Fidelizer - better sound from your computer music system

Rocker

A company called Fidelizer, http://www.fidelizer-audio.com/, have a computer program that claims to improve the sound quality for music stored on that computer.  For example a laptop that has music files on it and is used with earphones [often on commutes to work etc.].

I am reserving my judgement until I have tested this program myself, the website info is pretty convincing as is a review on http://www.tnt-audio.com.  If any of you would like to test this claim, this thread is as good a place as any to write your findings.

The base level Fidelizer is available from the website FOC and it is run before playing music on your computer.  A reboot removes the program from memory and the computer reverts to normal operation.  Again this is my understanding having read the website info.

Rocker

Initial findings:

A/B/X impossible as computer has to be rebooted after loading Fidelizer.  Method: play track without Fidelizer, with Fidelizer loaded and then once without Fidelizer loaded.  Music selected included tracks by Chris Rea, Townes van Zandt, Mullingar Choral Society, Mick Hanly, Bachman Turner Overdrive, Don Williams, Dandy Warhols, Guy Clark, Robert Plant and Alison Kraus.

System 1, MF integrated amp - MS speakers - connected to computer line output.  Smoother sound when Fidelizer loaded.  Easier to hear the lyrics.  Generally more enjoyable to listen to.  Not a huge difference but definitely worthwhile.

System 2, Denon mini system - JVC speakers - connected wireless via Squeezebox. Improvement very slight but a trace of harshness on some tracks not as evident when Fidelizer loaded.  JVC speakers have almost no bass anyway so gains in that area not evident.  Touch and go.

System 3, Resolution Audio Opus 21 CDP - Classe CA M350 monoblocks - B&W 803D speakers - connected wireless via Sonos.  Very significant improvement heard especially in the bass also lyrics much easier to hear. No loss of dynamics, busy tracks like those from BTO and Dandy Warhols sound cleaned up and easier to 'hear'. Considering it is a freebie, go for it.

Rocker

Further experimentation with Fidelizer and more listening reveals it is a better product than I initially thought.  The Fidelizer setting screen, default 'Workstation', has a drop down menu with other options.  The 'Audiophile' setting improves the sound even more than 'Workstation'.

I understand more or less what the program does but I do not know how it works.The www.tnt-audio.com review mentions using scripts to (presumably) switch off certain computer processes thus freeing up the processor to perform the audio work better.  Apologies if I have got this wrong but that is my understanding of the program.  The computer experts can put me right on this.

I have always held the Neil Diamond album, Hot August Night, in very high esteem.  One of my top 10 albums in fact.  But with the computer Fidelized at Audiophile setting, additional detail within the recording was revealed.  Subtle things like low level backing vocals and percussion, which were in the original recording but got lost in the mush, were easily heard.  I played the album through from start to finish, something I rarely do these days.

I will definitely pay for one of the upgrade options when the Christmas bills are paid.  But until then I will continue to use the freebie version of this program.  If you use your computer as your music source, you ought to at least give Fidelizer a try.  What have you got to lose [except some of the mush that obscures some of the song lyrics etc.]

digitalscream

Rocker said:

The www.tnt-audio.com review mentions using scripts to (presumably) switch off certain computer processes thus freeing up the processor to perform the audio work better.  Apologies if I have got this wrong but that is my understanding of the program.  The computer experts can put me right on this.

I suspect the TNT Audio folk really don't have a clue what they're talking about - music decoding requires almost zero computing power (relative to the CPU cycles available). Switching off other processes would have absolutely no effect on the sound coming out, unless the machine was so loaded down prior to switching those processes off that the audio comes out choppy. 

Much as changing the hard drive wouldn't actually affect the way something sounds, actually  

All that the CPU is doing with the audio is a bunch of arithmetic, the results of which it sends to the sound output device for conversion into audio signals. If CPUs couldn't be relied upon to provide accurate and identical results (based on the same input data) depending on how much load it was under, then literally no computer in the world would work.

The only possible reason for it is if the Fidelizer software is so inefficient that it uses most of the CPU cycles available in the computer, or that the program itself looks at how much load the machine is under and applies different/less-intensive algorithms to suit.

I can't actually run the program to find out, but I strongly suspect it's really just applying subtle compression and EQ on specific frequencies, or perhaps even analysing the incoming data to adapt as it goes.

Rocker

You may well be right @digitalscream, but however it does it, it works! 

digitalscream

Rocker said:

You may well be right @digitalscream, but however it does it, it works! 

Indeed - I'll have to trust you on that score, but what I will say is that it might well work along the same lines as landr.com does for mastering; they've got what they call an AI system which works out the most appropriate optimisations for mastering your raw mixes, but I strongly suspect it's really just a kind of lookup with a load of profiles of different types of music and it just selects a differential which gets it into the right kind of ballpark. Still clever shiznit, but probably not actually artificial intelligence.

However...like you say - who cares? It works!

imalone

Choppy is possible if audio is not suitably prioritised, CPUs should have plenty of power to deal with audio if things are given enough time, but if it's fighting with intensive tasks at the same priority then it could get briefly swamped. Windows Vista also used linear interpolation for sample rate conversion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_features_new_to_Windows_Vista#Audio_performance so something that tweaks the various registry settings for you that control this stuff might make a difference (mainly messing with MMCS) https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms684247(v=vs.85).aspx
I don't really listen to music under windows though, so can't say whether this makes a difference (and their webpage makes it look like the kind of adware I normally avoid installing).

Deijavoo

No Le Big Mac.

