An Operating System for Audiophiles.....

An Operating System for Audiophiles.....Reinvent your old hardware and make it a stunning Hi-Fi

Yes you heard it right....There is an OS for you. Its called Audiophile Linux (based on Debian mint)

Well every one knows windows is not for an audiophile....of-course you can use wasapi /asio drivers for better audio quality. But even then IMHO windows just suks...(cause of NDIS driver's latency issues...MS is sleeping on this)

AudioPhile Linux | Quality audio on Linux

Audiophile Linux is the operating system optimized for high quality digital audio reproduction. Created by audiophiles for people who share the same dream. To have their system a bit more better. AP-Linux is easily installed, user friendly, and absolutely free. Install it like any other GNU/Linux distribution and enjoy the music playback. Audiophile Linux comes with everything you need for playing your audio and video files.

Audiophile Linux features:

System and memory optimized for quality audio
Custom Real-Time kernel
Latency under 5ms
Lightweight window manager
Pre installed audio and video programs
Lightweight OS, free of unnecessary daemons and services
Standard Linux distributions are designed for running servers or desktop usage. But because of his design, Linux itself have the ability to be a perfect audio solution. We have taken this ability and turned standard Linux in something that is enjoyable to listen. Every little part of it can be crucial for listening. The unnecessary services and daemons, included in standard Linux distributions, have been removed and their negative influence on audio playback made impossible. Printing and some other network services running in background of the standard Linux distributions, use the CPU and memory and are completely useless for audio reproduction.

AP-Linux distribution includes the standard desktop environments like Gnome and Cinnamon, and highly configurable and low resource demanding X window manager called Fluxbox. Standard desktop environments like Gnome, Cinnamon and XFCE are easier to use. You can explore them to learn Linux, or you can use them for daily tasks like reading mail and surfing the web. But for high quality audio reproduction, you must use Fluxbox.

What others say:

“Several years now, I am trying to find the best Computer Audio solution for my personal system. During this process, Windows, Mac and Linux flavors have been tested. Furthermore, I ‘ve created PurePlayer (*www.purediy.gr/downloads/pp.html) in order to get the best possible sound out of Windows. Although this task was successful, the result cannot be compared with your solution. Right now I am using AP Linux with Deadbeef and Jack using a CM6631 interface to DAC and the result is absolutely amazing. Congratulations!”
Best Regards, Nikos

Richard

“Just wanted to thank you. I search for years a true linux OS with good sound for my ears. You are the best! Im a professional hifi dealer since 17years. I work on a new audiophile internet magazine. I will talk about your work!”
Patrick

“Just a note to say thanks for the distro. I’ve been listening to it for a day and am, well stunned to hear actual music coming from my netbook. I’ve been into audio for a long time and I have a very good system. My netbook with Audiophile Linux into my Bel Canto Dac is giving my Linn Unidisk a run for its money. I think a better Dac would definitely win this battle. Wow. Going to spend a lot of time with my netbook. Might even consider selling my Linn.
Thanks again”

Supported DACs
October 2, 2013 / mlerota / Documentation
53
Updated on 21. April 2014.

Kingrex have resolved the small bug that we have reported for UD384. It’s nice to see a company that listens to their customers. You can get the latest firmware update from their web site here.

Here is the list of D/A converters that work with AP-Linux. Few of them we tested in our lab, and others have been reported to work by AP-Linux users. So we cannot guarantee that this information is 100% correct.

If you own a D/A converter that works with AP-Linux, send us an e-mail and we will put it in this list.

