Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: haywirepc on December 24, 2012, 05:44:05 AM
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4 tracks 8 bit.... Mod heaven for a time, but the world moved on...
Why no answer even to sb 8 bit, that did 32 tracks at 8 bit with noisetracker?
It was why I switched to pc, I HAD to. Not long After 32 tracks at 8 bit came 32 tracks at 16 bit on pc for cheap (50$ sb16 card) and fast tracker II.
Amiga never even answered the competition, just kept showing up with the original sound design... For 1200 and a4000 especially, amiga sound was
incredibly out dated...
Does anyone know more about amiga history and the issues of sound?
Amiga sound was decent, and worked for game developers just fine. Is that
why they never messed with it much?
Why didn't they ever do anything better with the sound? Or did some people
within commodore or amiga try to and got shot down?
I'd like to know more about amiga sound and why it was never improved upon
through amiga 1000 all the way to amiga 4000.
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Amigas have been using 64 tracks of 16-bit since forever. Its called Octamed Sound studio. Its free and fun to use. Why aren't you using it?
Even in the old A500 7Mhz 68000 days you had 8 channels of 8-bit with Oktalyzer or 7 channels of 8-bit with TFMX. But that was the 1980's.
In the 1990s lots of trackers came out that supported more than 8 channels and 16-bit samples.
Amiga moved on. Did you?
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Yes, on paper, the Amiga's audio capabilities were outclassed by the early 90s. But the Amiga could fake it to more than adequately keep up with PC soundcards. Like with Octamed, as ChaosLord says.
Paula was due to be replaced by something more powerful in the AAA chipset, and we all know the story of how Commodore management botched that one.
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But the Amiga could fake it to more than adequately keep up with PC soundcards.
Why is it that when the Amiga uses the CPU to mix sound channels you say it is "faking it" but when 500 million bill gates compatible PCs use the CPU to mix sound channels its "4 realz dewd"?
The vast majority of bill gates compatible pcs do not have a sound card and never will have a sound card. I certainly never had one on any of mine. I never met any laptop that had a sound card plugged in. I only met a few desktops that had one. Most computers use cheap onboard audio chip.
My 1500 Mhz Athlon Windoze XP box uses the CPU to mix the audio channels when I run audio software that has 4 channels of audio. My audio drops out all the time when the computer is under high cpu load.
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I think he's referring to the 14-bit hack that is used to approximate 16-bit sound.
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I think he's referring to the 14-bit hack that is used to approximate 16-bit sound.
oic. In that case he should buy a 16-bit soundcard for his Amiga. :)
Or talk FPGAreplay or Natami into adding native 16-bit Paula.
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The "problem" with the audio, certainly in the late 80's early 90's was that audio data used up a lot of space... So even if you could play back 16bit 44.1Khz files... You probably wouldn't want to, just because a floppy disk couldn't hold much of that ;)
So with the Amiga, you have audio that is "Good Enough" (TM), at a time when the engineering management don't want to spend money on new chips, and certainly won't spend on a feature that would only have limited/future use... It was such thinking that ultimately killed the platform... To quote Steve Jobs: "You gotta skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it is now".
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You're quoting Bill Skates? :insane:
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You're quoting Bill Skates? :insane:
I know, but you see, I don't know about hockey... I do know about Steve Jobs :)
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Amiga never even answered the competition, just kept showing up with the original sound design... For 1200 and a4000 especially, amiga sound was incredibly out dated...
They had a prototype A3000+ with 16bit 2 channel DSP in addition to the Paula.
They just lacked focus and direction, so they never brought it to market.
I had all sorts of 16bit PC sound cards in the 486 era. Most games did not use use multi-channel digital sounds (via mixing). The 16bit digital sound channel was usually dedicated to sound effects while the multi-voice music was done on the Yamaha FM synth chip which typically made everything sound like an 8bit NES.
There was the Gravis Ultrasound card which was truly amazing, but had very little software support.
That is why people with money would get a Roland MT32 in addition to a SandBlaster.
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16 Bit zorro sound cards were available in the late 80's for the Amiga. How is that being "behind the times" as it were? I'm grateful Amiga had built in sound as standard. The truth is if you wanted 16 bit sound it WAS there, you just needed a Zorro sound card and a free Zorro slot. With Amiga Zorro gear being more expensive that others, maybe it would have been better for the consumer if Amiga's came with usable ISA slots instead, thus opening lots of possibilities, and then PCI... It may have saved the Amiga. Spilt milk though.
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As others have said, Commodore did design a 16-bit Paula replacement, but it was never put into production.
The reason they just stuck with the 8-bit chip was probably that, to most people even in 1993 (i.e. 90% of the users), digitized 8-bit audio was "good enough" for games and other non-critical applications. Remember, most people were using 1084 monitors with built in (crappy) speakers. Some of these 1084 monitors were even monophonic.
The only people that would have noticed a real difference between 8 and 16 bit audio, or cared enough to pay for 16-bit audio were musicians and audiophiles.
Sure, if you actually played a 16-bit audio sample beside an 8-bit audio sample, one after the other, most people would probably have noticed the improvement in clarity. But without them playing side-by-side to spotlight what was missing, most people at the time probably though 8-bit audio was just fine for their needs.
I would suspect that a lot of people today wouldn't even notice or care about the difference between 8-bit audio and 16-bit audio. My wife, for instance, doesn't care if her favourite song is playing on the little, tinny FM mono radio we have in the kitchen, or our big "hi-fi" stereo - as long as she can hear and enjoy it.
Look at the success of MP3, for instance. Technically, we've taken a step backward in audio quality from Compact Discs but the public is loving it (admittedly, it has other advantages - file size, for instance).
Graphics, on the other hand, seem to be more important to the majority of people. So it probably made sense to Commodore upgrade the Amiga graphics chipset to AGA and leave the Paula as it was - thereby saving money and keeping the price of their machines lower than the competition.
Look at how many people today buy large HD Televisions, but never buy the surround sound audio system to accompany it. They are fine with the TV's little built in speakers. Perhaps humans are more visual than audatory.
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Yes you COULD buy a 16 bit soundcard, but as usual in amiga land a 16 bit sound card, as I recall was over 200$ and you needed a zorro slot (I had an amiga 500 so that was out)
Conversely, an sb16 (or clone) was like 30-50$.
