Hi-res files play on a PC but not on ND5XS

Possibly it's attempting to save you from performing an act of copyright infringement.

So SACDs are copy protected? There are many SACDs on my local auction site, usually cheaper than CDs! I already started bidding on some of them, with the idea that my brother could rip them for me and I would store them as files on my NAS.

If that's impossible, there goes my plan...

I have quite a number of ripped SACDs albums as FLAC files, and they all play on the ND5.

I take the ISO files, open in foobar2000 with the foosacd plugin & then convert to 24/176.4 files.

I used Asset as my UPnP server running on a Raspberry Pi with dynamic transcoding the FLAC to WAV.

Simon

Thanks, Simon. That's exactly what my brother did at home - took his own SACDs, ripped on an old PS3 to big ISO files, opened them in Foobar2000 with foosacd plugin and converted, but to 24/96 FLACs. They do play fine on everything except... ND5XS.

Is there anything I can do to test those files to figure out WHY a Naim streamer refuses to play them?

PS. My "Plan B" is to buy an inexpensive SACD player with a digital output and use ND5XS as a DAC, but first of all I don't know what signal SACD players output (DSD? Surely ND5XS won't decode DSD?) and second: I really want all my music to be easily accessible from 1 location (NAS / NStream)...

The streamer should play them if they are the FLAC format & the fact they play on the PC, in foobar, means they are not corrupted? It could that the UPnP server is not making them available/presenting them. So try them from a USB memory stick, thereby cutting out the delivery service from NAS to streamer.

Simon

Could also be the sample rate. DSD, which is the native encoding format on SACDs is 1 bit @ 2.8224 MHz, so a multiple of 44.1k, not 48k.

44.1, 88.2, 176.4, 352.8, 705.6, 1,411.2, 2,8224 vs 48, 96, 192, etc .

I extract SACDs to 24/176.4 or 24/88.2 in foobar2000, there is a setting in the plugin conversion.

Happy to help convert an SACD ISO for you, if you want to drop it into a Dropbox, I will replace with the FLAC version confirmed as playable on my ND5.

Simon

Thanks, Simon! Your offer is much appreciated, but I'll try to resolve it myself at first, because I'm uncertain about the legal aspect of putting music from my brother's SACDs in a Dropbox... Let me convert those files to 24/88.2 and we'll see what happens.

I will also try the USB stick idea.

How does listening to files/CDs with the owner infringe copyright?

I'd characterize it as the owner listening with his brother.

You are 100% right, when my brother brings over his files it's no different from him bringing over his disks and listening to them together, which even the strictest laws will agree is OK But Simon here was suggesting I send him the problematic files via Dropbox and that's where I grow uncomfortable, kind as his offer was

But what if i) I already owned that SACD or ii) I already owned the LP of the album or iii) I already owned the CD of the album?

Simon

OK, back to the original topic: I tried what was suggested above and copied the files a FLAC and a WAV (which I produced by converting with dbPoweramp) to a USB stick that went into ND5XS. They still both don't play, ND5XS says: "Can't Play - Unsupported File Format". So it's not my NAS or the DNLA server.

I checked the files - they are 24/96. Somebody here suggested that they should be 24/88.2, but shouldn't ND5XS play correctly any 24/96 file that every PC in my house plays without any problems...?

So it's back to square one: what could be causing a Naim streamer to refuse to play files that PCs play just fine? Some sort of copy protection? Can it be checked with any software?

I think that the next step would be to find someone else with a Naim streamer to see if its the files, or your player.

That would be ideal, but won't be easy. Not a very popular brand in this country, mostly due to the price. Even the 2 local Naim dealers in my city don't have the Naim streamers on display, only CD players and amps. I guess with ND5XS price tag of the lowest annual salary here, not many people buy them, so the dealers only bring them in by special order (I had to wait a few weeks for mine).

It's a shame ND5XS doesn't offer any advanced troubleshooting capability, any error log, any way to find out WHY it's refusing to play the 24/96 FLAC or WAV files, what bothers it in the files contents ('cause it can't be just the filename, it's the correct *.FLAC and *.WAV and ND5XS can find it and correctly display its name right away...

Have you tried converting the extracted FLAC file to 88.2k or 176.4k, or re-extracting from the ISO at these frequencies rather than the current 96k?

Thanks,

Simon.

