Snakeoil OS: The Blog

Many tweaks in my audiophile journey are discovered by accident. In this blog we will talk about one of the best kept hifi secrets - phase.

A surprisingly large number of people wired their system up wrongly, getting the left and right channels mixed up is more common than you think! But phase is something more difficult, and tend to catch people off guard.

Phase (also known as polarity for audio) is a common issue for people with balanced gear, however it may apply to single ended equipment as well in very rare cases.

In the past I was unaware of any reliable ways to test for this, until the Don pointed out the pop test.

More on this later, let’s get some of the basics out of the way first.

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So what is native playback? In essence it means the digital music files are played back in:

• Native Format: music files are played in their original format using the original codec (without re-sampling, format conversion,etc). In other words, lossless audio such as FLAC is played direct as FLAC, DSD direct as DSD, WAV direct as WAV, and so on.
• Bit Perfect Mode: data is played directly without any manipulation, digital signal processing or volume control applied. 

This method does not necessary imply worse/better sound quality, or less/more accurate reproduction. There are far too many variables in an audio system for anybody to reliably state native playback on it’s own is good or bad for you.

However, one advantage with native playback is it allows you to better understand some of the variables in your audio setup. Grasping these variables gives you a better picture of what is good and what is bad in your audio system, insights that may well prove invaluable when auditioning gear for your next upgrade.

As an example, your system may be better at playing DSD when compared to standard 44.1 kHz redbook, or WAV better than FLAC. People often choose the better playback method and move on to something else, and that is not a good thing. This is call masking - masking happens when you do something that changes (masks) the effects of another.

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This is a big thank you to everyone who are using the Snakeoil Operating System as their primary computer audio player. Your continual support is very encouraging!

My apologies that I was somewhat pre-occupied lately. The economy in my country is not doing well at all right now. I’m no longer working in the oil and gas industry and am currenting working in a different field and role. While I will miss the academic and scientific nature of my previous job (and friends), I am happy to say I’m now working my dream job.  And it wouldn’t happen if not for this Snakeoil project.

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Beta relase, 0.1.5 (pre-release-20161002):

Click this link to hit the forum to download

Note this is just a firmware release, if you are new to Snakeoil please download and install the ISO first.

Changelog since pre-release-20160904

• Updated Squeezelite Ralph to latest commit
• Updated mpd-git to latest commit
• Updated mpd-v19 to 0.19.19
• Potentially fixed a bug when RoonServer isn’t starting
• Potentially fixed a problem when moving one SSD/HDD from one computer to another
• Only show “Start LMS: Yes|No” messages when you are using Squeezelite players