8 tracks on octamed with paula sounded horrible in comparison to 8 tracks on even the 8 bit soundblaster... And you were still limited to 8 tracks where a cheap pc with 8 bit soundblaster could do 32 track mods or screamtracker modules in stereo.
The 14bit hack sounds okay if your playing a single stereo stream, but it was
not very usuable for mod production.
In any case, I started my digital music creation adventures on an amiga 500. It was very exciting at the time. I used to spend countless hours sampling
sounds, and switching discs between sounds and samples making mods.
It was kind of a let down having to switch, but seeing 8 bit sampled, 32 channels available on a cheapo pc with screamtracker, and especially a bit later seeing 32 and 64 - 16 bit channels available via fasttracker and impulse tracker, I pretty much had to switch.
A comparable amiga setup would have costs me thousands at the time, I would have had to replace my 500 with a 2000 or better, buy a 16 bit soundcard, hard drives and so on...
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I think he's referring to the 14-bit hack that is used to approximate 16-bit sound.
That, and the fact that though the hardware is specified as being capable of only 4 channels, you're clearly getting more than that with Octamed and similar trackers. I call that faking it. And I don't mean that in a bad way.
Yes you COULD buy a 16 bit soundcard, but as usual in amiga land a 16 bit sound card, as I recall was over 200$ and you needed a zorro slot (I had an amiga 500 so that was out)
Conversely, an sb16 (or clone) was like 30-50$.
8 tracks on octamed with paula sounded horrible in comparison to 8 tracks on even the 8 bit soundblaster... And you were still limited to 8 tracks where a cheap pc with 8 bit soundblaster could do 32 track mods or screamtracker modules in stereo.
The 14bit hack sounds okay if your playing a single stereo stream, but it was
not very usuable for mod production.
In any case, I started my digital music creation adventures on an amiga 500. It was very exciting at the time. I used to spend countless hours sampling
sounds, and switching discs between sounds and samples making mods.
It was kind of a let down having to switch, but seeing 8 bit sampled, 32 channels available on a cheapo pc with screamtracker, and especially a bit later seeing 32 and 64 - 16 bit channels available via fasttracker and impulse tracker, I pretty much had to switch.
A comparable amiga setup would have costs me thousands at the time, I would have had to replace my 500 with a 2000 or better, buy a 16 bit soundcard, hard drives and so on...
Well, until the storage capabilities of CD audio caught on in the late 90s, it seems like nearly all PC music was third-rate synthesized MIDI. In my opinion, the Amiga outclassed it in every way with the real-instrument samples embedded in mods, regardless of bitrate.
Yes, it would have been nice if some newer sound hardware had been built in to newer Amigas, but given that your floppy-only A500 was going toe-to-toe with big-box PCs for so long, that's certainly something to be proud of. The shrinking Amiga market post-Commodore made it difficult to stay competitive on price, but I think the competitiveness of technical capability was there with Zorro cards.
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http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/ad516
This in a zorro Amiga outperformed most anything pc based at the time. I still own two of them. I also moved to pc when commodore closed. I had to go back to Amiga/AD516 after much lost time and work on inferior wintel based alternatives of the day. And that was after spending over $200 on a PC turtle beach card. (AD cards far more expensive, but quality ain't cheap) SB cards of the day were too noisy for serious recording. I had tape decks that were quieter.
It wasn't until winXP with improved SB cards many years later that wintel surpassed the Ami solution and the AD's still hold their own against the low-mid pc stuff.
Plaz
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It wasn't until winXP with improved SB cards many years later that wintel surpassed the Ami solution and the AD's still hold their own against the low-mid pc stuff.
It happened during the Windows 95 era. Cool edit was much better for audio editing than anything on the Amiga.
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Why is it that when the Amiga uses the CPU to mix sound channels you say it is "faking it" but when 500 million bill gates compatible PCs use the CPU to mix sound channels its "4 realz dewd"?
The vast majority of bill gates compatible pcs do not have a sound card and never will have a sound card. I certainly never had one on any of mine. I never met any laptop that had a sound card plugged in. I only met a few desktops that had one. Most computers use cheap onboard audio chip.
My 1500 Mhz Athlon Windoze XP box uses the CPU to mix the audio channels when I run audio software that has 4 channels of audio. My audio drops out all the time when the computer is under high cpu load.
There is so much wrong with this post, I'm not even sure where to begin.. meh...
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There is so much wrong with this post, I'm not even sure where to begin.. meh...
What do you have in mind? :D
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Most computers use cheap onboard audio chip.
That is because that is all they need, it's good enough for what most people need. Paula can't compete with a cheap onboard audio chip anyway.
For producing music then software mixing is fine, you only need to do it in real time for preview. You downmix at the end anyway.
Using the 14bit paula hack with multiple channels is much worse than using software mixing on your PC.
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4 tracks 8 bit.... Mod heaven for a time, but the world moved on...
Why no answer even to sb 8 bit, that did 32 tracks at 8 bit with noisetracker?
You clearly never used OctaMED sound studio. With a fast enough CPU It could play up to 64 tracks* through Paula at 14-bit (up to 56kHz on RTG or doublescan) or through a number of directly supported 16-bit soundcards. Even on slower machines, you could compose at lower fidelity and then render to disk at full quality.
*each track could play notes as either 8 or 16-bit mono or stereo samples, a synthsound or a MIDI device.
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The vast majority of bill gates compatible pcs do not have a sound card and never will have a sound card. I certainly never had one on any of mine. I never met any laptop that had a sound card plugged in. I only met a few desktops that had one. Most computers use cheap onboard audio chip.
I dont need a soundcard - audio on chip is great.
My PC has a Realtek ALC892 audio chipset acording to the asus website :
http://uk.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_1155/P8Z77V_PRO/#overview
would you say that is a cheap onboard audio chip ?
http://www.realtek.com.tw/products/productsView.aspx?Langid=1&PFid=28&Level=5&Conn=4&ProdID=284
The ALC892-CG/ALC892-DTS-CG is a high-performance multi-channel High Definition Audio Codec with Realtek proprietary lossless content protection technology that protects pre-recorded content while still allowing full-rate audio enjoyment from DVD audio, Blu-ray DVD, or HD DVD discs.
The ALC892 provides ten DAC channels that simultaneously support 7.1 channel sound playback, plus 2 channels of independent stereo sound output (multiple streaming) through the front panel stereo outputs. Two stereo ADCs and one stereo digital microphone converter are integrated and can support a microphone array with Acoustic Echo Cancellation (AEC), Beam Forming (BF), and Noise Suppression (NS) technologies.
