Whatever’s going on with the Steinberg DDP player and Windows default 48K playback is beyond any possible quality question of Win SRC, and needs to be fixed in the DDP Player. It’s the only app that has this distortion to anywhere near this degree.
Try a 44.1 16 bit wav 10 KHz tone in iTunes (or Foobar2000 or Hofa) and in the Steinberg DDP player. Playback is fine in iTunes with iTunes output set to 44.1, through the Windows default 48k playback setting. It’s completely distorted in the Steinberg DDP player through the same 48k playback. Using various drivers and various computers.
I’ve recently found that there are a slew of Dell inspiron computers that give no choice other than 48KHz playback using the built in Realtek or Microsoft drivers. On those, I don’t know of any way to get around the Steinberg DDP Player distortion problem. Besides which, you can’t really expect a client or band member to jump through hoops when they just want to play their music through their laptop.
The Hofa and Sonoris players apparently give notice to set playback to 44.1 if possible, but from my testing with the Hofa it only has a slight aliasing problem when playing through the default Windows 48K playback. The Steinberg player has a very real distortion problem at 48K, which would have no workaround I know of on these Inspiron computers.
I still don’t understand why this only happens in the DDP players. It doesn’t happen at all (not even in the slightest) with 44.1 16 Bit WAV files in iTunes or Foobar2000, no distortion, no aliasing, so it’s not like it’s just bad Wndows SRC. Is it the tools used to make the players? File type? I could see file type but isn’t the audio just a bit stream in all cases as far as the audio device is concerned?
This is pretty fascinating Bob. I don’t really have time to dig into it but have you tried email HOFA about it? They are pretty typically pretty responsive about these kinds of things.
I’m glad to hear the issue is less extreme in the HOFA DDP Player which is what I’m still using as the Steinberg DDP Player option is just too convoluted and missing features to really consider using at this point.
No I haven’t. I just assumed they know about it because they just recently put in a notification message from the players in the most recent versions telling the user to switch to 44.1 if possible. But maybe I’m assuming too much, and they don’t know that it doesn’t happen with wav file players.
If anybody’s interested in trying this, just make a 44.1k 16 bit stereo sweep at reduced level in the Wavelab signal generator using the sweep factory preset, make a DDP, and then playback in the various DDP and Wav players using Windows internal playback audio set at 48k default on the Advanced tab, and then 44.1k if available.
Okay… Maybe I’m missing something hear, but aren’t all CD’s supposed to have a sample rate of 44.1?
If that is true, then trying to play a DDP at a different rate shouldn’t work, and maybe the Steinberg DDP Player is designed to only output what should be a true red book formatted file!
The player is definitely messed up and should play at least as well as the Hofa and Sonoris through the Windows SRC at 48k without distortion, because 48k is the default playback rate on too many Windows computers. And some Windows computers are starting to not even include the option for 44.1 playback. Hopefully Steinberg has already fixed the player and will be updating soon. The client player installers also need to be able to find the latest update when installing, so that needs to be fixed as well.
fwiw, the Sonoris also exhibits the slight aliasing that the Hofa does at 48k. It’s bizarre, only happening with the DDP players. But the Hofa and Sonoris have the message about setting playback to 44.1 if possible, and they also offer ASIO and Direct Sound for playback that don’t exhibit the aliasing at other rates.