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Sorta hidden setting that make iTunes sound better

transmaster

transmaster

AK Subscriber
Subscriber
iTunes has always acted like Ivan Denisovich from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's book One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962) That is being held a prisoner in a Siberian PC labor camp on my PC's. I received an update to iCloud and I was looking to see if I could find what the update was, it's hiding. While I was looking in "Play Back Preferences" I happened on a two settings the first up at the top of the tile is called "Sound Enhancer" I don't have to tell you the goodness of that; it was instantly disabled, toward the bottom is a second and much more important setting called "Play Audio Using" the default is "Direct Audio" I clicked the pull down and hidden there is "Windows Audio Session" Oh joy and happiness! :yes: This is WASAPI Windows Audio Session API. Window Vista on forward have this. It was recoded and vastly improved in Windows 8. The maximum bitrate is 192. and you have a choice of 16 or 24 for the bit density.

It has always seemed that iTunes was fighting with my onboard sound card nothing sounded very good and heaven help you if you tweaked an EQ anywhere. When I purchased the Onkyo it has the DLNA interface and was able to directly connect the PC to this AVR via my network using jRiver a vast improvement. I never use iTunes for general music playback I use jRiver or Foobar2000 instead. When I installed the ASUS Xonar SC it was the same thing all over again. This conflict is now over with. I suspect "the Sound Enhancer" was a big part of the problem. I did A/B's between Direct Audio and Window Audio Session and the sound in WAS is much better. Now I have iTunes sounding better then it ever has, not as good as the DLNA connection, and definitely not better the the Xonar's on board headphone amp feeding my AKG K240 MKII's using either jRiver or Foobar2000 but at least usable. I should point out that playing my iTunes files through my AppleTV is a stupendous improvement. Now if I could get Tunes itself to work smoothly I would be so happy. My task manager has given iTunes a good nickname "not responding"
 
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No, the choice was made at the point of purchase for the computer. ([FONT="Book Antiqua]I[/FONT] couldn't resist :D)












Seriosly though- Windows users might find your obervation useful.
 
yeah, came across this tweak out of desperation. everyone running itunes on windows can benefit from it.
 
Rick Vestal said:
The best setting I found for iTunes was in add/remove programs. (Sorry, I couldn't resist :D )
Click to expand...

Believe me if it wasn't for all of the iOS stuff I have iTunes would never had been installed to begin with. I have used iTunes on an Apple computer and it is a whole different
creature.

tybrad said:
No, the choice was made at the point of purchase for the computer. ([FONT="Book Antiqua][B]I[/B][/FONT][/COLOR] couldn't resist :D)[/QUOTE]
You are correct there is going to be an iMac in my future, each time I get the white screen of computer not responding on Windows 8 I think of how nice an iMac would be.

[quote="CT Jim, post: 7364060"]Will this setting change recording of purchased stuff?
Click to expand...

This is only affects playback. You can change how iTunes imports CD's. I have all of them imported and transcoded to Apple Lossless
 
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Thanks for the suggesting. I'm about to see how it sounds. I prefer jplay and foobar but I use itunes at work so this will come in handy.

Rick
 
The iTunes "Sound Enhancer" catastrophe has been well known for many years by professional audio people.

It is not an exaggeration to say that the inclusion of sound enhancer in Itunes, and the fact that it is turned on by default, with no notice to the listener, is one of the greatest misfortunes in all of audio reproduction history. (Millions of people have played back billions of songs without knowing that the sound is being arbitrarily changed by Steve Jobs.)

Actually, there was some uproar about it, years ago, so I thought Apple changed it so that it was NOT turned on by default.
 
tblob said:
The iTunes "Sound Enhancer" catastrophe has been well known for many years by professional audio people.

It is not an exaggeration to say that the inclusion of sound enhancer in Itunes, and the fact that it is turned on by default, with no notice to the listener, is one of the greatest misfortunes in all of audio reproduction history. (Millions of people have played back billions of songs without knowing that the sound is being arbitrarily changed by Steve Jobs.)