All analog I/O are input and output capable, and headphone amplifiers are also integrated at three analog output ports (port-D/port-E/port-F). All analog I/Os can be re-tasked according to user definitions.
Support for 16/20/24-bit SPDIF input and output with up to 192kHz sample rate offers easy connection of PCs to consumer electronic products such as digital decoders and speakers. The ALC892 also features secondary SPDIF-OUT output and converter to transport digital audio output to a High Definition Media Interface (HDMI) transmitter.
The ALC892 supports host audio from the Intel chipsets, and also from any other HDA compatible audio controller. With various software utilities like environment sound emulation, multiple-band and independent software equalizer, dynamic range compressor and expander, optional Dolby PCEE program, SRS TruSurround HD, SRS Premium Sound, Fortemedia SAM, Creative Host Audio, Synopsys Sonic Focus, DTS Surround Sensation | UltraPC, and DTS Connect licenses, the ALC892 offers the highest sound quality, providing an excellent entertainment package and game experience for PC users.
7.1+2 Channel HD Audio Codec with Content Protection
General Description
The ALC892-CG/ALC892-DTS-CG is a high-performance multi-channel High Definition Audio Codec with Realtek proprietary lossless content protection technology that protects pre-recorded content while still allowing full-rate audio enjoyment from DVD audio, Blu-ray DVD, or HD DVD discs.
The ALC892 provides ten DAC channels that simultaneously support 7.1 channel sound playback, plus 2 channels of independent stereo sound output (multiple streaming) through the front panel stereo outputs. Two stereo ADCs and one stereo digital microphone converter are integrated and can support a microphone array with Acoustic Echo Cancellation (AEC), Beam Forming (BF), and Noise Suppression (NS) technologies.
All analog I/O are input and output capable, and headphone amplifiers are also integrated at three analog output ports (port-D/port-E/port-F). All analog I/Os can be re-tasked according to user definitions.
Support for 16/20/24-bit SPDIF input and output with up to 192kHz sample rate offers easy connection of PCs to consumer electronic products such as digital decoders and speakers. The ALC892 also features secondary SPDIF-OUT output and converter to transport digital audio output to a High Definition Media Interface (HDMI) transmitter.
The ALC892 supports host audio from the Intel chipsets, and also from any other HDA compatible audio controller. With various software utilities like environment sound emulation, multiple-band and independent software equalizer, dynamic range compressor and expander, optional Dolby PCEE program, SRS TruSurround HD, SRS Premium Sound, Fortemedia SAM, Creative Host Audio, Synopsys Sonic Focus, DTS Surround Sensation | UltraPC, and DTS Connect licenses, the ALC892 offers the highest sound quality, providing an excellent entertainment package and game experience for PC users.
Features
Hardware Features
DACs with 95dB SNR (A-weighting), ADCs with 90dB SNR (A-weighting)
Ten DAC channels support 16/20/24-bit PCM format for 7.1 channel sound playback, plus 2 channels of concurrent independent stereo sound output (multiple streaming) through the front panel output
Two stereo ADCs support 16/20/24-bit PCM format, multiple stereo recording
All DACs supports 44.1k/48k/96k/192kHz sample rate
All ADCs supports 44.1k/48k/96k/192kHz sample rate
Primary 16/20/24-bit SPDIF-OUT supports 32k/44.1k/48k/88.2k/96k/192kHz sample rate
Secondary 16/20/24-bit SPDIF-OUT supports 32k/44.1k/48k/88.2k/96k/192kHz sample rate
16/20/24-bit SPDIF-IN supports 44.1k/48k/96k/192kHz sample rate
All analog jacks (port-A to port-G) are stereo input and output re-tasking
Port-D/E/F built-in headphone amplifiers
Port-B/C/E/F with software selectable boost gain (+10/+20/+30dB) for analog microphone input
High-quality analog differential CD input
Supports external PCBEEP input and built-in digital BEEP generator
Software selectable 2.5V/3.2V/4.0V VREFOUT
Up to four channels of microphone array input are supported for AEC/BF applications
Three jack detection pins; each designed to detect up to 4 jacks
Supports legacy analog mixer architecture
Up to two GPIOs (General Purpose Input and Output) for customized applications. GPIO0 and GPIO1 share pin with DMIC-CLK and DMIC-DATA
Supports mono and stereo digital microphone interface (pins shared with GPIO0 and GPIO1)
Supports anti-pop mode when analog power LDO-IN is on and digital power is off
Content Protection for Full Rate lossless DVD Audio, Blu-ray DVD, and HD-DVD audio content playback (with selected versions of WinDVD/PowerDVD/TMT)
1dB per step output volume and input volume control
Supports 3.3V digital core power, 1.5V or 3.3V digital I/O power for HD Audio link, and 5.0V analog power
Intel low power ECR compliant and power status control for each analog/digital converter and pin widget
48-pin LQFP ‘Green’ package
Software Features
Meets Microsoft WLP 3.x and future WLP audio requirements
WaveRT-based audio function driver for Windows Vista and Windows 7
Direct Sound 3D™ compatible
I3DL2 compatible
7.1+2 channel multi-streaming enables concurrent gaming/VoIP
Emulation of 26 sound environments to enhance gaming experience
Multiband software equalizer and tools provided
Voice Cancellation and Key Shifting effect
Dynamic range control (expander, compressor, and limiter) with adjustable parameters
Intuitive Configuration Panel (Realtek Audio Manager) to enhance user experience
Microphone Acoustic Echo Cancellation (AEC), Noise Suppression (NS), and Beam Forming (BF) technology for voice applications
Smart multiple streaming operation
HDMI audio driver for AMD platform
Optional Dolby PCEE program, SRS TruSurround HD, SRS Premium Sound, Fortemedia SAM, Creative Host Audio, Synopsys Sonic Focus, DTS Surround Sensation | UltraPC, and DTS Connect licenses
How does this chip compare ?
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It happened during the Windows 95 era. Cool edit was much better for audio editing than anything on the Amiga.
For editing yes. I used to record tracks on the Ami then edit them on the PC with Cool Edit. Cool Edit is one of the best utils ever and I still use its modern descendant today... Audio Audition (Cool Edit bought out by Adobe) . However buggy crashy win95 was horrible for actual multi-track recording. I lost days of time and money because of lost and corrupted work on 95 no matter the service packs, driver updates memory managers... on and on I tired to make it better. This is why I had to go back to Amiga equipment. Because of the horrible window experience it took me along time to move to XP. Sonar (version 5 maybe) finally made me make the move back to a wintel box.
