[pulseaudio-tickets] [Bug 94971] Please fix PulseAudio equalizer

[bugzilla-daemon at freedesktop.org]

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=94971

--- Comment #15 from Jason Newton <nevion at gmail.com> ---
(In reply to nw9165-3201 from comment #14)
> (In reply to Jason Newton from comment #13)
> > Rereading a few points here, your primary issue with
> > qpaeq/module-equalizer-sink was that it's not integrated into pavucontrol -
> > right?
> Yes, correct.
> 
> >  You would seek other equalizers without trying
> > qpaeq/module-equalizer-sink for that functionality?  I bring the point up
> > because you seem to want something that works now.
> Well, I was using a rather low-end PC recently and noticed that qpaeq was
> causing stuttering audio and audio hickups in some circumstances. This might
> have been caused by the low-end hardware, but on the other hand, the Realtek
> equalizer which is built into the Realtek Control Panel on Microsoft Windows
> does not produce such issues when using the same hardware.
> 
> So this was somewhat frustrating.

There are some situations (I traced it mostly down to flash) that would cause
stuttering in my own setups - as a work around, I let flash videos go to the
direct output sink rather than the equalizer sink.  I realise that is not ideal
in the long term.   QPaeq shouldn't be causing much cpu usage directly unless
you're actively resizing it - equalizer cpu usage would show up under
pulseaudio in any system monitor.  I developed and tested for years against an
Intel i7 920 - you may or may not consider this low end hardware by today's
standards.  It's certainly not an Intel Atom, though.  IIRC, I only used 7-13%
CPU at 48khz - realize these numbers are aggregate to the pulseaudio process.

> 
> Also, it's annoying that every time you reboot your PC, you have to launch
> qpaeq to bring your equalizer settings back.

That is not necessary.  I think you just didn't have the modules listed in your
config?  It will save and restore the last state it is/was in.  Provided your
configs load the module, that is.  You should see some files containing the
sink state under ~/.pulse, along with any presets.

> 
> > Is it a PyQt
> > issue/avoidance?
> No, not really.
>  
> > From my glancing over this and your previous bug, it's not clear to
> > me if you tried it to determine if they were problems for you.
> Yes, I understand your confusion.
> 
> Anyway, since Alexander E. Patrakov was saying:
> 
> > https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/pulseaudio-discuss/2014-March/020174.html
> > A better replacement already exists in the 
> > form of module-ladspa-sink + mbeq + veromix.
> I tried out another PulseAudio equalizer today, the one from 
> psyke83, it also uses LADSPA and mbeq, see:
> 
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1308838
> 
> It seems to work fine (using it on a high-end Core i7-6700K at the moment
> though). And it actually even saves it's settings between reboots.
> 
> But on the other hand, there's also another thread which seems to suggest
> that qpaeq would have a better quality than mbeq, see:
> 
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1378087
> 
> Is that correct?
> 
> And since Alexander E. Patrakov said that LADSPA + mbeq would be a better
> than qpaeq, why don't you just make psyke83's equalizer the official
> PulseAudio equalizer and integrate that one into pavucontrol?

Better is in the eye of the beholder - Alexander has debunked a few things
pertaining to aliasing being only a bad thing but mbeq doesn't fix everything
and is only more correct in the strict sense of it's core dsp algorithm vs what
is here now, in my opinion.

If somebody wants to do the work to make mbeq controllable from pavucontrol, I
certainly won't stop them though.

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