I have, but I don't like to down-sample files if I don't have to, especially between sampling frequencies that ensure rounding errors like 96->88.2. If I have to, that's what I'll do, but the 100zł question is: WHY? Why wouldn't ND5XS play an otherwise perfectly well behaving 24/96 file?

Sure, I can get my brother to bring the original ISOs this time (which won't be soon, he's in Norway), but again: I'm just trying to understand why this is happening, are there any limitations to 24/96 playback on ND5XS, is there any sort of copy protection that's causing that, how can I find out if it's the copy protection that's causing the problem, etc.?

Because SACDs are encoded with DSD64 which is 1-bit @ 2.8224KHz and therefore have to encoded to LPCM at either 16 or 24 bit @ 44.1, 88.2, 176.4 or 352.8KHz sampling frequencies.

The ND5/NDX can only play flac up to 192KHz, so you have to use 176.4, 88.2 or 44.1 frequencies.

Try and see if it works.

Simon.

You do not *have* to use a multiple of 44.1kHz, but if the DSD-to-PCM conversion algorithm isn't up to par, in theory using 44.1kHz could reduce the number of decimation errors. I asked this same question on another, very technical forum, and was assured by a couple of guys who claimed recording backgrounds that there was little to no difference in sound quality (going from DSD to PCM using a multiple of 44.1kHz versus 48kHz).  Easy enough to try yourself though.

I don't think Gajdzin's problem has anything to do with copyright protection. I was able to play an SACD on an Oppo BDP-83SE, have the player convert to 24/88.2 PCM, output via HDMI to an Octava splitter, and from there, I captured the bits using a Toslink connection to an RME 9632 card. Stored the PCM as a FLAC file on a NAS, it streams just fine to my NDS.

I think it would be worth getting Foobar2000 out of the mix. Has anyone else gotten a file created by this same plug-in to work on a Naim streamer? Audiogate is a converter that has worked very well for me. It's a free download from Korg, and it should handle your ISO files as inputs.  Perhaps give it a try? If that works, then it's worth reporting the incompatibility to both customer service orgs.

Good luck!

Hook

Sorry, I'm confused and I don't understand this logic... If I can record in my studio a track at 24/96kHz and cut a CD from it, which is 16/44.1kHz, why can't a track recorded at 2.8224kHz be converted to 96kHz PCM? It doesn't make any sense... Surely you can convert any sampling frequency to any other sampling frequency, regardless of what the original format it was recorded in? Any DAW can do it... 

BTW, to test your theory I imported 1 song to a DAW (Cockos Reaper) and rendered it to 24/88.2. It didn't work very well, because the source file contains 6 tracks! Can a SACD contain a 5.1 mix? Well, I could mix them down to stereo 2 track, but that would really be Gajdzin's remix, not the original recording any more. I'll just give up on this matter, it's all turning to be too much hassle. Still curious, though, why would a PC play a file and ND5XS - not. Could it be that 5.1 content?

Thanks, Hook! Exactly, that's what I thought. I also record bands in my studio at 88.2 for easy conversion to 44.1 with no rounding errors. But if they insist at 96 or higher, I tell them "fine", and just go for dinner when those final mixes get rendered from 16 tracks of 24/192kHz to 2 tracks of 16/44.1...

Gajdzin

I have a suitable PS3 and do rip my own SACDs.

using the ripped ISO I use sacd-extract to extract the 2-channel version and process it from there.

Yes SACDs can contain both 5.1 and 2 channel versions. If the SACD contains both the rip will also contain both and you need to tell the sacd-extractor which version you want.

you could use the free mediainfo to check what your wav/flac files contain.

if you converted 5.1 into flac (which is possible to do) the streamer will not be able to play it.

cheers

aleg

...and Aleg has solved the problem

My brother must have ripped the wrong layer (5.1 instead of stereo). I think I'll buy my own old version PS3 and start buying SACDs - plenty of them on my local auction site, often cheaper than CDs ('cause nobody buys them...)

How easy is it to get these old PS3's and do they need any modding?

The devices are a-plenty at least at my local auction site, but you have to buy one with a firmware version up 3.55 and then go through many steps that are rather well described here: http://www.instructables.com/i...duction-54/?ALLSTEPS

Personally I find it all a bit intimidating, esp. the bit about having to use a Linux machine, so I haven't taken the plunge yet.