in another thread by saying you're an EE and something should never work, and I said I'm also an EE and there's nothing in EE that establishes the impossibility of the situation you mentioned.

 

I don't have any reason to back out. I hear changes, and since this area is very intricate, I'm doing other experiments to find the true reasoning. I can give a dozen speculations now, all of which are within bounds of EE but I digress, I want to share something concrete when I can. I underestimated the time required, as there are dependencies that take some while to get fulfilled.