Transcoding FLAC to WAV on server

Some say yes, and some say no.

It should be easy enough to try for yourself - just switch the setting in your upnp server.

I would say definitely yes, it felt for me like a box upgrade, so give it a try.

I'm going to try it. I see I can add a control point in Asset to transcode ALAC on the fly - which is good as all my CDs are in ALAC, and my hi-res files are in FLAC. This way I can be discrete about only transcoding the 16bit files. 

I found it easy to make a test folder with favourite tracks from different albums. I selected tracks with known features such as spacial awareness, sound stage, dynamics, bass, treble, gapless etc.. All were originally 24/96 downloads & converted to have 2 of each in FLAC & WAV.

I've since added DSD-WAV comparisons

Using dBpoweramp (or eq)  its easy to do & allows to easily & quickly switch back & forth between tracks.  

Naim also advocate transcoding as the streaming range is apparently optimised for WAV. 

I suspect optimised is used loosely here as there is simply a lot less work to be done with a WAV since it can go direct to DSP or DAC without unpacking. Even though the data in a FLAC may be identical, there is overhead involved in the unpack which apparently generates some noise - hence offloading this task to the UPnP server has been recommended.

I recently switched from MediaTomb to Asset which can handle the transcoding and the difference was - to be honest - minimal on CD rips but more noticeable on hi-res downloads. 

There are several threads on the forum about FLAC vs. WAV if you care to search.

It is easy enough to compare. I much prefer WAV playback but many don't. Your ears will know what is right for you. I personally don't bother transcoding FLAC on the fly. It strikes me as just introducing more variables. I convert everything (apart from DSD) to WAV and store it as such. Storage is not expensive and WAVs can be tagged just fine. So there are as many choices as you can think of and there will be one which works best for you.

+1 Harry  

I have everything (apart from DSD) in WAV.

Storage is not expensive and WAV's can be tagged just fine.

I have tried but cannot get my head (& ears) around the need to store FLAC/ALAC & transcode to WAV.  

Yeah Andy. Even with my crap hearing, there's definitely an improvement in WAV over FLAC on my Uniti2.

What kind of speakers do you have? They may play a part in the ability to tell the difference I think.

Neil

I've got a pair of Neat Motive SX3s on my Unitiqute2.

I'll give it a go, but have to say - and it's a possibly unfair comparison, but the one set of 24 bit files i have - i couldn't tell the difference - so i dunno what I'll make of WAV vs FLAC, but I'll try! 

Also recognise I should try better 24 bit files... 

Well I tried to configure Asset to transcode, but couldn't figure out how - my UQ2 is still displaying that the files are ALAC. 

Any pointers? 

I've just switched from Twonky to Minimserver so I could transcode from FLAC to WAV and my system has never sounded better. To my ears at least, it's a big, big improvement.

I don't know Asset Andy- am sure others will chime in with some help.

Out of curiosity, why Asset? I use Minimserver with a Synology NAS and it's practically like they were made for each other. (I'm a noob when it comes to all this, but with the help of many posts in this forum, I was able to transcode to FLAC without much drama. A few swearwords, but not much drama really lol).

Yeah...transcode to WAV, or transcode from FLAC- take your pick

Minim is great. I went from knowing nothing about streaming to being pretty savvy in no time thanks to the hardware, software, and the good advice here!

Not sure about Asset for the Mac, but on a PC you would open Asset UPnP Configuration and Click on Edit Advance Settings and in the dialog box near the bottom "Audio Format streaming" there should be a list of all the diffrent original file formats with the default option to stream "as is". This can be amended to "wav".

Unfortunately whilst AIFF appears in the list, ALAC format does not appear on my windows version of Asset UPnP but may do on the Mac version.

My music archive is a mixture of WAV, FLAC and ALAC. I tend to download and rip as FLAC now and transcode in realtime. I back up my music store, and FLAC is quicker to back up than WAV when I do the incrementals and that is the only reason I store as FLAC now. But with realtime transcoding to WAV PCM it really matters not what lossless the source is in terms of SQ for the streamer as all the streamer effectively sees in the UPnP media transfer is PCM... As after all it's not the WAV file itself that is transferred by the streamer media player.. It's just the extracted PCM media... whether it be from a WAV , or unpacked from a FLAC or ALAC file... assuming the files are read correctly by the media player.

Simon

Why Asset? I tried Minim first but it didn't seem to serve up the file directories in the Naim app the way I wanted - Asset let me configure it pretty easily. 

Thank you! I was fiddling in the control point section and I needn't have. I've got both a mac and pc but am running Asset on windows. ALAC is the name of the format (obviously), but the extension for it is .m4a - so I imagine that's there. 

Now I just hope the cheap intel atom based PC can handle the transcode. I bought one of those tiny fanless PCs to do this with a large USB hard drive attached to it. It's performing fine so far but I'll see what happens when I ask it to transcode. 

Yes, alas the benefits of Asset and MinimServer have yet to be combined... and I run both pointing to a common media store.

Asset is more configurable on the navigation and music structure side, including dynamic playlists.. like jukebox, recently added albums, and recently played tracks. MinimServer can't do this currently

MinimServer has highly configurable and dynamic re mappable meta data control so you can optimize how the meta data is presented with your favourite controller such as the Naim app. Asset has only very basic and limited metadata configuration.

Now if these could be combined it would be a killer app.

Simon

One problem is Synology don't support Asset & vikki versa - smells of politics rather than a technical reason, shame really.

Synology include Minimserver (plus the required Java) in their software package

Personally I use Synology's own Media Server,  it's simple to use & it does all I need & without the minor fiddling required with Minim. 

However Syn's Medea Server has issues with gapless play via transcoding, I really don't know why/what is stopping Synology fixing this.  However I'm all WAV & it plays gapless WAV perfectly. 

Just checked and yes M4A format is indeed listed in the audio formats dropdown list.

Good luck.

I'm not using Asset but you can allways use the folder view in the minmserver and arrange it as you like.

Oh yeah I'm that OCD too... 

I have asset on both a mac and a pc. With the same settings on each, if i use my pc, when I browse an artist on the app I get:

<all tracks>
<shuffle tracks>
<album folder>

but via my mac I'll just get 

<album folder>

I don't want all & shuffle  

In the Configuration/ Edit/Browse Tree highlight the Artist or Artist/Album view (whichever one you've set up) and at the bottom tick the "No Track Listing" checkbox.