You knew this was coming, right? After, what about all the hub bub with Mac OS X? Depending on which forum one visits, there's often talk about Mac's being 'better' as audiophile sources than PCs. As readers here know by now, I think sound quality these days with a decent modern digital interface is primarily a function of the quality of one's DAC. So long as the digital source device is decent (not a high bar to cross by any means!) with bitperfect results and absent of any timeout errors, or extreme noise pollution, it's just fine. And one can verify the quality with objective measurements of course.
In-depth review of Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite and tips to remove DRM from iTunes on Mac Yosemite with TunesKit iTunes DRM video converter. Before you install the Yosemite beta, you'd better take a look at the new features of this upcoming Mac OS to make sure whether you really want it or not. Do you like to have MAC OS X Yosemite Style Music Player in your Windows. Here it is MAX OS X Yosemite Music Player Skin For CD Art Display.
The question being asked today is, compared to the software upsampling in Windows and Linux, how well does the Mac OS X software upsampling measure up? Behold the test subject in the image above - a; the model with just one communication port, the USB 3.1/Type C connector. Connected to the 'break out box' to the left is my plugged into the standard USB connector.
Here is the 'About This Mac' window to give us a little more info about this machine. We have a fanless 1.1GHz dual-core Intel Core M (Broadwell) processor. It's OS X 10.10.4 or 'Yosemite'. The new has just been released but given some early growing pains, I figure it was wise to delay an upgrade since this is my wife's machine and she doesn't care about the latest-and-greatest:-).
When it comes to OS X audio, the underlying digital infrastructure is something called '. As most folks know, to switch the underlying samplerate requires setting the 'Audio Devices' panel in Utilities - Audio MIDI Setup as seen here for the Geek Out V2.
As expected, a good looking orthodox, linear, ' impulse response for the antialiasing reconstruction filter. Now for the requisite results comparing hardware 'bitperfect' playback (using iTunes + BitPerfect app), Windows 10 up/downsampling, and Mac OS X up/downsampling. I'll only show the 44kHz and 192kHz results since 96kHz would not require any resampling. Remember, for each of these measurements, OS X Core Audio and Windows 10 DirectSound were set to resample to 96kHz: 16/44 (resampled to 96kHz using Core Audio / Win 10 DirectSound). As you can see, the higher quality upsampling algorithm in the Mac results in less high-frequency roll-off in the 44kHz test. Also no surprise is that with this better upsampling quality, intermodulation distortion which was shown to be high with the Windows 10 test is much better and can be easily appreciated in that THD+N vs. Frequency graph.
As for downsampling from 192kHz, it's not as much a problem other than a slightly earlier roll-off with the inferior Windows algorithm and the THD+N results are only marginally increased. Not significant issues in any case since the difference is likely all ultrasonic when downsampling to 96kHz. Finally, for completeness; jitter. 16 and 24-bit J-Test spectra; the top with iTunes plus to the hardware at the respective 44/48kHz samplerates. The bottom spectra using OS X Core Audio software upsampling to 192kHz (might as well stress the system a bit more that 96kHz). As you can see there is nothing here of significance.
Certainly nothing of concern that would suggest jitter problems due to the extra 'stress' from software upsampling of the audio! Realize that with today's CPUs in general, there is no real 'stress' at all. Even at 192kHz software upsampling, I'm seeing at most 10% CPU utilization spikes including the kernel, daemons, iTunes when playing music with OS X. Not to mention that the fanless Intel Core M 1.1GHz processor isn't exactly a speedy processor by today's standards! Conclusion: As I had speculated previously, whereas Windows functions on a broad range of hardware ranging widely in processing speed, Apple's OS X is targeted for a small family of computers with known speed parameters.
