WACUP
General => General Discussion => Topic started by: Bombadil on April 29, 2022, 08:21:06 PM
-
Listening to how bafflingly better the exact same audio file sounds in WACUP compared to the Youtube source got me thinking... is there any way possible to have the Chrome audio do some kind of Passthrough so all of it, from any tab, is played through WACUP?
-
No (unless you feel like fiddling with Virtual Audio Cables), and WACUP doesn't do any magic that makes YouTube videos sound any better.
-
What makes WACUP sound a lot better is the Audio Output plugins and DSP you can use.
Best generic solution for all windows sound I found so far is 'Equalizer APO' + Peace GUI and/or FXsound, but I still find WACUP+Audioburst+PowerFX quality much better.
-
Ah, had forgotten about that part, wish I could edit my post to mention that WACUP by itself doesn't do anything without plugins, ah well.
-
And what it can do with plug-ins is amazing. This is why I loved Winamp and now WACUP. Some others apps have a few plug-ins and some are able to use plug-ins developed for Winamp, but there's nothing like the original app that started it all.
-
Chrome would still send mangled audio to WACUP.
The solution is really to fix the audio in chrome.
Depending on your sound drivers it seems that different CLI parameters work for different people.
Forcing it to adapt to multi-channels worked on my system, but other people get better audio just by forcing WAV output.
Some need a combination of command switches.
See here for examples
https://support.google.com/chrome/thread/21248703/5-1-surround-sound-in-chrome?hl=en
Full list
https://peter.sh/experiments/chromium-command-line-switches/
-
What makes WACUP sound a lot better is the Audio Output plugins and DSP you can use.
Better is always going to be subjective & how everyone reacts to audio & anything else being done to it is going to vary.
My overall stance & which was what winamp generally did is don't mess with the audio unless you have to which minimises the effect that the whole decoding process & whatever may go on once it's been passed onto the audio output can introduce - once the OS gets it then who knows.
Trying to route audio through WACUP can get messy quickly. Sure you can you use linein/virtual audio cables but you're still reliant on what the OS/other programs are doing & if you're using a general audio solution to do things I think it'd then likely end up with even more re-processing being done.
As for youtube specifically, the browser version & what WACUP is able to access & play does vary (with MP3, AAC & Opus all being involved) & along with what video encoding is able to be accessed can also affect what audio stream & it's bitrate is obtained. That might also be what's making things seem different as actually different audio is being obtained along with whatever the browser may then be doing to things as part of it's decoding / playback.
-dro