PulseAudio 2.0 Is Set To Be Released Very Soon

[DanL]

Even consumer-grade DACs are incredibly powerful these days, so ... I can't see any reason to buy a discrete audio card that does hardware mixing.

I can easily hear the difference between my M-Audio Revo and my onboard ALC892 using the same headphones. The M-Audio cost < $70 when I bought it 7 years ago and it was worth every penny.

Funny thing is, I know a lot of audiophiles personally who are perfectly happy with their consumer-grade HD Audio or HDMI Audio solution.

Funny thing is, I know a lot of people that like to think of themselves as audiophiles with music collections full of 128kb mp3's...

[curaga]

Audio in OpenCL on the GPU? Dear god the latency in that idea...

[TemplarGR]

allquixotic has me covered about PulseAudio. I agree with him and i thank him for his answers.

Threads like this are the perfect example of what is keeping Linux and its ecosystem down. There is a sick mentality that affects a big part of the Linux community. Many people use software or entire distibutions that are niche and then brag about it on the internet to feel good about themselves. They believe that just because they do not follow the mainstream they are special and deserve to be put on a pedestal, and they attack the majority of users for their choices.

So, PulseAudio, a useful audio daemon that is used by all mainstream distros, is getting a new version. So what? Does it make you feel bad about yourselves? You feel lonely because most of the people are different use cases than you? You think that the whole world should use what you are using? You think that your point of view is the only valuable one and all others are morons for using other software solutions than you?

What is the reason? Why in every news topic about a piece of software, like PA or GNOME, the biggest percentage of comments are about attacking or defending its use? Seriously, all of you, should question your motives... It may be the case that you have no life...

Linux and opensource in general needs cooperation and useful discussions in order to move forward. If all the energy you trolls use to fight were used to code, we would have "won the war" on Windows on the desktop a long time ago...

[allquixotic]

allquixotic has me covered about PulseAudio. I agree with him and i thank him for his answers.

Threads like this are the perfect example of what is keeping Linux and its ecosystem down. There is a sick mentality that affects a big part of the Linux community. Many people use software or entire distibutions that are niche and then brag about it on the internet to feel good about themselves. They believe that just because they do not follow the mainstream they are special and deserve to be put on a pedestal, and they attack the majority of users for their choices.

So, PulseAudio, a useful audio daemon that is used by all mainstream distros, is getting a new version. So what? Does it make you feel bad about yourselves? You feel lonely because most of the people are different use cases than you? You think that the whole world should use what you are using? You think that your point of view is the only valuable one and all others are morons for using other software solutions than you?

What is the reason? Why in every news topic about a piece of software, like PA or GNOME, the biggest percentage of comments are about attacking or defending its use? Seriously, all of you, should question your motives... It may be the case that you have no life...

Linux and opensource in general needs cooperation and useful discussions in order to move forward. If all the energy you trolls use to fight were used to code, we would have "won the war" on Windows on the desktop a long time ago...

People tend to get up in arms when they feel like they're being "forced" into using a particular software they don't want (because it's enabled by default), even if there's a very easy way to disable it. That's the main reason why people bitch about PA -- because it's the default on so many distros that people would otherwise want to use.

It's a false dichotomy, though. What people don't often realize (or admit) is that every distro you install is going to "force" you to use some software by default. Otherwise your distro would begin as a pile of source code and you would have to use a pre-existing machine to compile stuff just to get started. I know a few people who actually do that (Gentoo is excluded because it, too, "forces" you to use its base system, even at stage 0) but IMHO this is a huge waste of time if you're doing this for a production system. It's great to do in order to learn about the build system and so forth, but once you've learned all you can, doing this "for fun" is a waste of time.

Basically, if someone is "forced" to use a piece of software that they don't hate, they're OK with it. So if somebody likes gcc, and their Gentoo install forces them to use gcc instead of llvm, they aren't going to bitch about it. If, however, they absolutely abhor gcc and insist on using LLVM for every compile on their system, then yes, they're going to get up in arms about being "forced" to use gcc.

DIstro maintainers have to make decisions that they feel please most of their users, in order to provide a usable base system that addresses the most common use cases and preferences (often at the expense of less-common use cases and preferences, when they conflict with the majority). You can't please everyone all the time; you can only please some of the people some of the time. People who don't want to use mainstream software such as PA will just have to go live in their own private dark corner with ${FOO_DISTRO} that does what they want. But as long as they can find some distro that provides an experience they're happy with, I honestly can't see a reason to complain. Except that people will always complain no matter what you do.

[ultimA]

It is not really bitching or anything like that. I have nothing against PA and I am not trying to point out any of its mistakes, if there are any. I only asked about its advantages over ALSA not because I think ALSA is better but to decide whether I should try switching one of my computers to it. For now I'll stick to ALSA, not because I think it is better but because I don't think PA would make a difference for ME. And since everything works right now, you know the golden rule of engineering "don't touch a working system". Switching a perfectly working installation to PA just because it is "more modern" is just as stupid as trying to prove that ALSA is superior. I can only speak for myself but I think the others trying to argue with allquixotic have similar motivations. Don't look down on us, it is just that we have a working system without PA so why touch it? This doesn't mean we do not see why PA is better for the majority.