Rocker

Try Burger King @Deijavoo

monquixote

I believe it functions as a digital squamate lubricator. 

Rocker

A colleague on another website wrote this blog.  http://touchsgotrythm.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/windows-optimisations.html

I don't understand it but I know that computer audio has become a big thing in the hi-fi world.  

Danny1969

Just about all music starts out recorded on a computer Rocker so no surprise it's actually an ideal medium to play music back from. If you want to experience what was heard in the control room originally though just get yourself a Digidesign 192 and an HD core card. The card contains a lot of DSP and negates any need for the computers CPU to play any audio .... in this config all the computer does is run the OS .... the core card processes the audio so no need to run any software or edit the registry

Old computer with an HD core card and 192 interface would cost about £1000 now ...... rather than the 10k mine did and that's what 90% of records in the last 15 years were made on so why not have as a playback medium  

PolarityMan

Rocker said:

A colleague on another website wrote this blog.  http://touchsgotrythm.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/windows-optimisations.html

I don't understand it but I know that computer audio has become a big thing in the hi-fi world.  

This was written by someone who is lucky they can talk without dribbling. Utter bullshit of the highest order. FWIW I'm a software engineer by profession so I do understand what he has written...it's just powerfully, powerfully incorrect,

Paul_C

"The last trick up our sleeve is some more free software called Game Booster 3, which actually stops non essential services and makes quite a difference to the sound, giving a deeper, richer tone and more layers to the music. Magic."

digitalscream

PolarityMan said:

Rocker said:

A colleague on another website wrote this blog.  http://touchsgotrythm.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/windows-optimisations.html

I don't understand it but I know that computer audio has become a big thing in the hi-fi world.  

This was written by someone who is lucky they can talk without dribbling. Utter bullshit of the highest order. FWIW I'm a software engineer by profession so I do understand what he has written...it's just powerfully, powerfully incorrect,

My god. That article is even dumber than most - not least because the central premise (separating processes onto their own cores) is incorrect 'cos the guy thinks he's got a quad core CPU (he has an i3, which are all dual core).

Rocker

Thanks guys for your clarifications. However Fidelizer, whatever way it does what it does, works and cleans up the sound to a very significant degree. And anyone can download the program and try it out for themselves. You @digitalscream could run the program on your computer and then look at the OS and see what has been changed.

ICBM

Does anyone else think that installing downloaded software of unproven benefit and uncertain actual function at a deep level of the operating system on their computer is a bad idea? I know it has a different specific meaning in computing but the phrase "Trojan Horse" springs to mind…

Remembering the Sony DRM fiasco where they installed what was effectively spyware and which compromised the security of your computer when you "authorised it to play" one of their CDs. It doesn't even have to be intentionally malicious in order to be a hazard, if it does something that can then be exploited by a third party - which was part of the problem with the Sony thing.

Surely if you're serious about this sort of thing you should just get a separate computer dedicated to music and which does nothing else, that way you don't have to worry about processor loads or whatever. That's why pros who use computers in the studio usually do that.

You don't even need an expensive computer - the power needed to play back even full-resolution music files is miniscule, let alone mp3s. Actually 90% of the time the old Mac in my workshop does just that… although given that I play it through a 1950s mono speaker cabinet, fidelity is probably the last of my worries .

(Disclaimer: I know bugger all about Macs really, and even less about PCs.)

digitalscream

Rocker said:

Thanks guys for your clarifications. However Fidelizer, whatever way it does what it does, works and cleans up the sound to a very significant degree. And anyone can download the program and try it out for themselves. You @digitalscream could run the program on your computer and then look at the OS and see what has been changed.

Nope - I run Linux on my main machine; the only Windows machine I have is my studio rig, and software like this is the last thing I want on there for two reasons:

1 - If it genuinely does work, then it's not through optimising services...it'll be applying DSP to the sound, because that's the only possible way for it to do so. In a studio setup, it's artificially screwing with what I'm trying to achieve.

2 - If all it does is shuffle resources around, then it's doing the very opposite of what I want it to because my machine is specifically set up by me to do exactly what it needs to (priority on ASIO and VST threads etc) and nothing more.

digitalscream

ICBM said:

Remembering the Sony DRM fiasco where they installed what was effectively spyware and which compromised the security of your computer when you "authorised it to play" one of their CDs. It doesn't even have to be intentionally malicious in order to be a hazard, if it does something that can then be exploited by a third party - which was part of the problem with the Sony thing.

In fact, Sony's rootkit DRM module could actually physically damage optical drives as I recall. What a PR coup that was

Rocker

You make a good point @ICBM about Trojan Horse. Every download has potential risks but we can't live our lives in a bubble.

ICBM

Rocker said:

You make a good point @ICBM about Trojan Horse. Every download has potential risks but we can't live our lives in a bubble.

I know, and I admit to having a possibly unhealthy level of paranoia about stuff like this (I suspect I know just enough to scare myself ), but I would be far happier if what it does was explained properly, in a way that doesn't make other software experts immediately call bullshit - since that may in fact reveal that it's quite harmless, and that it doesn't interfere with a pretty important part of what makes your computer work.

Unfortunately the audio-cynic in me then immediately thinks that if they don't, it's because it doesn't actually do anything very useful at all…

Probably the best way to use it is still to have a dedicated music computer, and install it on that. You could keep it offline and unconnected to the rest of your system so no risk of anything bad happening.

Then if you want to be really thorough, you could get two - the sort of machines you need wouldn't cost much at all - copy the same music files onto both, do an A/B to check they sound the same, install Fidelizer on one, and A/B the two again.