On 03/08/2013 11:02 AM, Ben Bell wrote:
> Well obviously. Anyone with ears can tell you that.
>
> More importantly, does a vintage kernel sound better than a more recent one?
> I've been doing some testing and the results are pretty clear, not that
> they should surprise anyone who knows anything about recording:
>
> 1) Older kernels sound much warmer than newer ones.
>
> 2) Kernels compiled by hand on the machine they run on sound less sterile
> than upstream distro provided ones which also tend to have flabby low
> end response and bad stereo imaging.
>
> 3) As if it needed saying, gcc4 is a disaster for sound quality. I mean,
> seriously if you want decent audio and you use gcc4 you may as well be
> recording with a tin can microphone.
>
> 4) Kernels sound better after they've been worn in a bit. Don't expect your
> newly built 2.4 kernel to have that warm sound until you've run with it
> for a few weeks, but for a really classy sound here's a trick: compile the
> kernel and then put it somewhere safe (ext2 partition, obviously) to mellow
> for a month and then boot into it at the last minute before you start
> recording an important session. Your clients will thank you.
>
> Ben
I have a couple of NOS kernels stacked, those sound way better than any
kernel built after 2000.
On a serious note, people seriously believe a real-time kernel sounds
better than normal kernels. They also think raising the nrpacks value of
the snd-usb-audio module improves the sound quality of their $2000 USB
DAC. Maybe the latter is true but I have no idea how nrpacks relates to
sound quality.
Jeremy
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Received on Fri Mar 8 12:15:02 2013
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