Advance Acoustic MDX-600 24-bit/192kHz

Aqua Acoustic La Scala MKII 24-bit/384kHz

Arcam D33 DAC 24-bit/192kHz

Arcam rDAC

Audiolab M-DAC 24-bit/192kHz via Coax, 24-bit/96kHz via USB

AUNE X1 MKII DAC 24-bit/96kHz

AUNE T1 Valve DAC 24-bit/96kHz

Aqua Acoustic La Voce DAC

Burson Audio Conductor DAC

Bel Canto DAC3 24bit Data at 192KS/s

Cambridge Audio DAC Magic 100 24-bit/192kHz

Cambridge Audio DAC Magic plus

Creative EMU 0404

Creative EMU 0204

DA&T C-11

Fiio E17 DAC

Fiio X3

FOSTEX HP-A7 DAC

GAMAX mini 24-bit/192kHz

HeadRoom Total Bithead

Hegel HD2

John Kenny Cuinas DAC

KEF x300A

Kingrex UD384 32-bit/384kHz

LEAD AUDIO DAC LA-100

M2Tech HiFace Evo 32-bit/192kHz

Matrix X-Sabre DAC 32bit/384kHz DSD DXD

Matrix Audio X-SPDIF

Matrix Audio M-Stage HPA-2 24bit/192kHz USB DAC/ Headphone Amplifier

We had M2Tech Vaughn 32-bit/384kHz but for a very short time and we could not test it properly.

Metrum Hex

Micromega MyDAC 24-bit/192kHz

Musical Fidelity M1 DAC mkII

Musical Fidelity V-Link192 24-bit/192kHz

Musical Fidelity V90-DAC

Music Streamer II 24-bit/96kHz

Music Streamer HD 24-bit/192kHz

Peachtree Audio Nova 24-bit/96kHz

Pro-Ject USB BOX

Simaudio Moon 100D 24-bit/192kHz

Teac UD-H01 32-bit/192kHz – Some say it works, some say it doesn’t

Violectric DAC 800

Yaqin DAC-K9 24/192kHz4Bit/192kH

I know what you are thinking now...." i cant sacrifice my windows for just audio quality" well you don't have to....just install it along side it with windows

its just a matter of 30 GB from your hard disk and you are good to go or just use your old laptop/desktop for this.

steps:

1. Install instructions for v3.0 | AudioPhile Linux

My Partition details:
1. /boot .......500MB
2. / .......20GB
3. /home.......10GB
4. swap .......2GB (not needed if you have 8GB ram or higher.)

Hmmm. Sounds nice!!

D

It seems to be a good OS for people who purely consume media.

Re: An Operating System for Audiophiles.....Reinvent your old hardware and make it a stunning Hi-Fi

^Audio media.

This looks nice, but honestly speaking to notice the latency issues of a driver when listening to music is a bit far fetched.

Re: An Operating System for Audiophiles.....Reinvent your old hardware and make it a stunning Hi-Fi

Audio purists go to the greatest lengths.

Re: An Operating System for Audiophiles.....Reinvent your old hardware and make it a stunning Hi-Fi

Is this worth a try ?? I mostly listen to FLAC . Dont have an audiophile grade earphones either , still that can utilize some good output.

Re: An Operating System for Audiophiles.....Reinvent your old hardware and make it a stunning Hi-Fi

Nope. Not effort worthy unless you have audiophile grade DAC, power amp, speakers.

For all other foobar/wasapi is enough.

Re: An Operating System for Audiophiles.....Reinvent your old hardware and make it a stunning Hi-Fi

Hrishi said:
Is this worth a try ?? I mostly listen to FLAC . Dont have an audiophile grade earphones either , still that can utilize some good output.

If this is too much for you try ubuntugnome (Ubuntu GNOME) Linux has better sound than windows...and its more fun
Dual booting "how to"...
1.Dual Boot | LinuxBSDos.com
2.Dual-boot Ubuntu 14.04 and Windows 7 on a PC with UEFI firmware | LinuxBSDos.com

Re: An Operating System for Audiophiles.....Reinvent your old hardware and make it a stunning Hi-Fi

josin said:
If this is too much for you try ubuntugnome (Ubuntu GNOME) Linux has better sound than windows...and its more fun
Dual booting "how to"...
1.Dual Boot | LinuxBSDos.com
2.Dual-boot Ubuntu 14.04 and Windows 7 on a PC with UEFI firmware | LinuxBSDos.com

yeah.. kill that mosquito with a howitzer

Re: An Operating System for Audiophiles.....Reinvent your old hardware and make it a stunning Hi-Fi

anirbandd said:
yeah.. kill that mosquito with a howitzer

please explain your statement...

if its the difficulty you are talking about, Installation and configuration of ubuntu is more easier than windows if you can read( understand) English.

