What do you advanced users do to achieve great quality sounds in Linux Mint 18.3?

[Mint+Cola]

I'm using VLC Media Player and I clearly notice a difference of sound quality between Windows 10 and Linux Mint 18.3. I'm using .mp3 and .flac for my music files and I would play them in MAX VOLUME using VLC Media Player.
In Windows 10, the sound is still clear and maintains good quality, while in Linux Mint 18.3, it would sound like its drowning or not clear.

What do you advanced users install or do to get top notch quality audio for music, using VLC Media Player or any audio app?

[rado84]

VLC is crap. It's good only to watch online TV with it. For a perfect audio quality I use Audacious set up to use the ALSA driver (or in the audio settings tab it's called Analog spacial 5.0 Output). Also, sometimes it's necessary to make a setting in Audacious to increase volume on-the-fly by a specific number of dB, depending on how powerful your headphones/subwoofer is. Everything depends on the hardware but I can tell you this: I've tried Crapows 10 and there's a distinct difference between Crapows 10 and Linux regarding the sound with Linux winning the competition.

[Arch_Enemy]

I'm using VLC Media Player and I clearly notice a difference of sound quality between Windows 10 and Linux Mint 18.3. I'm using .mp3 and .flac for my music files and I would play them in MAX VOLUME using VLC Media Player.
In Windows 10, the sound is still clear and maintains good quality, while in Linux Mint 18.3, it would sound like its drowning or not clear.

What do you advanced users install or do to get top notch quality audio for music, using VLC Media Player or any audio app?

I use QMMP, a Real Player clone. Has volume, "gain", and a well-heeled EQ.

[Flemur]

I use QMMP, a Real Player clone. Has volume, "gain", and a well-heeled EQ.

Pretty sure vlc and qmmp use the same libraries:

Output from "apt-rdepends" for vlc and qmmp (grep "mp3" and "mpeg")

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vlc :libmp3lame0
vlc :libtwolame0

qmmp:libmp3lame0
qmmp:libtwolame0

vlc :libavcodec-ffmpeg-extra56
vlc :libavutil-ffmpeg54
vlc :libswresample-ffmpeg1
vlc :libavcodec-ffmpeg56
vlc :libavformat-ffmpeg56

qmmp:libavcodec-ffmpeg-extra56
qmmp:libavutil-ffmpeg54
qmmp:libswresample-ffmpeg1
qmmp:libavcodec-ffmpeg56
qmmp:libavformat-ffmpeg56

[TeaSwigger]

For audio, I either use the above suggested Audacious (configured in settings to use ALSA Output, the relevant sound card's 'Direct hardware device without any conversions' and 'Direct control device' mixer, no software volume control, no replay gain etc) or the super-light terminal-based mocp (configured to the equivalence of the settings used for Audacious). For other media including videos, I prefer mpv. VLC is great to have around since it may play stuff others may not, but in terms of quality I've had better luck with mpv. Like mocp, mpv uses text configuration files, which can be daunting, but in these cases the options were simple enough that I've managed to figure out how to get best results for my system.

For volume and other controls, I just use alsamixer in the terminal. I've removed/disabled pulse audio in favor of using ALSA 'straight'. To get around the recent requirement of Firefox for pulse audio if playing media in the browser, I use apulse: https://github.com/i-rinat/apulse. So far so good.

[bartszu]

https://www.mixxx.org/

[Hoser Rob]

VLC is crap. It's good only to watch online TV with it. For a perfect audio quality I use Audacious set up to use the ALSA driver (or in the audio settings tab it's called Analog spacial 5.0 Output). Also, sometimes it's necessary to make a setting in Audacious to increase volume on-the-fly by a specific number of dB, depending on how powerful your headphones/subwoofer is. Everything depends on the hardware but I can tell you this: I've tried Crapows 10 and there's a distinct difference between Crapows 10 and Linux regarding the sound with Linux winning the competition.

VLC is quite overrated for video but it's an excellent music player. In fact if I still had WIndows that's what I'd use there. If VLC is the problem try setting the audio output module differently, as suggested.

Underwater sounds are often pulseaudio related, try an ALSA module.

