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Mac OS X audio driver and SQ

Blumlein 88

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Okay, spent a little time checking whether some players are bit perfect. If the OP wants to try another and know it is bitperfect for comparison. They are free and cost nothing for a try out.
@RZangpo2

Pine Player is bitperfect. Free in the app store.
Cog is bitperfect. Free open source in the app store.
Audacity is bitperfect. Free download.
Reaper which is a DAW is bitperfect. Free trial download.

With all these you want to check what device they are set to feed, see that volume is set to 100%, open Midi in the Utilities folder and confirm everything is set for the same sample rate.

I tried VLC and couldn't find a way to make it bitperfect. Same for 5k player. These are primarily video players anyway.

For this I used a Macbook Pro running Monterey. Fed the USB out to a Topping D10 Balanced which also has digital outputs. Fed the digital output stream via SPDIF to the Zen Tour recording interface which recorded the digital stream. Then compared the 10 second music snippet I used to see if bits were exactly the same. The Zen Tour was connected to a totally separate computer so no accidental loopback. Those I said were bitperfect definitely are.
 
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Marc v E

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Okay, spent a little time checking whether some players are bit perfect. If the OP wants to try another and know it is bitperfect for comparison. They are free and cost nothing for a try out.
@RZangpo2

Pine Player is bitperfect. Free in the app store.
Cog is bitperfect. Free open source in the app store.
Audacity is bitperfect. Free download.
Reaper which is a DAW is bitperfect. Free trial download.

With all these you want to check what device they are set to feed, see that volume is set to 100%, open Midi in the Utilities folder and confirm everything is set for the same sample rate.

I tried VLC and couldn't find a way to make it bitperfect. Same for 5k player. These are primarily video players anyway.

For this I used a Macbook Pro running Monterey. Fed the USB out to a Topping D10 Balanced which also has digital outputs. Fed the digital output stream via SPDIF to the Zen Tour recording interface which recorded the digital stream. Then compared the 10 second music snippet I used to see if bits were exactly the same. The Zen Tour was connected to a totally separate computer so no accidental loopback. Those I said were bitperfect definitely are.
Thank you for providing this list of bit perfect players! Can I ask how you checked this? I would like to be able to but I don't know what to check or test for.
 

Blumlein 88

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Thank you for providing this list of bit perfect players! Can I ask how you checked this? I would like to be able to but I don't know what to check or test for.
It is explained in the end of my post. The Topping as well as putting out an analog signal will pass thru the digital signal it has received. Does not change it. So I route that to a recording interface with a digital input where it records it on another computer. So all digital all the way no changes unless the software player changed the bits.

I then put the original file in Audacity. Put the recorded copy in Audacity. I have to do some trimming to line all the bits up precisely. I invert the recording in Audacity and combine them. If I get all zeroes all the bits were exactly the same. I used Audacity to put a single maximum sample one second before the beginning and 1 second after the end because it makes it really easy to line up the tracks. You also could download Pkane's Deltawave and it would take two tracks, line them up and tell you if it is bit perfect.

https://deltaw.org/ to get Deltawave. It is free and useful. Another of his softwares I use a lot is Multitone. A link to it is on the same page.
 
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RZangpo2

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Okay, spent a little time checking whether some players are bit perfect. If the OP wants to try another and know it is bitperfect for comparison. They are free and cost nothing for a try out.
@RZangpo2

Pine Player is bitperfect. Free in the app store.
Cog is bitperfect. Free open source in the app store.
Audacity is bitperfect. Free download.
Reaper which is a DAW is bitperfect. Free trial download.

With all these you want to check what device they are set to feed, see that volume is set to 100%, open Midi in the Utilities folder and confirm everything is set for the same sample rate.

I tried VLC and couldn't find a way to make it bitperfect. Same for 5k player. These are primarily video players anyway.

For this I used a Macbook Pro running Monterey. Fed the USB out to a Topping D10 Balanced which also has digital outputs. Fed the digital output stream via SPDIF to the Zen Tour recording interface which recorded the digital stream. Then compared the 10 second music snippet I used to see if bits were exactly the same. The Zen Tour was connected to a totally separate computer so no accidental loopback. Those I said were bitperfect definitely are.
Thank you for this, Blumlein! I will try one of the bit perfect players and report back.
 
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