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Re: He said "lossless", y'all! Wake up!

Hi Jon,

This topic was initially raised in Computer Asylum in a discussion about whether or not there are sonic differences in PC playback of WAV vs FLAC files.

I am watching realtime the amount of data in the buffer of my playback software, and when I play compressed vs. un-compressed data it is about the same. Most important, with the current buffer settings I am using, it NEVER falls below 3000ms of data.

So, the data is sitting there in the playback software buffer for several seconds waiting for the sound card to process it. Moreover, the decoding position (which I can also view) is merely waiting for the buffer to clear to feed it more data (whether I use WAV or compressed data), and it never falls behind at all. Of course, with over 3000ms, it could fall behind quite a bit and it would not make any difference, but the CPU is coasting at less than 5% load, and the decoder is just waiting for room in the buffer to put more data.

Also, please keep in mind that after the data has sat for over 3 seconds in the playback buffer, it then sits for about 50ms in the sound card driver's buffer, before it is fed to the hardware for output.

So, it would seem with a reasonably powerful dedicated CPU, and the buffer sizes used in PC audio playback (usually buffered in at least 2 places in software and 1 hardware), there are no differences in timing of the output stream as seen by the sound card hardware, and jitter will not be increased or decreased by the decoder processing compressed vs. WAV data.

Anyone interested in validating for themselves the software playback buffer processing in FOOBAR, can find it in Playback/Output/Status Display. If you are using a pro-audio sound card you may also be able to monitor it's driver buffer as well.

Lynn

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