Audiophile Linux

This repository contains helpful information for audio enthusiasts who use Linux. Contributions and comments are welcome!

If you are an audio enthusiast using Linux, please consider supporting a developer, such as Tanu Kaskinen

Hardware

My setup: Ubuntu 20.04 64-bit > USB > Schiit Modi 3 > JDS Labs Atom Amp (low gain) > Beyerdynamic DT-1990 Pro

Setup

I listen to Tidal lossless through pulseaudio via Google Chrome and use pulseeffects to equalize my headphones. On occasion, I play bitperfect sound through Quodlibet.

Pulseaudio

Here are the changes that I made from the default configuration of /etc/pulse/dameon.conf. I'm using as base the newest daemon.conf from Ubuntu 20.04. You can find the configuration files in ./pulse.

Old

; resample-method = speex-float-1
; avoid-resampling = false

; default-sample-format = s16le
; default-sample-rate = 44100
; alternate-sample-rate = 48000

New

 resample-method = speex-float-10
 avoid-resampling = yes

## These next options should be tailored to your use case and hardware. I mainly play files in 44100 and 96000 bit rate through headphones.

 default-sample-format = float32le
 default-sample-rate = 44100
 alternate-sample-rate = 96000

I drew from these sources:

1. Medium
2. Systutorials
3. Archlinux
4. Linux Mint Forums
5. Personal communication with pulseaudio developer Tanu Kaskinen

Note that resample-method = speex-float-10 might be overkill.

Pulseeffects

I installed the Flatpak version of pulseeffects. At first, I played with the "niceness" level on the global menu of the application but I realized that it's ignored! In particular I changed the niceness parameter to -15 and then ran ps -o ni $(pidof pulseeffects) only to see that the process had a niceness level of 0. The temporary shortcut that I found is running the following (keep in mind that I run pulseeffects as a Flatpak app):

flatpak run com.github.wwmm.pulseeffects
sudo renice -15 -p $(pgrep pulseeffects)

Please note that you may need to open a new tab in your command line for the second command.

Equalization settings

I've found two good sources for equalization settings:

1. Oratory
2. Auto Eq

QuodLibet

I like this application because it's actively under development, allows easily to play bitperfect and runs natively on Wayland. On Ubuntu you can install it through APT and flatpak. The flatpak version cannot run bitperfect audio at this moment due to flatpak's security model. Thus, I use the APT executable.

The settings I use (which you will have to modify for your use case), File > Preferences > Output pipeline:

alsasink device=hw:D10,0

You can figure out the name of your sound card with

aplay -l