Audio quality and libsamplerate...

Christian F.K. Schaller christian at fluendo.com
Mon Mar 26 17:25:54 CEST 2007


Hi,
I think that on the topic of resampling OpenMoko should probably look
towards the code that Jean-Marc Valin recently wrote for ALSA instead of
going with libsamplerate. The reason for this is simply that Jean-Marc
Valin code is licensed under the BSD/LGPL license instead of the GPL and
thus keeping the OpenMoko platform more open.

Christian

On Mon, 2007-03-26 at 11:08 -0400, Chad.Heuschober at mail.cuny.edu wrote:
> 
> Has the in/exclusion of libsamplerate (aka 'secret rabbit code') in
> alsa been discussed yet? 
> 
> It may seem like a fringe topic but part of the success of devices
> like this is attributed to their ability to do the jobs of many
> devices at once. When it comes to playing music, for the most part,
> portable players are generally very poor performers (with some notable
> exceptions). It made me very happy to see the inclusion of a wolfson
> dac in the device as, traditionally, wolfson dacs have much better
> power handling and higher quality output than other dacs. This is why
> v1 and v2 iPods, which use the wolfson chips, have superior sound
> production to later iterations.
> 
> If libsamplerate is included as part of the core the choice can be
> left to the user to enable some of the other samplers (like
> samplerate-best) and sacrifice the requisite cpu cycles in
> their .asoundrc. There's not a huge cost in KiB's and inclusion of the
> library doesn't dictate that a user MUST use the more expensive
> converter. Personally, I'd like to see it included since it's obvious
> a mixer is necessary and samplerate conversions will occur. But I'm
> also someone who has canalphones that cost more than a high-end iPod
> so it's possible my opinion is skewed. I do firmly believe that,
> assuming the power handling is done well and there isn't voltage
> bleeding (which would be silly considering that this is a mobile
> device and can't afford it) or rampant emi, that this device has the
> potential to reach into the upper echelon of audio production and
> could further distinguish itself by taking that crown from other
> contenders. 
> 
> (Thinking about that inevitable 'comparison' article on a tech
> website). 
> 
> Thoughts? If a 'good idea' who does this get passed to? 
> 
> ~Chad 
> _______________________________________________
> OpenMoko community mailing list
> community at lists.openmoko.org
> http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community





More information about the community mailing list