H

Interesting read, however wouldn't people suffer the latency issues (if we can differentiate them in the first place) rather than install yet another OS onto their drive?
An audiophile also requires his music to be synced everywhere as much as possible (from my experience with them), which an Apple ecosystem is just what is built for. Biased reviews and overpriced materials may diss them, though they are sufficiently good enough. I still can't think of a day with Linux having better driver support than Mac or Windows. But that's just me.

FLAC is just for show off imho. Unless you're producing sound, it rarely comes in handy. Listening to FLAC and an mp3-vbr file, if you can spot their difference then you should reeeeally be sensitive to sound waves.

hsr said:
Interesting read, however wouldn't people suffer the latency issues (if we can differentiate them in the first place) rather than install yet another OS onto their drive?
An audiophile also requires his music to be synced everywhere as much as possible (from my experience with them), which an Apple ecosystem is just what is built for. Biased reviews and overpriced materials may diss them, though they are sufficiently good enough. I still can't think of a day with Linux having better driver support than Mac or Windows. But that's just me.

FLAC is just for show off imho. Unless you're producing sound, it rarely comes in handy. Listening to FLAC and an mp3-vbr file, if you can spot their difference then you should reeeeally be sensitive to sound waves.

or have studio quality audio equipment, atleast thats what elitist audiophiles say

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josin said:
please explain your statement...

if its the difficulty you are talking about, Installation and configuration of ubuntu is more easier than windows if you can read( understand) English.

yup, Ubuntu is a wonderful OS,.. Where Windows phails, Ubuntu picks up... i dont see why a separate OS is required for audio alone

A few comments here - I came across this Linux distro that is tweaked to only focus on perfect audio reproduction with a DAC. : audiophile suggest that bit perfect sound can be be produced on any OS and stating that one OS is better than the other is a bit... bulllshitty.

hsr said:
Interesting read, however wouldn't people suffer the latency issues (if we can differentiate them in the first place) rather than install yet another OS onto their drive?
An audiophile also requires his music to be synced everywhere as much as possible (from my experience with them), which an Apple ecosystem is just what is built for. Biased reviews and overpriced materials may diss them, though they are sufficiently good enough. I still can't think of a day with Linux having better driver support than Mac or Windows. But that's just me.

FLAC is just for show off imho. Unless you're producing sound, it rarely comes in handy. Listening to FLAC and an mp3-vbr file, if you can spot their difference then you should reeeeally be sensitive to sound waves.

FLAC is not useless, it seems to be useless because you are/may be using an inferior headphone. MACs are renowned for their music quality and these os are not for mac users. These are low cost solutions for the audiophiles who can not afford a MAc to get the desired audiophile quality. If you have an old laptop/desktop which is of no use to you, this is for you to convert the same to a stunning audiophile quality system to play ripped audio cd/Flac files. Hook the output a good AMP+spks you are good to go.

cute.bandar said:
A few comments here - I came across this Linux distro that is tweaked to only focus on perfect audio reproduction with a DAC. : audiophile suggest that bit perfect sound can be be produced on any OS and stating that one OS is better than the other is a bit... bulllshitty.

OH wow I didn't know that....So you are saying that recording studios/musicians are idiots to invest in MAC to do their work?

please read these to know what is wrong with windows and how it causes quality music reproduction issues with audiophile quality equipments.

