Importing wave file into Unitiserve

I think the graphic has to be named folder.jpg and it has obviously to be a jpeg.

Trouble with wav files is that they don't alway shave tags embeded in them because they are not so good with tags, the consequence it would appear is that all different software vendors have there own way of doing it.

Would converting them to flac offend you terribly?

Gary

Thanks - well as long Naim can read the ID3 tags we are in business.

I am afraid the extra processing with FLAC IMO upsets the quality on playback with Naim equipment and so I will stick with WAVs.

Cheers

If that is the case, is it really fit for purpose?

Simon

Have you tried uncompressed FLAC? This has just plain PCM in a FLAC container, so there should not be any decompression required, just unpacking PCM from a FLAC container instead of a WAV container.

I wonder if it than remains on the same level as WAV.

Uncompressed FLAC (which is different from compression level 0 which is still compressed) can be created with the latest dBPoweramp music converter. Is this something you could try?

-

aleg
 

I'm with you there Simon. A few months back i converted a few favorite albums into ALAC - the compressed version of AIFF, and over a few evenings listened to the AIFF & ALAC versions through my ADS. To me the AIFF versions had the edge and so the ALAC versions were deleted and my collection has stayed as AIFF. I can quite believe that you can hear differences between formats on the NDX. Interestingly Linn stated on their own forum - 

We have done extensive measurements on power supply disturbance recently, and have compared results for both FLAC and WAV streaming. Our findings are as follows :

1. If we measure the power rail that feeds the main processor in the DS we can clearly see identifiable disturbance patterns due to audio decoding and network activity. These patterns do look different for WAV and FLAC - WAV shows more clearly defined peaks due to regular network activity and processing, while FLAC shows more broadband disturbance due to increased (but more random) processor activity.

2. If we measure the power rails that feed the audio clock and the DAC we see no evidence of any processor related disturbances. There is no measurable difference (down to a noise floor measured in micro-volts) between FLAC and WAV in any of the audio power rails.

3. Highly accurate measurements of clock jitter and audio distortion/noise also show no difference between WAV and FLAC.

The extensive filtering, multi-layered regulation, and careful circuit layout in the DS ensure that there is in excess of 60dB of attenuation across the audio band between the main digital supply, and the supplies that feed the DAC and the audio clock. Further, the audio components themselves add an additional degree of attenuation between their power supply and their output. Direct and indirect measurements confirm that there is no detectable interaction between processor load and audio performance.

But users of the Linn Forum hear differences too so there is some interaction going on somewhere which i'm sure will vary from system to system due to component interactions / susceptibility to small amounts of RFI.

James

Hog wash?  Fit for purpose?  You guys get up on the wrong side of the bed?

Given Simon's contributions to date, he doesn't exactly strike me as a guy who would knowingly contribute to audiophoolery.   As far as I can tell, he is taking a systematic approach to maximizing the sound quality of the NDX and I, for one, appreciate him taking the time to share his results.

Admittedly, I cannot hear any difference between Level 0 FLAC and WAV using my DIY PC (RME 9632) into the DAC/555PS.  But I will have an NDX in hand by end of the week, and this is one of the things I plan to test for myself.  If it makes a difference, then I have no issues with batch converting my music collection.   It is lossless process, and the computer does all of the work.  But...

Simon -

...couldn't you store files as FLAC, and then have the UPnP server transcodes the FLAC to WAV on the fly?  I thought Asset did this, but then, I did read that it was proving to be unstable for you.

Hook

PS - I wonder if Naim found that if they gave the NDX more processing power, it also made it noisier?  Would explain why it seems to have "just enough" juice for WAV, but maybe not enough for FLAC (at least, not without some negative side effects).

"Admittedly, I cannot hear any difference between Level 0 FLAC and WAV using my DIY PC (RME 9632) "

So you agree with me then?

Sitting on the fence but then getting off really does not help. Does flac/wav make a difference. For some at least it does, for others it does not.

The questions is why?

I think we'd all be keen to know that one...

James

Hi Gary -

Sorry if you interpreted my post as fence sitting, so I will try and be more clear:  I do not agree with you.  

I have no reason to doubt that NDX owners like Simon and AllenB can hear this subtle difference.  IMO, everything else they have posted has been credible, so why would I go out of my way to call them out on this one particular point?   Makes no sense.

Also, FYI, a theory of why the difference is audible has been posted several times:  the extra processing required by an NDX to uncompress FLAC files results in increased RF noise that is audible (either on the NDX's analog output, or across the S/PDIF link to the DAC).

Just because I cannot hear it in my current setup does not mean I won't when using a NDX, so I am keeping an open mind.   One possibility is that my dual-core Atom server with its dedicated PCI sound card simply has more processing power than an NDX.  It is less taxed by the FLAC processing and, therefore, generates less noise.   Another theory is that my server generates so much RF noise anyway, that it masks this subtle incremental difference.  Odds anyone?

The bottom line is that I really won't be able to say for sure for another week or so, because that is when my demo NDX will arrive.   If it sounds better than what I have, and if the only tradeoff is I have to ask my UPnP server to first transcode my FLAC files to WAV, then what is the big deal?

Hook 

Hi Gary -

Yes, that's it in a nutshell.   Seems like most UPnP servers do a good job of handling FLAC tags, but few do the same for WAV.   If uncompressed FLAC was an option when I started ripping my CD's, that's what I would have picked.   Instead, I settled for the best option at the time:  FLAC level 0.

Hook

Hook

You can still have dBPoweramp do a batch convert to uncompressed flac for you!!

Just point it to the root of your music directory, set the filter to flac and convert flac to flac with uncompressed setting.

Depending on the size of your music collection you can go and get a cup of coffee or take a short holiday .

-

aleg

Thanks Aleg!   Right now, MM's statistics report says:  1534 albums, 617gb.  I'm guessing that puts me beyond hours and into days...

Was planning to test WAV vs. FLAC uncompressed vs. FLAC level 0 once the NDX demo unit arrived.   But now that I think about it, there really is no reason to keep my files at level 0.  The savings in storage space isn't an issue.   I think it will all come down to whether or not my UPnP server can reliably transcode to WAV.

To start off, I'll just use my existing player (JRMC) as my UPnP server.  I do see a server option to convert to an uncompressed stream, so hopefully that works well.  In the longer term, I would like to avoid this extra hop between NAS and renderer.   My NAS (Buffalo Linkstation) has a bare bones UPnP server with no options other than on and off. To be fair, it is more than four years old, and I have never updated firmware (which has made me paranoid about keeping it backed up in multiple places).  But rather than doing so, and rather than telnet'ing in and installing Twonky or some other software, I figure it is simply time to move up to a QNAP or Synology or similar.   The other possibility is I convert my PC server to a Vortebox, and simply add local storage.   Oh well, at least there is comfort knowing that I am not alone in evaluating all of the current options!

All of this is being driven by the possibility of keeping the NDX, and moving to UPnP.   I don't want to be pessimistic, but there is always the possibility that it will not make my socks roll up and down, in which case I will stick with my PC server playing files from its network share, and do nothing more for a while longer.

Hook