Plaz
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4ch 8-bit was good enough for gaming and productivity applications were marginal. Sarvet r&d resources were spent improving gfx where amiga was far behind PC-XT.
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Sarvet r&d resources were spent improving gfx where amiga was far behind PC-XT.
Amiga was far behind PC-XT? How?
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I dont need a soundcard - audio on chip is great.
My PC has a Realtek ALC892 audio chipset acording to the asus website :
How does this chip compare ?
Yes that is exactly what I meant by a cheap onboard sound chip.
When you play a mod on that sound chip, 4 channels or 64 channels, it doesn't matter: The CPU has to do all the work of mixing the soundchannels together which is exactly what Amiga Oktalyzer and TFMX have been doing since the 1980s and Octamed Sound Studio and Digibooster and others have been doing since 1990s.
At least Paula can mix 4 channels together for free on its own. Your cheap onboard sound chip can't even do that.
At least Paula accepts a wide variety of sample rates. Your cheap onboard soundchip can't. It just laughs at you and lazily refuses to play any sound that has not been laboriously resampled by the CPU to one of the few frequencies that it can handle.
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By putting graphics and sound on the motherboard instead of expansion like zorro they doomed the machine. And PC's didn't do sound and graphics in-house, they outsourced it, this allowed the graphics and sound card manufacturers to have a much bigger sales volume.
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Yes that is exactly what I meant by a cheap onboard sound chip.
When you play a mod on that sound chip, 4 channels or 64 channels, it doesn't matter: The CPU has to do all the work of mixing the soundchannels together which is exactly what Amiga Oktalyzer and TFMX have been doing since the 1980s and Octamed Sound Studio and Digibooster and others have been doing since 1990s.
At least Paula can mix 4 channels together for free on its own. Your cheap onboard sound chip can't even do that.
It has 10 24-bit DACs capable of 192kHz playback that can be multiplexed down into a single stereo stream (for instance, when using headphones). In what sense is it not capable of mixing channels?
At least Paula accepts a wide variety of sample rates. Your cheap onboard soundchip can't. It just laughs at you and lazily refuses to play any sound that has not been laboriously resampled by the CPU to one of the few frequencies that it can handle.
Well, there you may have a point, but plenty of on sound chips support hardware mixing of sounds at different playback rates. It was very common for older DirectX drivers to support hardware sample replay/mixing on the soundcard before Windows Vista came along with it's entirely new floating-point based audio system (Universal Audio Architecture).
Mixing audio on the CPU, however, uses an absolutely pitiful amount of CPU time, even on any remotely accelerated Amiga (I've done 32-channel stuff in OctaMED SS on an 040), let alone a present day PC.
I can play back two dozen MP3 streams simultaneously on my current (linux) PC before I see pulseaudio lingering in the top 10 processes, and even then it's never more than a few percent of the available capacity of one core.
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It's a silly argument to be honest. Comparing Paula to a modern IBM compatible sound card (be it onboard or not).
Technology from 80's/90's looks prehistoric compared to a "cheap onboard chip" of today.
If you are comparing IBM compatibles of the same generation of the Amiga then that argument makes more sense.
My 486sx 25 with it's sound blaster 16 and later sound blaster AWE 64 with it's onboard RAM was amazing. It saddens me to say it but the AWE 64 card was a Paula killer.
I also refuse to refer to x86 boxes as PC's as to me the Amiga is a personal computer. Even my C64C had personal computer on the label ;-)
In it's day the Amiga was amazing, don't get me wrong I have a weird obsession with Amiga's and like to see what they can still do. Always amazed at the under 5 second boot time to get into Workbench.
But then it's not loading what a modern OS needs to load. Being something like windows is far more complicated. Having said that my Windows 8 laptop boots in around 5-7 seconds, or 2 to 3 from standby.
The one thing the IBM compatible can't do is get me excited like a kid on Christmas morning. I'll always have a soft spot for the Amiga. Hence why I've bought a few of Jen's cards as I would like to see more hardware produced.
Anyway enough from me. Back to reading stuff :-)
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At least Paula can mix 4 channels together for free on its own. Your cheap onboard sound chip can't even do that.
Did you miss the part about 10 DACs? Really, didn't the 7.1 part get through to you? Do you have an issue with reading comprehension? That's 7 individual channels. These chips are a lot more competent than you make them out to be. Even Soundblaster Live cards ($5 late 90s budget option) have DSPs capable of analog synthesizer modeling and wavetable synthesis that makes the Paula look ridiculously primitive. And yeah, >4 output channels. You are naive to think that the function of modern PC sound chips is limited to CPU based software mixing.
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On another, somewhat related note I think the Amiga could seriously have used an additional sound chip. Four channels on an A500/A1200 setup was obviously seriously limiting when it comes to producing both music and sound effects. Something like the OPL2 or even something as simple as an YM2149 in addition to the Paula would have been very useful.
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Mixing audio on the CPU, however, uses an absolutely pitiful amount of CPU time, even on any remotely accelerated Amiga (I've done 32-channel stuff in OctaMED SS on an 040), let alone a present day PC.
I can play back two dozen MP3 streams simultaneously on my current (linux) PC before I see pulseaudio lingering in the top 10 processes, and even then it's never more than a few percent of the available capacity of one core.
ChaosLord, I think the audio stuttering issues you see on your PC are more a function of the lousy performance of Windows than the underlying hardware.
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oic. In that case he should buy a 16-bit soundcard for his Amiga. :)
Or talk FPGAreplay or Natami into adding native 16-bit Paula.
It's done. The DAC by the way is 24bit 96K and some care has been taken with the analogue layout to make sure it sounds as clean as possible.
/MikeJ
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On another, somewhat related note I think the Amiga could seriously have used an additional sound chip.
By 1989 commodore seriously needed better graphics and sound.
To drag out pretty much the 1985 specification into 1991 was optimistic at best.
The management didn't appreciate talent and nobody in engineering had enough influence.
I didn't suffer too badly with windows 95, I had a gateway machine around that time. The hardware and drivers were pretty solid.
I switched to a dell a couple of years later and the hardware was so new that the windows 95 driver support wasn't great & the windows 98 beta seemed to have problems with 192mb of ram. So I switched to Windows NT4 & that was very stable.