1.ndis.sys latency issue - Windows 7 Help Forums
2.NDIS.sys DPC Latency Issue - Windows 7 Help Forums
3.Windows 8 Latency Issues ("ndis.sys") - Gearslutz.com

If you don't know what is latency
1.Dealing With Computer Audio Latency
2.*www.soundonsound.com/sos/jun07/articles/latency_0607.htm

josin said:
please explain your statement...

if its the difficulty you are talking about, Installation and configuration of ubuntu is more easier than windows if you can read( understand) English.

If you can understand english properly then you would have got my analogy correctly.

You are suggesting to install a whole new OS just for listening to music with run of the mill gear. aint that a bit too much?if the guy had a gryphon, or maybe a Vox elysian, then tahtd be justified.

for all other needs, foobar w/ wasapi is just too good with FLAC/AudioCD/WAV

and please elucidate more on what you say about this latency issues with audio. how does it differ in listening scenarios??

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hsr said:
Interesting read, however wouldn't people suffer the latency issues (if we can differentiate them in the first place) rather than install yet another OS onto their drive?
An audiophile also requires his music to be synced everywhere as much as possible (from my experience with them), which an Apple ecosystem is just what is built for. Biased reviews and overpriced materials may diss them, though they are sufficiently good enough. I still can't think of a day with Linux having better driver support than Mac or Windows. But that's just me.

FLAC is just for show off imho. Unless you're producing sound, it rarely comes in handy. Listening to FLAC and an mp3-vbr file, if you can spot their difference then you should reeeeally be sensitive to sound waves.

FLAC files are really the sh!t. They sound really good with proper equipment.

with mp3 conversion the first thing that flies out of the window are higher freq and some deep bass. also the soundstage gets messed up like hell..

so yeah, FLAC ftw!

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josin said:
FLAC is not useless, it seems to be useless because you are/may be using an inferior headphone. MACs are renowned for their music quality and these os are not for mac users. These are low cost solutions for the audiophiles who can not afford a MAc to get the desired audiophile quality. If you have an old laptop/desktop which is of no use to you, this is for you to convert the same to a stunning audiophile quality system to play ripped audio cd/Flac files. Hook the output a good AMP+spks you are good to go.

OH wow I didn't know that....So you are saying that recording studios/musicians are idiots to invest in MAC to do their work?

please read these to know what is wrong with windows and how it causes quality music reproduction issues with audiophile quality equipments.

1.ndis.sys latency issue - Windows 7 Help Forums
2.NDIS.sys DPC Latency Issue - Windows 7 Help Forums
3.Windows 8 Latency Issues ("ndis.sys") - Gearslutz.com

If you don't know what is latency
1.Dealing With Computer Audio Latency
2.*www.soundonsound.com/sos/jun07/articles/latency_0607.htm

MACs are not renowned for their MUSIC Quality. they are renowned for their stability and efficiency compared to windows systems, which comes with the closed source OS, and tightly controlled prod environment. Even photo studios/ editing studios use MACs for photoshop.

hsr said:
Interesting read, however wouldn't people suffer the latency issues (if we can differentiate them in the first place) rather than install yet another OS onto their drive?
An audiophile also requires his music to be synced everywhere as much as possible (from my experience with them), which an Apple ecosystem is just what is built for. Biased reviews and overpriced materials may diss them, though they are sufficiently good enough. I still can't think of a day with Linux having better driver support than Mac or Windows. But that's just me.

FLAC is just for show off imho. Unless you're producing sound, it rarely comes in handy. Listening to FLAC and an mp3-vbr file, if you can spot their difference then you should reeeeally be sensitive to sound waves.

Well , I think either I am too sensitive to sound waves , or FLAC files really mean it.
I have like 40GB of FLAC songs , and around 32GB of 320kbps MP3 songs. I can spot the difference , right away b/w both of these file types.

