FLAC-CUE support - call to PLEASE finally support cue-sheets on NAIM and/or Synology

Genuine question - I tend to think of FLAC/cue as a format usually used for illegal downloads. Are there places that sell in this format?

I am referring to CD-rips made years ago when the main method of playing these files was on a computer with headphones on (which still works fine), not illegal downloads. Who could have guessed that high-end streamers in the future would not have the capability to play this? It seemed like a fine method at the time: one file containing music and the other the track info. On top of that in those days it was apparently the only way to achieve gapless playback. 

When I buy material from Qobuz now my big question at the moment is: should I FLAC or should I WAV? I've been reading about the pros and cons of both extensively and hope I opted to FLAC (in individual files) for the moment for the tagging merits. There does seem to be a sound difference with WAV however. Hopefully I have made the right choice for the dozens and dozens of albums I have bought. 

Ah right, fair enough.

The difference between flac and wav in terms of sound quality on playback isn't really to do with the file itself, it's down to tiny amounts of electrical noise created by the processing required to decompress the file.

You can avoid the issue by getting your server to transcode to wav on the fly. The method will vary according to the server you use, but instructions should be a search away regardless.

There are also quite a few tools for track splitting, including XLD a very popular CD ripping utility for Mac. Might be easier to start working your way through your library, updating your tags, etc., than awaiting third party manufacturers to change their philosophy??

Regards alan 

ps - choice of FLAC or WAV is similarly non-permanent as XLD can convert and many servers can transcode...

Yes, I have spent quite some time on track splitting with XLD. It started to feel like such a masochistic odyssey that I thought an alternative approach would be to start buying CD's again. In fact, I did buy several hundreds of CD's in marvellous classical boxes (Deutsche Grammophon, Decca/Philips, etc.) through Amazon.de in the past two years. I would just like to have one good media server / player that plays everything. And that would include possibly buying a UnitiCore, but that idea has now been abandoned because of this irritable stubbornness of manufactures. I might actually go so far as (albeit reluctantly) abandoning NAIM altogether for another brand to achieve my goals. 

Jarl posted:

When I buy material from Qobuz now my big question at the moment is: should I FLAC or should I WAV? I've been reading about the pros and cons of both extensively and hope I opted to FLAC (in individual files) for the moment for the tagging merits. There does seem to be a sound difference with WAV however. Hopefully I have made the right choice for the dozens and dozens of albums I have bought. 

If you prefer the way WAV sounds,  get WAV,  most people around the forum agree it sounds better with Naim players.   You can easily convert FLAC to WAV & all the other formats using the excellent CD ripping software 'dBpoweramp' - I do this all the time.  Whats all this about FLAC tagging merits?   WAV is an original Microsoft/IBM audio file format & can embed any kind of metadata, including ID3 tags & XMP.      I edit & manipulate WAV metadata without any problems whatsoever & I'm at a loss to understand where this myth about WAV not carrying metadata comes from.    I use dBpoweramp & the open source MP3tag software for editing & all my music is WAV (some DSD) & I wouldn't have it any other way.     Don't limit yourself to Qobuz,  lots of other vendors out there & some carry artist & labels that Qobuz don't & some are less expensive;  check out HighResAudio (.de).   And finally;  using Qobuz you will soon get to practice metadata editing,  they seem to have something that needs attention on most all downloads.  

What's wrong with taking those FLAC files are editing them in Metadatics?

By the by - never heard of FLAC-cue files...., had to look this up.

Monolithic Flac file + cue >> AnyAudio Converter >> X individual flac files. Job done.

Dave***t posted:

Genuine question - I tend to think of FLAC/cue as a format usually used for illegal downloads. Are there places that sell in this format?

All suppliers I use  - Juno, Boomkat, Bandcamp, Qobuz - offers downloads in a variety of formats including FLAC and WAV.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude for the advise provided. Based on Mike-B's advice I will most likely re-download all my Qobuz purchases in Wav-format. References to all these other download-sites are appreciated, but the prices are just too high. I am the kind of guy who loves to have yet another set of Mahler-symphonies despite having bought multiple editions already. Paying 2-4 Euro's per CD on Amazon for some of the best recordings ever committed to disc as part of a large box feels more attractive than paying 1 Euro per track/song on a download shop. My CD-collection has expanded to well beyond 1500 classical CDs now in the past 25 years in this way. For pop music Spotify Premium will do for the moment. However, based on the comments so far I am slowly coming to the conclusion that flag-cue files compiled in the past now seem like a waste of time.