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It has 10 24-bit DACs capable of 192kHz playback that can be multiplexed down into a single stereo stream (for instance, when using headphones). In what sense is it not capable of mixing channels?
Because it has 10 wires.
Because it does not mix the 10 audio streams.
Because it does not support any kind of useable sampling rates.
Because nobody writes 10 channel mods.
Because nobody writes mods using 100% 44.1Khz sample speed.
Of all the sample speeds used in a random mod, this sound chip supports between 0% and 1% of the required sample rates.
It only outputs what the CPU has already mixed itself into 7.1 format or into 2 channel stereo format.
Either way the sound chip does almost nothing. Its just 10 dumb DACs sitting there waiting to be spoonfed data from the CPU.
Its not a Paula or anything of that technology level.
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Did you miss the part about 10 DACs?
Did you miss the part where the CPU does all the mixing itself?
Really, didn't the 7.1 part get through to you?
The definition of 7.1 is not mixed. It is 7 discrete sound channels that are not mixed. Each channel goes to a separate speaker.
If you want mixing done you must use the CPU to do it. This sound chip is 10 dumb DACs. They just sit there refusing to do anything until the CPU has done all the work of mixing a 64 channel mod into either A) Stereo format or B) 7.1 format.
How do you think a 12 channel mod would magically play on this sound chip?
The sound chip does not support 12 channels.
The sound chip does not support mods.
The sound chip does not support 8-bit samples. (most mods have 1 or more 8bit samples in them)
The sound chip does not support variable playback frequencies so by definition it cannot ever play a mod.
Do you have an issue with reading comprehension?
Do u?
That's 7 individual channels.
Exactly. Now u r getting it.
7 individual unmixed sound channels.
7 channels is like 1980s TFMX or Okalyzer. Your sound chip can match a 7Mhz Motorola 68000. I am impressed.
Since nobody writes 7 channel mods for decades the sound chip can't play them. Its up to the CPU to render your 24 channel mod down into 7.1 format and to scale all the sample rates up or down as required. All the mixing work is done by the CPU.
These chips are a lot more competent than you make them out to be.
No. They are a lot less competent since I never even got started on its complete lack features.
You are naive to think that the function of modern PC sound chips is limited to CPU based software mixing.
You are naive to think otherwise.
I am sure u could somehow buy such a soundcard as u r dreaming of.
Nobody would be using it and thus nobody would support it with software so it would not be particularly relevant.
The other 99.999% of ppl with intel compatible computers would still be using lame nonmxing cpu-driven soundchip. Somebody cut&pasted a feature list into the thread a while back. Perhaps you missed it?
Here is a quote:
All DACs supports 44.1k/48k/96k/192kHz sample rate
Notice how it refuses to accept 99% of all existing sample rates?
Wanna play a mod? It tells you to go screw yourself until you have the CPU do all the mixing itself and convert all samples into one of those 4 formats and convert all 64 tracks down into 7.1 format (or stereo format).
You have obviously never made a mod before or you would understand that you can't make a mod with only 4 sample rates. Especially not those 4 particular sample rates.
Good lucking trying to make music where every note sounds exactly the same.
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Did you miss the part where the CPU does all the mixing itself?
The definition of 7.1 is not mixed. It is 7 discrete sound channels that are not mixed. Each channel goes to a separate speaker.
Even when downmixing all the channels to two stereo channels? Did you actually read the text? You don't have any idea of what you are talking about if you think the DSPs of these chips aren't capable of internally mixing a huge amount of mixer inputs. DirectX and a lot of programs that use it make perfect use of hardware mixing and hardware resampling. The CPU doesn't have to deal with it, but since both these things are so computationally cheap, a lot of programs do it in the CPU anyway.
If you want mixing done you must use the CPU to do it. This sound chip is 10 dumb DACs. They just sit there refusing to do anything until the CPU has done all the work of mixing a 64 channel mod into either A) Stereo format or B) 7.1 format.
Again, no idea about what you are talking about. See above.
How do you think a 12 channel mod would magically play on this sound chip?
The sound chip does not support 12 channels.
The sound chip does not support mods.
The sound chip does not support 8-bit samples. (most mods have 1 or more 8bit samples in them)
If the chip doesn't "support" mods, neither does Paula. Yes, the mod format is closely modeled after the features of the Paula, but the chip doesn't support it on chip level more than any other sound chip.
And 12 channels, are you kidding me? These sound chips frequently support 128 channels mixed by the DSP (i.e. no CPU needed) with >24 bit internal mixing depth. Mod players ran almost CPU-less already in the days of the AWE32 and GUS, the former which was able to play them back with its wavetable synthesizer, and the latter which was able to play it back on its multi-channel variable sampling rate architecture.
The sound chip does not support variable playback frequencies so by definition it cannot ever play a mod.
Maybe its firmware doesn't (and really, why would it? We don't live in the 80s where band-limited resampling could actually have been a performance hit) but neither of us know exactly what the internal DSP is capable of.
Exactly. Now u r getting it.
7 individual unmixed sound channels.
7 channels is like 1980s TFMX or Okalyzer. Your sound chip can match a 7Mhz Motorola 68000. I am impressed.
Wait a second, TFMX is software mixed. In that case, the whole variable sample rate rant you've got going doesn't really matter in any way, and neither does the "free mixing" rant. If we are going to compare apples to apples, PCs are capable of software mixing 7 channels, and 7 to a couple of powers of ten...
Since nobody writes 7 channel mods for decades the sound chip can't play them. Its up to the CPU to render your 24 channel mod down into 7.1 format and to scale all the sample rates up or down as required. All the mixing work is done by the CPU.
Not necessarily. See above.
No. They are a lot less competent since I never even got started on its complete lack features.
Oh, please get started. It's specs are a lot unlike Paula, but are they really lacking in features? Please do a side-by-side comparison.
I am sure u could somehow buy such a soundcard as u r dreaming of.
Nobody would be using it and thus nobody would support it with software so it would not be particularly relevant.
The other 99.999% of ppl with intel compatible computers would still be using lame nonmxing cpu-driven soundchip. Somebody cut&pasted a feature list into the thread a while back. Perhaps you missed it?
I saw the feature list, but you obviously didn't do more than skim over it. It's not a dream sound card I'm talking about. You'll have a hard time finding a PC sound chip these days that doesn't support DirectX hardware accelerated mixing and resampling, which is all done by the DSP.