That being said , it is also true that you might not necessarily notice the difference b/w these two types when it comes to certain genres.
I have seen that , the difference is largely noticeable when you listen to music-instrument and beats oriented songs . Songs , that have a variety of music instruments playing , and have slow paced or are not really that loud.
I am not able to make out difference when I am listening to few kind of tracks , like some of linkin park songs , but when I listen to songs like "Owl City-Fireflies" , etc the difference is substantial.
I am not implying that this is something which everybody will notice , but still this is something what I have come across.

And yeah , the better gears you use , the better you get.
I play most of my FLAC files using Sansa Clip. It sucks though , that I have the one with 2 GB memory only. Have to keep moving tracks , now and then.

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anirbandd said:
FLAC files are really the sh!t. They sound really good with proper equipment.

with mp3 conversion the first thing that flies out of the window are higher freq and some deep bass. also the soundstage gets messed up like hell..

so yeah, FLAC ftw!.

Yeah , FLAC . FTW!

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Mac is a gentleman's prod suite.
Windows is like a whor* , ****ed by everyone for every other purpose.
Linux is for the Geeks.

-A quote , I saw somewhere earlier in this forum.

H

FLAC is a lossless compression format, mp3 compresses music. You can only (and I say this with absolute certainty) spot their difference with high end audio equipment and genres like Classics, Blues, Jazz etc. FLAC is used better for preservation than usage. There's something called the placebo effect.

Prove me wrong.

(not the 192kbps raaga mp3s

)

Hrishi said:
Well , I think either I am too sensitive to sound waves , or FLAC files really mean it.
I have like 40GB of FLAC songs , and around 32GB of 320kbps MP3 songs. I can spot the difference , right away b/w both of these file types.

That being said , it is also true that you might not necessarily notice the difference b/w these two types when it comes to certain genres.
I have seen that , the difference is largely noticeable when you listen to music-instrument and beats oriented songs . Songs , that have a variety of music instruments playing , and have slow paced or are not really that loud.
I am not able to make out difference when I am listening to few kind of tracks , like some of linkin park songs , but when I listen to songs like "Owl City-Fireflies" , etc the difference is substantial.
I am not implying that this is something which everybody will notice , but still this is something what I have come across.

And yeah , the better gears you use , the better you get.
I play most of my FLAC files using Sansa Clip. It sucks though , that I have the one with 2 GB memory only. Have to keep moving tracks , now and then.

Yeah that part in the bolded is absolutely true.. not all songs have them.. Sansa Clips have a great DAC, rivalling apple ipods. so FLACs play off beautifully.

btw, your Clip doesnt have micro SD card slot? mine has, and i have put in an 8GB card

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hsr said:
FLAC is a lossless compression format, mp3 compresses music. You can only (and I say this with absolute certainty) spot their difference with high end audio equipment and genres like Classics, Blues, Jazz etc. FLAC is used better for preservation than usage. There's something called the placebo effect.

Prove me wrong.

(not the 192kbps raaga mp3s )

i am not even going to try and prove anything..

its just that if you llisten to FLAC for a long time, you will get sensitized to it. after that when you listen to mp3, you can spot the diff right away.

anirbandd said:
Yeah that part in the bolded is absolutely true.. not all songs have them.. Sansa Clips have a great DAC, rivalling apple ipods. so FLACs play off beautifully.

btw, your Clip doesnt have micro SD card slot? mine has, and i have put in an 8GB card

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i am not even going to try and prove anything..

its just that if you llisten to FLAC for a long time, you will get sensitized to it. after that when you listen to mp3, you can spot the diff right away.

Well , I have the Sansa Clip V1 . So it has limited memory.

I use rockbox on it , and it simply blows me away everytime.

Re: An Operating System for Audiophiles.....Reinvent your old hardware and make it a stunning Hi-Fi

Was curious , not sure if this will make sense in this thread but just for the sake of it ,

Is there any app available to reverse the bluetooth playback function ?
I want to route music from my pc to my smartphone through bluetooth. This will help me listen to my iems connected to my smartphone byt music stored and played on laptop.

I would like to use my android phone as a bluetooth headset,
Is that possible ?

interesting concept.