Thread: Software options for Tuning

my midbass & subbass is real nice in my front stage... I'm using illusion audio carbon fibre 10's in my doors, & my doors weigh almost double what they weighed stock my horns are illusion audios too, & they even top the image dynamics slightly in pure sq according to the few reviews of them from back then... there were only 1,000 sets of these ever built..., I like bang for the buck too, & this is part of the reason I choose this setup to begin with... gotta love ebay

I've got to start downloading these pluggins & try running them & see what the loads are.... & how reliable they can work togeather... I'm thinking initially of running this through the 700 in bypass mode...., but this'll do nothing for x-over testing & delay I guess, just pure eq initially...

:d

yeah, I'm curious about running everything, time delay & x-overs too... maybe it won't be so bad.....

if this is like not too processor intensive, man... this will be the next great thing in carputer audio, & maybe even car audio in general.... the alpines are great, but there not the end all/ be all ... it would have to be super impressive to have everything controlled through the pc.....

Yes when I tested the 31 band EQ with winamp I didn't see any real extra prcoessor load. And it seemed very stable and quality seemed very well just by listening to it.

Now, if you have an audiocard compatiple with the KXproject drivers, I tested the crossover function and it seemed to work pretty well, easy to adjust, but its going to be hard to use on a small screen. (Turbo you will probably be ok ) The problem lies in the time delay plugin for KX. The simple small delay uses too much of the resources because it uses 2400 samples ~ 50ms which only allows you to use 3 "small time delay" instances. I think at most 10ms is plenty. If the plugin dsp programmer gurus of kx can knock the sample size down to a fifth of that, then we are getting closer. Another downside to the ufx plugins for kx, is the crossover option is either 12 or 24dB and the lowest freq is 40Hz. I would like to see at least 6,12,18,24 and be able to go as low as 30Hz on the crossover.

Here's what I envison...

ASIO drivers-> ASIO compatible sound card-> Kx driver compatible sound card (Time delay,crossover)->Winamp->Winamp vst plugin->31 band vst plugin EQ


Has anyone tried the foobar player with the dsp plugins?

EDIT:
For those using the creative sound cards, I saw a winamp plugin that resamples BEFORE it gets to the soundcard so that it is more accurate than the hardware doing it. It sounds like a bandaid for the 44.1-48kHz resampling problem. Has anyone tried it? I guess its process intensive from a review.

Older resampling plugin
http://www.winamp.com/plugins/details.php?id=141806


New Resampling plugin
http://www.winamp.com/plugins/details.php?id=144826

durwood - great input!

your edit reminds me of an issue I was having trouble working through in my head.

If we do all of the processing on the computer, that means that we will be pretty much stuck with 48kHz.

Most of you know that I have been researching bit-accurate/bit-perfect playback in a bit of detail.

Then it hit me (don't you hate it when you overlook something so incredibly obvious!>)....it's not a bit-perfect stream if you tune on the computer....

but wouldn't it still make sense to strive for bit perfect in just about every aspect so that you know you are getting the true 44.1kHz rate before any processing? then you process the sound, and spit it out, making sure windows doesn't resample it to 48kHz then either...

is any of that coherent? anyone have any input?

?????? when it comes to this stuff I gotta duck, cause it's just a bit over my head I do plan on doing a bit of research & starting with your bit perfect leads though.... I gotta learn more of the digital end of this I guess....

My brain hurts I am digging back into the depths of my mind trying to recal what I learned in school 4 years ago about sampling theories and dsp...if only I had my books that are locked up in my storage unit. I am going to have to roll this around the old noggin this weekend.

Here is something else to chew on along with the "bit-perfect discussion" taken from the winamp creative soundcard resampling plugin:

[The SBLive! issue]

SBLive! has a low quality resample to 48KHz algoritm (or multirate filter
kernel too small...) maybe because to keep low latency to audio stream ...

This is the SBLive! (and not only) problem:

absolutely any audio stream is converted to 48KHz.
the worst performance is 44.1KHz audio streams (cd audio).

Audigy has the same issue except it resamples to 96000Hz but still
kernel size too small so 1% IMD at 16KHz for Audigy2 (www.tomshardware.com)

[The solution:]

my high quality resample to 48KHz (or any >= 48000, that means 96000Hz too)
component for Winamp3.

Testing results:

using SBLive! to resample to 48000:
19KHz IMD=20%
18KHz IMD=10%
16KHz IMD=5%
14KHz IMD=1%
You don't believe me ...???? I've included in component pack generated tones
used in my test versions of 44100Hz and 48000Hz ... Should sound the same !!!

using my component for KernelLength=16000 samples:
19KHz IMD=0.01%
18KHz IMD=0.001% ; can't measure less than this
16KHz IMD=0%

CPU Load:
<14% on Duron 825MHz for KernelSize 16000
<5% on Duron 825MHz for KernelSize 6000
<1% on AthlonXP2000+ for KernelSize 20000

[known issues]
there are no known issues

<TargetSampleRate> specifies resample target frequency of filter (should be
48000 for SBLive! cards, 96000 for Audigy, and this must be the working
Samplerate of the DSP on your soundcard!!!

<KernelSize> is the multirate kernel filter length in samples of the lowpass
filter. Here are some hints for 48000&96000:
16000 samples for quality described above
6000 samples are enough for 0.1% IMD @ 19KHz and no audible IMD
(IMD is above 20khz and should be rejected by the hardware
lowpass filter of your soundcard)
altering this results:
higher KernelSize => higher quality more CPU load.
lower KernelSize => lower quality less CPU load.
don't alter this if you do not know what means this or if you do not check
the results on a spectrum analyzer!
I've used as spectrum analyzer Goldwave 4.23 and CoolEdit2000 to measure
IMD. To record result just loopback your soundcard output to Line-In and
view the result over SpectrumAnalyzer in realtime.

[some hints]
If you really want your SBLive/Audigy/Audigy2 to sound perfect I recommand you
to download and install KX Drivers wich you can find at: www.kxproject.com.
These drivers are opensource and also freeware.
Best sound : KX Drivers + SBLive!Bugfix plugin. Try it!

[Contact:]
email: adi111p@yahoo.com


P.S. Haven't you noticed that DVD movies (sampled to 48000Hz) sounded perfect
on your sound system and Audio CD's didn't????? This is why!

another advice: Use KX drivers for SBLive and Audigy and Audigy2 soundcards. You will get
professional EQ-s, filters, 5.1,6.1,7.1 Decoders, but you will need some time to understand
how to configure it

download it from www.kxproject.com

EDIT: IMD=Intermodulation Distortion (Distortion/inaccuracies from using too small of a sample size during the resampling phase)

The plugin resamples before it gets to the soundcard so the soundcard doesn't create the distortion from my understanding...unless I misinterpreted what he is trying to say.