Tough crowd. I think this article has good merit to compare the various types of software offered. Kinda new ground for us since we rarely broach this topic.
The sound quality ratings are purely subjective based on user experience so if you don't agree with it that's fine too.
The square wave stuff is a bit of a stretch I agree. I am personally in Camp #2 that the author describes. I also spoke with several experts in the field, most notably our friends at Oppo whom are also in camp #2. I gave the author some latitude to express his viewpoint since all 3 are presented.
I decided to give a benefit of the doubt and re-read this nonsense more carefully.
The simple truth is this: There are no 3 camps. Camp 1 and 2 are same thing (the buffering and jitter are real and COULD occur in some cases)
Camp 3 however is more relevant to operation of internal processing of dac. All the "issues" he mentioned are real, but completely limited to dacs and dacs alone.
No where else in the whole pc. It's limited to ether internal function of external dac (or receiver, pre-pro etc) or of pc sound card (ether onboard or add-on pci card).
Now modern PCIe bandwidth performance speeds far surpass the need for even highest quality audio stream, which by the way is ones and zeros until it reaches dac. Chances or buffer under-runs and as result jitter are extremely low on any modern pc. Before that stage Sound WAVE simply does not exist.
So, I again, I and many others, fail to see how any software could affect sound in any way, granted it works correctly - aka converting audio file (compressed or not) into PCM stream which is sent to dac or in case of digital out audio - it could be bit streamed AS IS to audio processor/receiver
Unless proven otherwise - this Article talking about difference in quality between different players has no merit and no place on No nonsense AH site.