Here is a quote:
Notice how it refuses to accept 99% of all existing sample rates?
Wanna play a mod? It tells you to go screw yourself until you have the CPU do all the mixing itself and convert all samples into one of those 4 formats and convert all 64 tracks down into 7.1 format (or stereo format).
This is an architectural difference between the Paula and modern sound chips. You are really stupid to think a modern sound chip would have anything to gain from minutely variable sample rates. But rest assured that the CPU doesn't have to deal with either resampling nor mixing.
You have obviously never made a mod before or you would understand that you can't make a mod with only 4 sample rates. Especially not those 4 particular sample rates.
Oh, I've made quite a few mods, both on the Amiga and the PC. It's landing me live gigs every couple of months or so. I perfectly understand the differences between the variable sample rate Paula and modern fixed-rate PC soundcards. It's a difference, alright, but in no way a limitation of the latter. Variable sample rates is an artefact from a time where a dedicated DSP to handle high-quality resampling was infeasible and resampling on the CPU actually had a noticeable performance impact.
The YM2149 is capable of playing 300 khz tones, something which the Paula (and most modern PC sound chips) is utterly incapable of. Does that make the YM2149 superior?
Good lucking trying to make music where every note sounds exactly the same.
Oh, we're talking about actual use now? Are you sure you want the discussion to head that way?
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BTW, where the hell did you get the idea that the Amiga can mix 4 channels together for free?
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@Chaoslord I don't mean to be rude, but your rantings are just insane... I love the colour Paula's audio reproduction, but it is far from a "good" sound chip. Even in the mid 80's it was simply "good enough" (ie better than the competition) at the price point.
You go on about the fixed frequency of modern sound chips, but that is the best way to get accurate audio reproduction... The Amiga's frequencies were based on the rate the DMA could feed the chip and this only ever approximations of the required frequency... Etc... :)
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BTW, where the hell did you get the idea that the Amiga can mix 4 channels together for free?
It is practically free. It uses hardware double buffering. It uses DMA. The Paula chip is its own processor that processes information on its own. It does need a little supervsion from the CPU so its not 100% free, just 95% free.
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@Chaoslord I don't mean to be rude, but your rantings are just insane... I love the colour Paula's audio reproduction, but it is far from a "good" sound chip. Even in the mid 80's it was simply "good enough" (ie better than the competition) at the price point.
All u r saying is "I wish Paula had 16-bit audio output". Well everyone wants that. Of course it would be better. Its a tiny tiny design change to Paula but Mehdi Ali would not allow it. Oh well.
You go on about the fixed frequency of modern sound chips, but that is the best way to get accurate audio reproduction...
Guess what? Paula can do fixed frequency too.
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Because it has 10 wires.
Because it does not mix the 10 audio streams.
Yes it can, actually, but never mind. I suggest you read the technical data sheets for these parts before making such statements.
Look, I love Paula's unique sound more than most and still compose for it. However, the stuff you come out with at times is just mindbogglingly messed up.
Because it does not support any kind of useable sampling rates.
In the audio industry, 11025, 22050, 24000, 32000, 44100, 48000 and so on are all standard frequencies. Any dedicated sampler (back in the days when you bought dedicated samplers) even used these frequencies. Entire professionally captured sample libraries were published in them.
However, since you raise the issue, as a musician and coder I must point out that neither does Paula. Paula doesn't even have the concept of a sampling rate; it has a sample period which is the inverse function, a physical duration of time measured in clocks between loading the sample registers. Being a 1/x function and x measured as an integer number of clocks, the error in this approximation gets worse for higher playback rates. I've tested this. Given a synthetic looped sinewave of say 64 samples, you can hear the off-pitch playback, particularly for higher notes when comparing to the same notes rendered by software into a buffer.
Also, Paula doesn't mix the four audio outputs it has, either. At least not digitally. The four channels are configured L R R L at the analogue stage and the audio filter happens after that.
Paula would have been far more useful if each of the 4 channels could be panned and if the audio filter could have been toggled per channel. Better still if the filter had more than one cut off frequency that could be selected.
Because nobody writes 10 channel mods.
Because nobody writes mods using 100% 44.1Khz sample speed.
Irrelevant. Who cares? All the Amiga mod based music I've written in the last 15 years have been OctaMED Mix Mode because as a musician it's *vastly* more useful than the old 4 channel mode. 4 channel mode is handy if all you care about is CPU time, but if you want to make music for it's own sake, no musician is going to turn down more channels and more control over them.
Of all the sample speeds used in a random mod, this sound chip supports between 0% and 1% of the required sample rates.
So what? You get a set of industry standard replay rates versus an ad-hoc set of non-standard rates that are the result of dividing your PAL/NTSC clock by some fixed integer value.
It only outputs what the CPU has already mixed itself into 7.1 format or into 2 channel stereo format.
Either way the sound chip does almost nothing. Its just 10 dumb DACs sitting there waiting to be spoonfed data from the CPU.
Er, no. It supports all sorts of hardware DSP for channel expansion, equalisation and many other things besides. These are standard features on all modern sound chips, not just the DACs.
The driver has the responsibility of playing a potentially limitless number of input audio streams through whatever hardware configuration the chip has been programmed for, and in that it has to do whatever mixing is required. However, the chip does far more than basic DAC duty. The incoming streams can be at any of the standard audio rates. They are resampled to the configured output rate using nth-order digital filtering, equalized, companded, maybe even a bit of DSP effects depending on whatever goofy preset I select, and formatted for whatever output configuration is selected.
On all but the most unfeatured chipsets, the CPU just does upstream mixing of samples into input streams. Yes that does use CPU time, but it's absolutely insignificant on a modern CPU.
Its not a Paula or anything of that technology level.
No, it isn't.
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Guess what? Paula can do fixed frequency too.
No, it can do fixed period. They aren't quite the same. You can't play a 22050Hz stream because there's no integer value you can divide either the PAL or NTSC clock by to get that value. The closest you can get with PAL is ~22030Hz.
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It is practically free. It uses hardware double buffering. It uses DMA. The Paula chip is its own processor that processes information on its own. It does need a little supervsion from the CPU so its not 100% free, just 95% free.
It simply doesn't mix 4 channels together. It mixes channels together in pairs to two different outputs. I.E. sure, you could set it up to output four channels without using any CPU, but nope, it doesn't mix them all together.