Save for folks who run ', OS X is meant for reasonably well endowed Apple laptops and desktops (with admittedly substantial price tags to boot!). This probably allows them to use a significantly higher quality resampling algorithm in Core Audio as demonstrated in the measurements above. Realize that although I can demonstrate and say that OS X is better in terms of the digital audio filter used, this would not explain claims by all the audiophiles who seem to have an affinity for Apple computers as preferred over a similar quality Windows computer using a properly configured set-up. I have certainly not noticed any difference in audible or measurable quality compared to my ASUS and portables when playing through a good asynchronous USB DAC in bit-perfect manner. Good job Apple! If there's one thing that I appreciate with Apple, it is that they attend to all the little details.
It is good to see that this includes things like the resampling algorithm in the audio infrastructure. And this is coming from a Windows / Android guy:-). Who I recently discovered your blog and it is very promising. But, there's one thing that I would really like to see here, RMAA measurements with loads, I mean you should run the RMAA test using some loads, usually those test are run with three loads, 16, 60 and 250 Ohm. Or 32 Ohm if you just wanna run one load test. Those test show how the source will really behave when you plug headphones directly to it, usually the low impedance loads are the most demanding with distortions and crosstalk. Also, some sources have caps in their outputs, if they are too small they may roll-off bass with low impedance loads, and the lower the impedance, the worse the roll-off is.
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And finally, please measuring output impedance is also very important! Simulated loads for measurements of headphone outputs very important. Likewise output impedance. As usual in life, there's only so much time to do stuff:-). Remember though that I'm not much into the headphone stuff and when I do listen, I often use the higher impedance Senn HD800 (300-ohm). That's part of the reason I've dragged my feet at getting load measurements out.
That and the fact that even if we simulate load with a specific value, this would still be a simulation rather than model the variance in impedance depending on frequency as in real headphones. I think InnerFidelity does an amazing job with headphones already of course.
OS X 10.10, officially named Yosemite, was first shown off by Apple at it's WWDC 2014 in June. As the 2014 version of Mac operating system, Yosemite has brought us some gorgeous new features that we can't wait for. Although the official release of Yosemite will be available later this autumn, Apple developers already got the chance to test this new OS X 10.10 with the beta version. Before you install the Yosemite beta, you'd better take a look at the new features of this upcoming Mac OS to make sure whether you really want it or not. Here we've put together some best new features introduced by Yosemite for you.
Best New Features on OS X Yosemite New Look. Mac OS X 10.10 got a redesign with new look and new icon added. It looks more modern than the old OS with the bold colours and definition.
These new icons are easy to understand at a glance and at any size. Mail Big Files. OS X Yosemite allows you to send big files to your friends easily than ever. Each time when you need o send big files, you could just attach the file to the email to your friend, click send, and then in the background Apple would upload the attachment to iCloud. When your friend received the email, it would automatically download the attachment from iCloud. AirDrop Available.
It's nice to see that the cross-platform syncing service AirDrop is made to be workable on OS X Yosemite. Once you have Yosemite and iOS 8 installed, you will be able to push files from one Apple device to the other easily, with no need to transfer files from your iPhone to your Mac via USB cable any more. Tools to Remove DRM from iTunes Videos on Mac Yosemite If you are a regular customer of iTunes Store and have already installed OS X Yosemite, you may have the need to convert the DRM-protected iTunes movies to unprotected common video formats on Mac Yosemite. Here, we would like to recommend you a quick and simple way to remove DRM from iTunes movie rentals and purchases on Mac OS X 10.10 with a powerful iTunes DRM removal tool.
Is the best and fastest iTunes DRM removal program to get rid of FairPlay DRM protection from iTunes movies and TV shows and convert the DRM-ed video files to DRM-free MP4 format at 20x faster speed with original audio tracks, subtitles and lossless video quality preserved on Mac OS X Yosemite. 3 Steps to Remove iTunes DRM Protection on Yosemite Now follow the tutorial here to get rid of DRM from iTunes movies and TV shows on Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite with TunesKit iTunes DRM Removal for Mac in 3 steps only.