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Has anyone compared the sound quality of differant OS's on Raspberry Pi ?
AND
How about differant models ?
Follow Ups:
I compared various USB DAC setups with rPi3 & 4. The players used were the stock music player shipped in the rpos, Moode and Volumio.For the rPi3 acceptable results were achieved operating with keyboard and monitor attached, with server software disabled, using the player (VLC?) that shipped with the OS. Enabling server software hosed usb playback.
Since the idea was to use the USB output and headless operation I then purchased an RPi 4 and proceed to test with server software enabled. I compared Moode and Volumio and found Moode to produce acceptable results.
Test was a USB connected harddrive contain a library of flac music files.
Edits: 02/03/21 02/03/21 02/04/21
I've have RPI 3s and 4s in my systems. I've used Picoreplayer, Hifiberry and Volumio OS systems. Sound quality is the same from any combo of these. All of the RPI systems for music are the Linux OS stripped down to just those modules need to run the RPi for music duty. There are a number of others besides the ones I've tried. I use Picoreplayer with my RPi 4 for USB out in my main system and Hifiberry for my RPI 3 / HFB DAC2HD player in my other system. I passed on Volumio as it was flaky when indexing my local library, but that was not a sound quality issue.What does make a difference is how they are used in the system. If you use a HAT as your DAC, which one you use will indeed affect the sound quality. I've used the Hifiberry standard, Pro and 2HD DACs and they are respectively better in that order. I've also used a Hifiberry Digi Pro out for SPDIF feed to an external DAC, as well as the USB output. Those last two feeds were identical in sound, with the specific DAC used determining what you hear.
One note about the USB output is that the RPi 3 circuit shares the USB connections with the ethernet connection. This makes the RPi 3 rather unstable for use with a USB DAC. The RPi 4 doesn't have this problem and the USB output works without problem.
So, my view is that you chose which RPi OS based on features and ease of use for your particular setup and preferences.
Edits: 02/03/21
This is the logical conclusion. There is no point in comparing software unless the hardware is of a high standard, because the results will vary from system to system. Some posters here who says A is better than B use relatively poor dacs
There is also the matter of variable audio and other playback settings from OS to OS.
I do not agree.
Much of the logic applies to all platforms.
More then 10years ago people (including me) were tweaking PCs like hell.
Now it's RPi tweaking time.
I also tweaked the Squeezebox Touch (and offered a Touch Toolbox for the crowd in ~2011)
The logic "increasing efficiency" has always been the same on all platforms. And it always worked.
What I did experience the better the HW the less impact had the SW (tuning). I still havn't found a DAC who wouldn't show any difference.
And btw. People were and still are running megabucks super-highend DACs and were still experiencing differences after tweaking the upstream environment. The price-tag is not necessarily a factor here.
The cheaper the DAC the more impact! Not necessarily.
I guess you've seen how <$500 DACs measure nowadays. Even if a cheaper DAC benefits more of SW tuning, it's great isn't it. With no extra money, you easily step up one or two leagues.
It's not that simple.
Enjoy.
****************************************************
blog latest: *** The Audio Streaming Series - tuning kit pCP ***
What you explained in your post is generally what I've experienced as well.
Me Too! --- I've tried a lot of them... PiCorePlayer, MoODE, Volumio, Roon ---- Sound Quality is Great on all of them.
Your choice mostly boils down to features rather than Sound Quality.
It's not about OS.
To be able to compare these things "by ear" you need to know what
you're doing.
The actual OS is just a tiny part of the subject. There's the audio app,
the kernel, the architecture, asf, asf.
A little change can make a huge difference.
I can tell you already now. Your efforts will be wasted. You gonna draw conclusions that'll lead you no-where.
Anyhow.
Since I am in the Linux tuning business for quite some time, I can tell you that Moode Audio is probably the best RPiOS based OS.
However. There are not very many OSes who run the 64bit userspace yet.
DietPi had a Beta out.
All I am saying a full 64bit OS on a RPi4 is the entry ticket.
piCorePlayer is IMO the most advanced for the time being. But that's squeezelite territory. That gets you back to the question what player app you'd like to use.
This could become an endless discussion.
That's why I'm out.
Good luck with your project! Avoid fooling yourself and others!
Enjoy.
soundcheck's blog latest *** The Audio Streaming Series ***
I agree, the trio here don't seem t know this.
I've used both the 3B and the 4 and if there is a difference I can't hear it. I have only used Volumio on both, except one time I tried Roon and couldn't get it to work so I gave up.
I could be wrong here but don't all of the various implementations still use the same audio engine?
I am talking about the standard OS's
( primarily Stretch vs Buster )
No add on boards .
Basically Alsa vs PulseAudio ?
I need to set up an experiment .....
If you use ALSA direct, you can get closer to the hardware, avoid another software layer and another set of mixing/resampling issues/configurations.I am currently playing with 64-bit Debian 10 (Buster) with a newer backports PREEMPT_RT kernel from AVLinux that runs under Debian 10 on an old ASUS 5ATIONT Intel Atom D525 mobo using 64-bit JRMC26 straight to ALSA, no resampling, PCM [44.1 - 384] and DSD via DoP to 2 USB2 DACS. No dropouts.
Also using a lightweight display manager and desktop which helped with the old slow hardware.
Edits: 02/03/21