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No, it can do fixed period. They aren't quite the same. You can't play a 22050Hz stream because there's no integer value you can divide either the PAL or NTSC clock by to get that value. The closest you can get with PAL is ~22030Hz.
Paula does fixed frequency of 22030hz in PAL or any of a wide range of other values.
And btw: I tried to convince Gunnar that Natami Paula needs a special fix to be able to generate 44100Hz exactly. But he repeatedly rejected the idea as unnecessary and silly and pointless. What is your opinion on that?
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It simply doesn't mix 4 channels together. It mixes channels together in pairs to two different outputs. I.E. sure, you could set it up to output four channels without using any CPU, but nope, it doesn't mix them all together.
True that it mixes 2 channels to the left and 2 to the right. But it does not require you to use the CPU to resample all the sounds to a specific frequency. It supports a giant range of frequencies and just mixes the different samples of different frequencies together like magic. And it does the mixing on its own with DMA. One DMA channel per DAC.
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Paula does fixed frequency of 22030hz in PAL or any of a wide range of other values.
None of which are correctly tuned for musical notes. Given that your argument was that paula is "playing" the music by using variable sample rate replay, this is pretty important. Humans with good hearing can typically resolve different pitches to within a few Hz. As you need shorter periods for higher frequency note play back, the error in 1/x for integer x becomes more apparent.
That said, Paula's imperfect reproduction (in many ways - quantisation noise, aliasing etc) is what makes it unique and I really do love it as an instrument in it's own right. However, for *production*, that is, the end result of combining individual instrument performances into a finished recording, all of those cool thing suddenly become a handicap.
And btw: I tried to convince Gunnar that Natami Paula needs a special fix to be able to generate 44100Hz exactly. But he repeatedly rejected the idea as unnecessary and silly and pointless. What is your opinion on that?
It's fine if you don't mind having, for instance, to replay video at the wrong rate to synchronize the audio or resample the latter to avoid issues.
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True that it mixes 2 channels to the left and 2 to the right. But it does not require you to use the CPU to resample all the sounds to a specific frequency. It supports a giant range of frequencies and just mixes the different samples of different frequencies together like magic. And it does the mixing on its own with DMA. One DMA channel per DAC.
It's not really mixing (at least in any data processing perspective). The analogue outputs are simply summed.
I would have much preferred if there were some software controllable left/right volumes (or just volume + pan) for each of the 4 channels. That would have been awesome.
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True that it mixes 2 channels to the left and 2 to the right. But it does not require you to use the CPU to resample all the sounds to a specific frequency. It supports a giant range of frequencies and just mixes the different samples of different frequencies together like magic. And it does the mixing on its own with DMA. One DMA channel per DAC.
I'd say that analog summing is nothing like "magic" but I understand how someone with no idea about the subject might use that word.
Hardware mixing of multiple buffers with arbitrary pitches is a pretty basic feature of PC sound chips since more than a decade back, and before that, hardware wavetable synthesis with RAM big enough to easily accommodate the max total sample size of mods were prevalent.
DSPs, allowing CPU-free realtime effects like reverb, 3D positioning, dynamic compression, gain control, seamless and invisible resampling and mixing of a great number of input streams are ubiquitous. Whatever obscure feature the Paula has that a modern PC sound chip is missing was left out because it isn't necessary. Quite oppositely, they were there on the Paula because they made practical sense in a setup with very limited CPU and RAM resources. Frankly, I love the Amiga sound, but I'm not going to pretend that the Paula is technically superior to modern PC sound chips or even an AWE32 in any way. Horribly non-linear DACs, its totally unmatched architecture and its limitations is what gives it its great character, but it can't match your average on-board cheap PC sound card in terms of fidelity, features and flexibility. Even a lot of the features I've described that apply to most sound cards are frequently left unused because doing everything in software has so little overhead on a basic PC setup that it doesn't matter.
You're really awful at discussing these things, too. You fail to acknowledge when you are proven wrong and keep coming back to points that have already been adressed and refuted in previous posts. In terms of a metaphor, you very quickly paint yourself into a corner, but apparently you don't mind stepping in paint.
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Sound in CD players started at 44KHz for a good reason, playing samples at a lower frequency adds noise.
Paula works the same way as early digital instruments like the Fairlight or PPG. However, as soon as the technology was cheap enough everyone switched to resampling because the quality was so much better.
Paula is an interesting 80's sound chip but the things that make it good are mainly due to the vast amounts of sound artefacts it produces. This mean it's great if you want a coloured crunchy sound but it's pretty much useless for even normal audio playback these days. Even the most basic PCs have been better for a very long time.
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Sound in CD players started at 44KHz for a good reason, playing samples at a lower frequency adds noise.
Paula works the same way as early digital instruments like the Fairlight or PPG. However, as soon as the technology was cheap enough everyone switched to resampling because the quality was so much better.
Paula is an interesting 80's sound chip but the things that make it good are mainly due to the vast amounts of sound artefacts it produces. This mean it's great if you want a coloured crunchy sound but it's pretty much useless for even normal audio playback these days. Even the most basic PCs have been better for a very long time.
I guess that concludes the discussion about Amiga audio. This is what I call a complete summary and conclusion in a topic.
:)
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Sound in CD players started at 44KHz for a good reason, playing samples at a lower frequency adds noise.
Well sort of, it's mostly due to taking the highest frequency that people can hear then doubling it because of nyquist. The specific frequency was chosen because they wanted to used analogue video tapes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCM_adaptor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCM_adaptor)) to store the digital data on & that was the rate they ended up with (much the same as how they came up with the Amiga's maximum dma sample rate). It also allowed the 74 minutes they wanted in the size cd they wanted.
CD players have used filters, oversampling and 1 bit dacs to reduce the harmonics inherent in digital playback.
CD audio was over-hyped, it survived so long because people don't like format changes.
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Paula is an interesting 80's sound chip but the things that make it good are mainly due to the vast amounts of sound artefacts it produces. This mean it's great if you want a coloured crunchy sound but it's pretty much useless for even normal audio playback these days.
I find that when playing back CDs in 44Khz 14 bit stereo with calibration, there's not much coloring at all. In fact, I think most of the coloring in the 8 bit 4 channel mods is because of the used samples and tracker effects, and not because of the DACs.
Playing back CDs sounds perfectly fine, just not in 8 bit (the horror!) and you do need double scan modes for the 44 Khz playback.
