Bitrate and wordsize notes for various browsers and platforms
Many thanks to Peter and Max Fend for the research indicating Firefox is the best choice for HiFi.
Browser notes
Firefox HTML5 audio: Good: works properly
Firefox seems to do it right. The audio stream, passed to the audio driver by Firefox is the same sample rate as the original audio file.
No official statement was found about how Firefox deals with the sample rate, but tests indicate it works well at all sample rates.
Firefox is a good example of correctly implementing HTML5 audio as the spec intended.
There appears to be a 96 kHz/16 bit limitation of Firefox, so selecting 'Auto x2' in SeedeClip will allow the dither to work better and appears to be the current best browser setting (i.e. CD tracks will play at 88.2/16 and the doubled rate will help the dither retain detail).
Firefox ESR
Firefox ESR is also restricted to 96 kHz and 16 bit, however it does things right up to that limits.
Forced beyond those limits it does report an error and operation stops until manual confirmation.
Conclusion
Great for general audio and HiFi. Use Firefox.
Google Chrome HTLM5 audio: fixed @ 48kHz
The Google Chrome browser resamples everything to 48kHz to facilitate audio mixing from the various windows and tabs.
This applies to both, the HTML 5 Audio Player and the Web Audio API, even if the user specifies a different sample rate.
This of course makes the Chrome browser a very bad choice as a HiFi client for SeedeClip.
| Note this possibly also applies to the open-source Chromium variant. | |  |
Conclusion
Great for general audio, not so good for HiFi unless you are playing 48kHz material.
Apple's Safari: Broken for HTML5 audio
Safari contains no HiFi (lossless) support for HTML5 audio
Conclusion
Useless
Microsoft Edge and IE
 
Microsoft's browsers contain no HiFi (lossless) support for HTML5 audio
Not even Microsoft's own WAV format.
Conclusion
Useless
Platform notes
Various platforms have different behaviours so it's useful to know details of common issues.
Linux (Raspbian Raspberry Pi)
On the Raspberry Pi there is a 48kHz limitation when using the onboard System on Chip (SoC) module. So if you are playing sound over the SoC (e.g. HDMI or the onboard headphone jack), it is resampled if the sampling frequency is higher than 48kHz.
However, if you are bypassing the SoC, for example by connecting a DAC via USB, then the sample rate limit is not a concern any more. For example using I2S the HifiBerry (all types) works well here.
Linux (PC etc)
There should be no inbuilt limitation on sample rates unless it is a hardware restriction of your platform.
Windows 10
The Windows Audio driver resamples to whatever sample rate is specified → Audio Output to Hardware, so just match it to the required rate and size. So if using Win10 you can set SeeDeClip4 to 88.2kHz/24bit and (with the right USB adapter) what comes out is 88.2kHz/24bit which should be untouched by the chain in between. Confirmed with Win10 and the Ultracurve DAC.
Android
Android runs any USB OTG (On-The-Go) DAC at the fastest speed it can.
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