In theory I could use my MacBook Pro's optical output into my ND5 XS's input (yes, no problem playing flag-cue at all with Vox or Fidelia). All seems a lot of work and impracticality for products at this price level. A bit like a Porsche with manually-run windscreen wipers. Quite disappointed with NAIM. May be another manufacturer is a bit more flexible. Linn may be?  

[@mention:3678285640878217]

If I may suggest an alternative - try AIFF if available (rather than WAV). May be easier to manage the metadata. 

Adam

Jarl posted:

In theory I could use my MacBook Pro's optical output into my ND5 XS's input (yes, no problem playing flag-cue at all with Vox or Fidelia). All seems a lot of work and impracticality for products at this price level. A bit like a Porsche with manually-run windscreen wipers. Quite disappointed with NAIM. May be another manufacturer is a bit more flexible. Linn may be?  

You could actually do that, but a result would be suboptimal. It would be like using that Porsche with just alloy wheels and no tyers.

Naim is designed to handle much higher quality files, which need to be transmitted properly to eliminate system noise and jitter.

Jarl, just convert your flac/cue to flac (or wav) or any other format. Talk of macs and Porsche is just chuntering about not being able to play a forgotten format sub-optimally.

My appologies for my ignorance, but what is a 'cue' file? I've ripped all my CD's with a HDX and buy music in FLAC format from Qobuz, but I've never seen a 'cue' file ...

In normal replay & organising/personalising your music I'm not actually sure why you need one let alone need to know what they are.  A cue file extension is in CD information text files & define how tracks are organized.    What the OP has in mind & how to use them is beyond me.

The cue file includes the filename of the parent combined audio file, metadata for the album/artist etc. plus the time index points within the combined file for the individual tracks and the track titles. This allows some computer audio software players such as foobar2000 to play the audio file and display the individual tracks separately. 

A system which makes a significant sound quality difference between FLAC and WAV could arguably be described as "broken", one could argue...

jon honeyball posted:

A system which makes a significant sound quality difference between FLAC and WAV could arguably be described as "broken", one could argue...

Indeed. Given the supposed differences in SQ which the simple unpacking of the audio data in a FLAC file can cause compared to a WAV file, it would suggest that the additional load of on the fly splitting of a composite audio file must have an ever greater effect.

The time taken to unpack a flac file to wav is a fraction of a second on a decent cpu. I cannot see how this impacts the remaining 3 minutes of the track

Maybe it depends on whether the file is loaded from the store and then processed, or if it is being streamed and converted literally on the fly (though I don't know if it is possible to transcode that way?)

Adam Zielinski posted:

Jarl posted:

In theory I could use my MacBook Pro's optical output into my ND5 XS's input (yes, no problem playing flag-cue at all with Vox or Fidelia). All seems a lot of work and impracticality for products at this price level. A bit like a Porsche with manually-run windscreen wipers. Quite disappointed with NAIM. May be another manufacturer is a bit more flexible. Linn may be?  

You could actually do that, but a result would be suboptimal. It would be like using that Porsche with just alloy wheels and no tyers.

Naim is designed to handle much higher quality files, which need to be transmitted properly to eliminate system noise and jitter.

As far as the files are concerned, flac files are just as high quality as wav, even if some renderers somehow make them sound different.

One possible issue with the suggested Mac use is the renderer: streaming from the optical output means using a renderer in the Mac, which is perfectly fine if something like Audirvana (to me did a better job than ND5XS's renderer), but not necessarily if another renderer.

The other is that whilst the optical output of the Mac would prevent possible issues in the DAC, (RF inevitable from a computer unless specially designed to eliminate), thus avoiding any need for an isolator (though not needed if the ND5XS's DAC isolates its optical input, which I don't know), it is subject to the limitations of the Mac's soundcard. Better quality is possible via the computer's USB output (Audirvana, for example, allows you to dedicate a USB bus), maybe then using an isolator/converter such as Gustard U12 to convert to an optical signal to feed the ND5XS. Or use a better DAC than in the ND5XS, in my experience the ND5XS really being the weak link if you use something like Audirvana and optimised output from the Mac: it is not a bad streamer, just better is possible for the same cost. (possibe DACs include DAC V1, nDAC, Mojo, Hugo etc. search these on this forum for more info)