SUrprisingly no ones's suggested some proper system infp by the OP. Copy/paste this to the terminal and copy/paste the text output here:

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inxi -Fxz

[inRAIDius]

I swear by smplayer; it's a great front end for mplayer. It's highly detailed settings menu allows advanced audio and video configurations. Whether it's surround sound video playback or stereo sound audio file payback, smplayer out performs other players we've tested. In fact, it's my default player for all my audio/video files. I suggest giving it a try, research some of the more advanced settings. There are plenty of answers to these questions on the www.
For added sound quality try installing pulse audio equalizer. Sure, pulse sometimes gets a bad rap but in the recent years it's improved immensely and personally I won't do without it.
you can install it using a terminal session:

sudo apt-get install pulseaudio-equalizer

open it from applications menu or terminal

To install smplayer navigate here
https://www.smplayer.info/en/downloads

Have fun

[phd21]

Hi Mint+Cola,

I just read your post and the good replies to it. Here are my thoughts on this as well.

+1 It would help to know more about your system setup. If you run "inxi -Fxzd" and "lsusb" from the console terminal prompt, highlight the results, copy and paste them back here, that should provide enough information.

A lot depends on your sound hardware, but if you were getting good sound in Ms Windows with the same hardware, you should still be able to get that in Linux Mint. You can install QasMixer to adjust sound hardware.

There can be quite a difference in sound from various music and multimedia applications like VLC.

+1 for Audacious, Qmmp, Amarok, Sayonara, Guayadeque, etc... Audacious and Qmmp have options for using WinAMP skins; of these two music apps, I prefer Audacious. There are a lot of music applications available for Linux to install and try. I have many installed. There are many posts in this forum on this topic and "best music", etc...

FYI: Applications specifically made for playing music will usually have more options available for that than a multi-media player like VLC or SMplayer which plays videos as well as music and audio.

Sayonara Player Official Site - Downloads
https://sayonara-player.com/downloads.php

SMplayer is an excellent multimedia player like VLC. You can use either the "mplayer" or "mpv" for SMplayer, but they seem to suggest using "mpv" as the back-end.

SMPlayer 18.2.2 Released, Install In Ubuntu/Linux Mint Via PPA - NoobsLab | Ubuntu/Linux News, Reviews, Tutorials, Apps
- Note: QT5 version for Linux Mint 18.x and newer and QT4 for Linux Mint 17.x
https://www.noobslab.com/2018/02/smplay ... ll-in.html

You can use the excellent "SMplayer" to view videos, Blu-ray & DVD discs
Unlike other players SMplayer doesn't require you to install codecs to play something because it carries its own, all required codecs within itself. This release which now supports MPV and some other features such as MPRIS v2 Support, new theme, 3D stereo filter and more. I recommend reading both web links below.


To install this using the PPA method, open a console terminal, type in, or copy & paste, each line below one by one: Click "Select All" above command, right click the highlighted command, select Copy (or Ctrl+Insert), click in the console terminal window, and right click paste (or Shift+Insert), repeat for each command.

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sudo add-apt-repository ppa:rvm/smplayer

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sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mc3man/mpv-tests

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sudo apt-get update

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sudo apt-get install mpv smplayer smtube  youtube-dl

or for added smplayer themes and skins

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sudo apt-get install mpv smplayer smtube smplayer-themes smplayer-skins youtube-dl

Hope this helps ...

[rado84]

but it's an excellent music player

That's an arguable statement. It depens on what you want from VLC. If you're a bass maniac with an audio system dedicated to deep bass, like me, VLC won't cut it. For that you'll need players like Audacious, AIMP or Winamp where you can set individually each frequency. Yes, you can do that in VLC too but the result just isn't the same.

[Arch_Enemy]

You guys are all aware VLC has an EQ as well? I get very good sound from VLC, but prefer QMMP when playing music.

While Audacious is very good, it has a lot of overhead involved. I tend to try to keep my utilities lightweight.

Of course, I'm also running it from my video card's HDMA output though this, with a set of Mirage 5" reference speakers...

[rado84]

You guys are all aware VLC has an EQ as well?

Yes, we are. But even with custom settings that EQ in VLC the sound is like something we Bulgarians have an expression. That expression is "wooden sound". I don't know whether you can uderstand what that means but I can't explain it better.

[Arch_Enemy]

You guys are all aware VLC has an EQ as well?

Yes, we are. But even with custom settings that EQ in VLC the sound is like something we Bulgarians have an expression. That expression is "wooden sound". I don't know whether you can uderstand what that means but I can't explain it better.

Well, here in America, I was playing with a guitarist who described it as a "cardboard box", so no further translation required!