Actually, there was some uproar about it, years ago, so I thought Apple changed it so that it was NOT turned on by default.
Click to expand...

I sure didn't know about it, it never would have been turned on if I had. typical "Apple Knows Best" :thumbsdn:
 
It certainly pays to look through the sub-menus. I'm sure the setting was set by default for PCs as it was presumed that most would be using an iPod and someone felt it sounded "better" that way. Not so on a Mac. On my Mac tower iTunes sounds very good. On my PC laptop it did not and I found the setting and made it the same as on the Mac. Still doesn't sound quite as good as the Mac, but the soundcard isn't as good.
 
fiddlefye said:
It certainly pays to look through the sub-menus. I'm sure the setting was set by default for PCs as it was presumed that most would be using an iPod and someone felt it sounded "better" that way. Not so on a Mac. On my Mac tower iTunes sounds very good. On my PC laptop it did not and I found the setting and made it the same as on the Mac. Still doesn't sound quite as good as the Mac, but the soundcard isn't as good.
Click to expand...

With these iTunes setting I am listening to the Apple lossless files using iTunes with the ASUS Xonar Essence headphone amp feeding the AKG K240 MkII headphones and all I can say is fantastic. I have the Xonar's controls set PCM, Dolby Headphone, large room, with this the headphones disappear off of my head. :music:
 
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Do the changes you can make in the "Play Audio Using" setting affect audio quality only if you are using a computer sound output (e.g., soundcard)? In other words, if a person is streaming wirelessly to an Airport Express or AppleTV, is the sound quality affected by this iTunes Preference change?
 
If you are playing back through iTunes, yes. iPod Touch, iPad, iPhones using Airplay stream directly to your AVR, or to your AppleTV and don't play through iTunes, you can also access your iTunes files directly with your AppleTV but is isn't using your computer to play them back but goes directly to your AVR so these settings don't apply nor are they needed.
 
I have another sorta hidden thing in iTunes. Right click an individual music track this will bring up a dialog box look for a button called "Get Info" open this and look to the top for a tap called "Summary" click this and it will open up a tile that shows such stuff such as the file type, bitrate, number plays etc. What you are looking for is at the bottom. "Where" right click the file and two choices will scroll down You will see "Show in Windows Explorer", and below "Copy Path" it is the former you want right click it and it will take you right to where the file is located. this is valuable for doing A/B comparison between the player you use outside of iTunes and iTunes its self. I found in my case with the enhancer turned on and set at its absolute minimum with the above "Get Info" open click the tab called Options there you will find "Equalizer Preset" click the pull down look for a setting "Flat" left click to select. This iTunes setting sounds just like my Foobar2000 with its settings all flat or turned off.
 
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I've used iTunes on both OS X and Windows and you're right, that it's a completely different beast. It's a completely different experience and if I was using Windows, iTunes wouldn't be my first choice unless I was heavily into the iOS eco-system. But then again, if someone's into the iOS eco-system, they'd probably be using a Mac anyways.

For Mac users, iTunes + AudirvanaPlus/Amarra/PureMusic/Decibel, etc... is hard to beat for sound quality. Although, iTunes has gotten bloated over the years, I haven't seen a better overall alternative on the Mac side.

transmaster said:
Believe me if it wasn't for all of the iOS stuff I have iTunes would never had been installed to begin with. I have used iTunes on an Apple computer and it is a whole different
creature.
Click to expand...
 
iTunes 11 works same for me on 7 and Mavericks accessing 16/44 ALAC library on file server. Its fast and easy to navigate on either platform. I've AB'd Win7 machine and MBA thru same DAC direct connected (USB) and over Airplay and can't hear any diff in SQ.
 
Other have told me how smooth iTunes is on there PC's. I would use iTunes especially now that I finally have setting that work but is constantly hangs up. I had XP Pro and it was cranky there and it is no different with Windows 8. Could it be the fact I have nearly 6 TB of music and video files? The way iTunes indexes files is awful jRiver automatically indexes everything on my computer with ease. I am really thinking about getting a Mac Mini just to run iTunes on I have talked to others that have done this and they very much like the setup.
 
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