Re: [Banshee-List] Banshee is bit perfect in Linux, but not in Mac OS X!?

[Eoin Hennessy <eoin hennessy gmail com>]

Banshee relies on GStreamer for audio and video playback on all supported platforms. So, if audio is being resampled before output on OSX this isn't something we can fix in the Banshee code base.

On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 11:46 PM, Matthias Brennwald <matthias brennwald org> wrote:

On 19.03.2009, at 02:14, Wade Menard wrote:

On Wed, 18 Mar 2009 22:47 +0100, "Matthias Brennwald"
<matthias brennwald org> wrote:

Dear all

As far as I can tell, the Linux version of Banshee does not resample
the music data before playback (i.e. sound playback is done using the
exact data in the sound files, no changes in the sample rate or bit
depth). At least, the sound data is sent to GStreamer without
resampling or changing the bit depth. The Mac OS X version of Banshee,
however, seems to play the music using the sample rate and bit depth
set using the 'Audio MIDI Setup' program (which is a utility program
that comes with Mac OS X). In other words, the sound data is resampled
before playback (this behaviour is the same in iTunes). I (and MANY
others) do not like this resampling at all, because the resampling
affects the sound quality. Also, I think it's unfortunate and
undesired that the Linux and Mac OS X versions of Banshee don't work
in the same way.

Therefore my question: is there a way to control the resampling
behaviour in Banshee? An alternative to iTunes that would allow music
playback without resampling would be gorgeous!

As you say, this is a side effect of interfacing with
Quicktime/CoreAudio, which apparently has a poor quality sample rate
conversion algorithm. iTunes actually has it's own sample rate
conversion algorithm they say is higher quality than the one CoreAudio
uses, but apparently its still not good enough for some audiophiles.

An option would be to test Gstreamer's sample rate conversion elements
(i'm assuming it has libsamplerate available to use in OSX?) to see if
they perform better than CoreAudio's SRC.

Uhm, why use sample-rate conversion at all? Wouldn't it be much nicer if the original sample rate (and bit depth) was used? Core Audio certainly works with all sample rates (and bit depths) one could wish for.

I'm not involved with any of this code though so maybe Eoin Hennessy has
some more insight.

Ok. How can I contact him?

Thanks
Matthias

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