[liam]

I can easily hear the difference between my M-Audio Revo and my onboard ALC892 using the same headphones. The M-Audio cost < $70 when I bought it 7 years ago and it was worth every penny.

Were these double blind tests you performed? If not, confirmation bias is a very real, and powerful, effect.
What little I've read about audio testing indicates that it is a very difficult thing to do even in a "controlled" environment (I use quotes there b/c there seems to be some doubt as to how to create a truly controlled environment even when considering professional studio sound isolation).

[bug77]

Were these double blind tests you performed? If not, confirmation bias is a very real, and powerful, effect.
What little I've read about audio testing indicates that it is a very difficult thing to do even in a "controlled" environment (I use quotes there b/c there seems to be some doubt as to how to create a truly controlled environment even when considering professional studio sound isolation).

Eh, he should be using digital output. Then any crappy onboard sound card becomes just as good as expensive dedicated ones.

[malkavian]

Eh, he should be using digital output. Then any crappy onboard sound card becomes just as good as expensive dedicated ones.

If you only play digital sound sources (AC3, DTS) that's true because you use "passtrought" to send the sound to speakers, and then the Digital to Analog Converter (DAC) of the speakers will tell the quality. I don't know if the conversion to AC3 would suppose a possible quality loss.

[GreatEmerald]

Threads like this are the perfect example of what is keeping Linux and its ecosystem down. There is a sick mentality that affects a big part of the Linux community. Many people use software or entire distibutions that are niche and then brag about it on the internet to feel good about themselves. They believe that just because they do not follow the mainstream they are special and deserve to be put on a pedestal, and they attack the majority of users for their choices.

Now that's just generalising and completely untrue. Things like PA and GNOME 3 were in fact pretty bad at start. I believe both fixed the most important issues by now. It's just that it's rather difficult to convey to everyone that the problems have been solved, as they got an infamous reputation earlier. It's definitely not about the minority trying to oppress someone or anything. In fact, many of the PA users had no clue they were using it to begin with, so it's not a valid point anyway. Of course, there are always a few people that say baseless things, but it's not like anyone considers their opinions anyway.

However, discussions are important, and that's how things are improved - or people are persuaded by giving relevant information.

People tend to get up in arms when they feel like they're being "forced" into using a particular software they don't want (because it's enabled by default), even if there's a very easy way to disable it. That's the main reason why people bitch about PA -- because it's the default on so many distros that people would otherwise want to use.

I don't think this is the case here in particular. Disabling PA is so easy that it's not an issue at all. It's just that historically having it enabled had caused issues.

It is not really bitching or anything like that. I have nothing against PA and I am not trying to point out any of its mistakes, if there are any. I only asked about its advantages over ALSA not because I think ALSA is better but to decide whether I should try switching one of my computers to it. For now I'll stick to ALSA, not because I think it is better but because I don't think PA would make a difference for ME. And since everything works right now, you know the golden rule of engineering "don't touch a working system". Switching a perfectly working installation to PA just because it is "more modern" is just as stupid as trying to prove that ALSA is superior. I can only speak for myself but I think the others trying to argue with allquixotic have similar motivations. Don't look down on us, it is just that we have a working system without PA so why touch it? This doesn't mean we do not see why PA is better for the majority.

Agreed. This thread has been largely informative and polite, not counting a few posts.

[vsteel]

Few things to point out.

1. Audio card that takes a power tail from the power supply like a video card. Asus Xonar Essence STX (I have one and it is great but it needs extra power to run the built in headphone amps).

2. I want bit perfect audio but Pulse can't do it that I am aware. I am curious to see the new sample rates it see if the sound quality improves.

3. Right now if you want bit perfect audio, get deadbeef. Set the sound settings to use the ALSA driver and bypass pulse or any other mixing software. Stream the digial out to your expencive speakers. Because deadbeef is taking over the sound you can't play any other sounds, but if you are really trying to listen to your 24bit 96Khz or 192Khz songs you are not going to be wanting any other sounds in there.

For those that try and quote what humans can hear and how it doesn't make any difference I can hear it. From CD to 96Khz. Though I will say that it could be the extra bits more than the frequency. I have some 24bit 48Khz songs that sound better than CD. Most people who I have done a back to back sound test with, can tell the difference. Personally I can't hear the difference between 96Khz and 192Khz though. I have some of the same recordings at different frequencies and even as MP3s at the highest settings. It does make a difference. I should mention I have B&W 704 speakers with the rest of the sound system to match. My high quality music is all recorded in flac and are high resolution from the studio (www.HDtracks.com), not upsampled from a 16bit 44Khz song. I also sit in the sweet spot and listen to music doing nothing else, no playing games, no fiddeling with things, just sitting and totally imersed in the music. If I could get a pass through setting with no mixing and no buffering in PA that would make me happy.

For my everyday stuff, playing games and watching youtube videos and whatnot, Pulse seems to work great for me.