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I find that when playing back CDs in 44Khz 14 bit stereo with calibration, there's not much coloring at all.
Well, the whole point of CyberSound's calibration (the driver for which is what Paula 14-bit mode in AHI uses) is to mitigate the non-linearity of Paula's DACs, so if you have calibrated it well, it should sound relatively clean. It does depend on what you listen to, however. I can still hear quantization noise and aliasing however, particularly on gentle volume ramps in quiet parts of music, even having painstakingly calibrated my machine. These days, it's hidden behind digital noise. I suspect some caps have dried out wherever the analogue stage is decoupled.
It doesn't bother me particularly however, since any multichannel mods I write end up rendered to disk and when I do use Paula as a sample player, I usually want all that colouring.
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Well, the whole point of CyberSound's calibration (the driver for which is what Paula 14-bit mode in AHI uses) is to mitigate the non-linearity of Paula's DACs, so if you have calibrated it well, it should sound relatively clean. It does depend on what you listen to, however. I can still hear quantization noise and aliasing however, particularly on gentle volume ramps in quiet parts of music, even having painstakingly calibrated my machine. These days, it's hidden behind digital noise. I suspect some caps have dried out wherever the analogue stage is decoupled.
It doesn't bother me particularly however, since any multichannel mods I write end up rendered to disk and when I do use Paula as a sample player, I usually want all that colouring.
Personally, I find even the uncalibrated 14 bit output sounds fantastic. Maybe I'm biased. ;)
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Personally, I find even the uncalibrated 14 bit output sounds fantastic. Maybe I'm biased. ;)
Again, it all depends what you use it for. Really, the intent of the 14-bit mode was to overcome the fidelity issues imposed by the existing 8-bit mode. Viewed in that light, you really ought to calibrate your CyberSound driver and use that calibrated output to get the best fidelity from your system.
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I can still hear quantization noise and aliasing however, particularly on gentle volume ramps in quiet parts of music, even having painstakingly calibrated my machine.
Yeah, there's still some noise in those soft spots.
These days, it's hidden behind digital noise. I suspect some caps have dried out wherever the analogue stage is decoupled.
Time for a re-cap perhaps?
It doesn't bother me particularly however, since any multichannel mods I write end up rendered to disk and when I do use Paula as a sample player, I usually want all that colouring.
But what is that coloring? Apart from some noisiness I don't hear any.
Personally, I find even the uncalibrated 14 bit output sounds fantastic. Maybe I'm biased. ;)
Perhaps, but calibration should still reduce the noisiness of the soft parts of music.
Viewed in that light, you really ought to calibrate your CyberSound driver and use that calibrated output to get the best fidelity from your system.
It's a pity the calibration software doesn't allow calibrating the left and right channels separately, instead, all channels are calibrated at the same time :(
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But what is that coloring? Apart from some noisiness I don't hear any.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital-to-analog_converter
"The fact that DACs output a sequence of piecewise constant values (known as zero-order hold (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-order_hold) in sample data textbooks) or rectangular pulses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectangular_function) causes multiple harmonics above the Nyquist frequency (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist_frequency). Usually, these are removed with a low pass filter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_pass_filter) acting as a reconstruction filter in applications that require it."
The Amiga's low pass filter is far too low to leave enabled when you're outputting 44k. Even with normal rates it sounds too muddy. In fact back in the day I used one of these http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=1447 which really boosted the high frequencies. I might open it to see what it contains, I think it might just be a single channel graphic equaliser.
A lot of people don't notice the crunchiness, whether this is due to lack of sensitivity to high frequencies (I can hear frequencies higher than is predicted for my age) or lack of interest I don't know.
I still have my ghettoblaster too (picture isn't mine... but it looks the same) and the fake surround and 3d bass really made the amiga sound great.
(http://gp1.pinkbike.org/p4pb5602541/p4pb5602541.jpg)
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Funny; just the other day I watched the LGR Oddware review of the Covox Speech Thing on Youtube...
I was struck by how much the sound output reminded me of the Amiga's audio.
Of course, I will now stand patiently and wait for the screaming to start...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spOenlrSSOE
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The Amiga's low pass filter is far too low to leave enabled when you're outputting 44k.
That filter is useless.
A lot of people don't notice the crunchiness, whether this is due to lack of sensitivity to high frequencies (I can hear frequencies higher than is predicted for my age) or lack of interest I don't know.
Are you talking about 44khz 14 bit calibrated? If so, there is certainly some noise in the softer parts of music, which is MUCH worse without calibration. If not, then what do you mean with crunchiness?
I was struck by how much the sound output reminded me of the Amiga's audio.
That's just because of the samples they used. That typical Amiga sound is caused by the samples used in modules.
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The Amiga's low pass filter is far too low to leave enabled when you're outputting 44k. Even with normal rates it sounds too muddy.
I agree. I always turned my filter off and left it off.
However at some point a new Amiga came out that had much brighter audio. It sounded sooooo much better. I can't remember if it was the A3000 or A1200 but it was one of those. I donno what they did but the audio was noticeably brighter.
I still have my ghettoblaster too (picture isn't mine... but it looks the same) and the fake surround and 3d bass really made the amiga sound great.
I donno what 3D bass is but I have always used a Sony stereo with a "Surround Sound" button that makes the Amiga's audio sound fantastically awesome! It completely removes that wide separation thing and makes listening on headphones a wonderful audiophonical experience.
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Again, it all depends what you use it for. Really, the intent of the 14-bit mode was to overcome the fidelity issues imposed by the existing 8-bit mode. Viewed in that light, you really ought to calibrate your CyberSound driver and use that calibrated output to get the best fidelity from your system.
I have a Prelude1200, so I don't bother much with the 14 bit mode. :D
I have done calibrations in the past though, the most recent one was about 6 months ago where I calibrated my A600 (68000, 4MB ram, KS2) perfectly which took about 2 hours. I did it because I ordered an ACA620 (which is now back with Jens for a firmware fix) so would therefore be able to play stuff back easily through the 14 bit calibrated mode.
I never actually tried the ACA620 in that machine before having to return it for the fix, but as soon as I get it back I'll be trying it out. I got that A600 to play back uncalibrated 14 bit though (16 bit 28KHz stereo audio), albeit it had to take a breath every 4 seconds whilst it buffered up in 14 bit mode. :crazy:
Seriously though, the uncalibrated 14 bit output is fantastic when compared to standard 8 bit.