Bit-Perfect Audacious with DSD support

[maris-ab]

First very big thanks to all Audacious developers for creating so wonderful software.
As variety of different music format increases I have added to Audacious DSD format support.
For excellent listening You need external USB DAC to play DSD files in native mode.
By converting them into PCM You are having artifacts from both DSD and PCM coding systems and then Hi-Res music does not sound so nice and transparent.

DSD format is used in SACD discs (Super Audio CD)
It contains Hi-Res Stereo and Multichannel DSD64 format music.
There are also many download services where You can download Hi-Res DSD files.

I am wondering how big interest from our community is to have possibility to play DSD files in Audacious.

You can find fork of Audacious supporting DSD format in my github:
https://github.com/maris-ab/audacious
https://github.com/maris-ab/audacious-plugins

DSD Playback
With this feature You can play DSD files in native and DoP format on DAC supporting DSD.
It is using ffaudio FFmpeg Plugin but You need to enable DSD in it:
[x] Enable DSD stream output

For Linux DSD playback is supported through ALSA and PipeWire Output.
For MacOS it works on CoreAudio output in DoP mode, You should enable [x] DSD as DoP
and during playing keep Software Volume to maximum and use only hardware volume on Your DAC.
It is because MacOS does not support Native DSD playback.
I have added also DSF file creation in FileWriter Plugin.
Changes works also on Windows, but as playing of DSD is possible only through ASIO or WASAPI, I am planning to make new OutputPlugin for Audacious based on PortAudio library.

I was searching for such music player what can play SACD files on Linux for 10 years and understood that all is only in my hands and found Audacious what can fulfill my wish.
I have reviewed several players and found very complicate code inside.
When I looked inside Audacious I was pleasantly surprised how easy is to understand written code and adapt it to my needs.

Bit-Perfect audio
There are many discussions in Internet about Bit-Perfect audio playback.
As current Audacious is using FLOAT32 for internal audio path, it is bit perfect till 24 bit audio.
In my fork I have added possibility to use FLOAT64 for audio path what makes Audacious Bit-Perfect.
Effects plugins also uses FLOAT64 for processing except two are in FLOAT32 - "Sample Rate Converter" and "Speed and Pitch"
ReplayGain and Visualizations are left in FLOAT32, only audio path is changed to FLOAT64.
You can still compile audacious in FLOAT32 mode by changing only one line in src/libaudcore/audio.h.in

Maybe Bit-Perfect audio is more marketing trick as most of the PCM music is digitalized using not more than 24 bits,
But nowadays on 64-bit systems it does not requires additional processing resource, then why not to use it.
On PCM music You will not hear difference, but if Your DAC supports 32-Bit PCM then on converting from DSD to PCM You will not loose your 8 bits.
I found also that using PipeWire with FLOAT64 there are better sound quality when it is converting to default internal 48Khz sample rate from different source rates.

SACD support
I have also adapted for Audacious foobar2000 SACD Decoder Input PlugIn v1.5.11 created by Maxim V.Anisiutkin.
It is working very well and soon can came to git repository.
It contains SACD decoder, DSDIFF, DSF and DSD Wavpack support with multi track and multichannel support.
It also contains DST to DSD and DSD to PCM converters.

DSDIFF, DSF and DSD Wavpack are open standards.
But are we allowed to include in audacious repository SACD decoder?
SACD documentation we can find in Web but inside it there is notice:

LICENSING
Application of the System Description Super Audio CD in both disc and equipment products requires a separate license from Philips.
Are we allowed to put SACD decoder in github or should keep it in some fuzzy form without scarletbook definitions.

Best regards and maybe somebody will find my work useful.

[bigmcnuggets]

yo this sounds awesome, Im installing immediatly!

[bullshoy55]

I am too dumb to figure out how to install this, any directions would be appreciated because I am ripping my hair out after losing all my personalizations after moving from Foobar 32 bit to 64 bit so I need a new DSD SACD player...

[maris-ab]

You need to compile audacious from source.

In Linux and MacOS I like to compile using meson:
cd audacious
meson build
meson compile -C build
by root: meson install -C build
cd ../audacious-plugins

In Windows there is very good documentation in source:
audacious/win32/notes.html
But You need to execute:
./autogen.sh
before
./configure --prefix=/C/aud

[bullshoy55]

You need to compile audacious from source.

In Linux and MacOS I like to compile using meson: cd audacious meson build meson compile -C build by root: meson install -C build cd ../audacious-plugins

In Windows there is very good documentation in source: audacious/win32/notes.html But You need to execute: ./autogen.sh before ./configure --prefix=/C/aud

Thank you so much for the response, I have shifted however to converting DSD to DSF using SACDExtractGUI then using those files in Audacious. This is probably for the best since I use Wave32 out and not ASIO or WASAPI. For DFF files I use Potplayer.

[wildstar84]

I've done alot of work on Audacious code myself, and am interested in trying to merge this stuff (with permission & credits, of course). I wanted to reach out to you on your git but there's no way to file an "issue"/leave a note & u have no contact info shown. Please check out my git at: https://github.com/wildstar84 & drop me an email (my email is shown there) so we can possibly work together on this.
Regards,
Jim