I have noticed recently that when I boot to my Linux drive, and play the same exact Youtube music video that my 5.1 surround sounds markedly better than when I am in Windows.......wonder why that is. I mean I love linux music production but everyone I know claims Windows and Mac beats Linux in terms of Music and media. Odd.
I've not tested this, but there could be a number of reasons for it. The big one that jumps out to me would likely be the available configuration and the fact that Linux audio drivers are actually developed on (depending on your sound card obviously). Anything that's integrated motherboard tends to have good maintenance.
When was the last time you updated your windows sound drivers?
The last update for my windows audio drivers was 2015/08 with what looks like some sort of windows 10 bug fix, before that? 2014/07. I didnt even know i had an update..
On Linux the hd intel audio stack sees fairly consistent incremental improvements.
I think the only thing that hold Linux back is the lack of robust music creation programs. Theres plenty (loads actually) out there but I think they differ from the norm or arent very well polished that many people dont pick them up.
Im rocking the onboard audio which I believe is Realtek. I checked the Intel driver stack on Windows recently and there have not been any updates since 2014 for it. Apparently Intel wants me to move away from Z87?
As far as software goes I point to Ardour and Bitwig for the quality stuff. Hopefully more will come.
get an O2 dac from epic pants. The USB dac / amp will have way better audio than any on board audio or sound card.
If that's a bit too much, get a schitt stack. magni / modi 2.
I have a feeling we have the same realtek chipset. It indeed works well in Linux I've never tested the suroubdsound though as I don't have the speakers for it.
Isn't that sterio only?
No. You can have left / right, but if you are hooking up speakers all around your room, you'll want a receiver hooked into your PC via S/PDIF, and your speakers hooked into your receiver.
However, if you have a headset / headphones, then you won't have a problem getting virtual surround sound.
Linux has a better audio stack.
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Actually, I am totally off. I didn't see that OP has a 5.1 sound system already, which means he already has a receiver.
You guys are right, but there really shouldn't be a huge difference between the two OS's.
There probably isnt a large difference but @Quixotic_Autocrat's link I think likely answers it, the Linux audio stack is much lower level and more frequently maintained and has greater configurability.
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Yeah ASLA is nice but sometimes Pulse makes me want to punt a puppy. Windows audio does require less babysitting though.
Pulse has improved greatly, but I don't disagree it has its issues.
The improved audio quality is what got me interested in Linux. Working with folks on radio streaming, I can hear improved sound quality on even a 128k stream. This may have more to do with the poor quality/bad setup of SAM Broadcaster - the main proprietary radio streaming solution on Windows
There won't be noticeable difference for folks with good DACs, and probably v marginal for newer onboard sound devices. I started on linux with an Audigy2 sound card, which has appalling windows drivers, linux significantly improves on all features of the EMU10k2 chipset
the actual reason is windows mixer reduces sound quality. It takes all of the audio streams and shapes them through software causing bit drop. Ironically its probably because the sound on Linux is less complex it sounds cleaner and 'louder'
you can set your Linux audio to 32bit FLOAT in the pulse config and Audacious music player it means that when digitally changing volume there should be no loss, where as when you run internally at 16bit your volume changes are dropping lots of bits from the resolution (( hence why so many out board DAC's offer analogue volume controls to stop the digital image being reduced ))
I should say, some DAC's digital volume controls are now in a ultra high resolution 64bit domain. to take into account the bit drops from altering the volume.
I believe on windows jriver media center offers a 64it volume control in conjunction with using AISO WASAPI direct output that should bypass windows internal audio.
It is not just the stack.
Ever since windows vista came out they were compressing the audio by default. Why.....I do not know. There was all sorts of bull shit voodoo going on in vista and it carries over to windows 7.
This was a big issue several years ago because windows xp had better audio than vista and everyone was scrambling to find out why.
There were tons of articles about this like 8-10 years ago. Maybe someone with more time than me can find them.
FiiO E10k Olympus 2 USB DAC works flawless on linux, just plug and play :)
I think it would make for some interesting testing. I too have noticed a difference between linux and windows.