Transcoding Flac to Wav on the fly

Glad this simple free tweak provided such a positive difference for you.

Simon

Congratulations,  much as a I miss my old CDX2, with the move to network play & my NDX, I seem to find new SQ discovery's on a regular basis.  Hope its the same for you.

Just think what you would have missed with finding transcoding if you had gone straight to WAV - the ultimate ......  

.... beats a tactical withdrawal before an attack by the WAV nay-sayers ... 

My suggestion also. Why not try converting copies of a few favourite tracks or albums into WAV and play without transcoding? What have you got to lose?

+1 Harry,  or as I did when I was delving into what works for me  .........

I copied a few .wav tracks into a test folder & copy-converted (a dBpoweramp function) the same tracks to .flac.   That way I could play a track & without moving it went straight to repeat the same track in the other format  ...........  didn't take long & .wav was subsequently approved as the corporate format & signed off by the Director of Domestic Engineering.

I have a Qnap NAS and to serve my NDX I use Miniserver that converts Flac to Wav on the fly and Assetnas that serves directly the Flac. Also in my opinion the Wav file is superior in detail and musicality.

I've never had issues tagging WAV files although I've heard it said that the tagging for FLAC is better. 

+1,  I have never found a problem with .wav tag editing.  

I don't believe .flac to be better,  it might well be easier, but TBH I've never found anything with .wav that is hard or not possible.   

It may well be that the method .wav is ripped into Naim HDX & US has editing issues & that might be where the .wav concerns have come from.  

I suspect this is the nub of it. Speaking very pedantically (like you could tell a difference!) there are no issues with how HDX and US tag WAV files because they don't tag 'em in the first place.

The original WAVE file format definition (pre 1998 or 2003 - I've forgotten which) didn't definitively provide for additional data blocks (such as tags), whereas the WAVE file format definition after that does make such provision.  So tags are now officially permitted in WAV files (even if no standard definition of the tags is provided).

Unfortunately much of the original documentation for the original format definition was left in place and not updated and still referenced, instead of updating it and / or referencing the new documentation - hence the confusion persisting.

Since there is no standard definition of the OGG/Vorbis tags in FLAC either, WAVE and FLAC are now in the same position as regards tagging.

There are two parts to the puzzle -- the tagging part and the server / serving part.  It would help to identify (because there are no standards) a little table of which programs can tag .wav files in a way that certain servers can deal with them and pass them to the Naim App (as this is a Naim forum).

For example, if you use dbPoweramp to tag your wav files, will MinimServer and Asset both play nice with the Naim App?

If this is a dumb idea, tell me; I can take it

Yes. I use them both with the Naim app. And I tag using dBpoweramp.

The problems with WAV tagging can occur if you switch between, for example, NAS server or tagging software. While the 'practice' of tagging WAV has become more standardised, it isn't as much so as FLAC. People have had problems more recently. However, if it works for you, all good, obvs.

I tested WAV versus FLAC and found WAV SQ to be better. I then tested WAV versus FLAC-transcoded-into-WAV and it was identical. It wasn't one of those 'different but equal' things - I couldn't detect any difference. 

In view of all the above, and the slightly less storage required for FLAC, for me, the optimum position is to store in FLAC and transcode to WAV.

Since changing to NDS I have also found that original WAV sounds better than FLAC and FLAC transcoded to WAV.  Been a bit of a pain re tagging but it's worth it.

On the tagging subject, anyone using Naim ripped WAV files finding they display .wav at the end of all the track titles?  I'm using Minimserver on Synology and wonder if there is a way to stop ".wav" being displayed on the end of all the track names?

This is how a track is displayed on my servers when the file has a title but the tag field doesn't. So at first glance I would classify this as a file which needs more comprehensive tagging. But you say you have re tagged already? That's a bit puzzling. Once I've put the track title in the appropriate data field the .wav suffix disappears because the server is no longer looking elsewhere (e.g. file name) for the track title.

There was some chat about that a while back,  I have a feeling HungryHalibut was involved & maybe fixed it.   try a search

But of course, the ".wav" track end is fixed by using Synology's native Media Server.  And now you've gone to the trouble of converting to .wav, it works faultlessly on straight .wav,  unlike when  transcoding .flac >-> .wav when it doesn't play gapless.   I have mine set in Browsing settings to show music "Titles" only, that way all you get is the track title & not artist & album  (like you didn't know that already).  Also I have DMA set to "Advanced" & get all the browsing options & combinations album/artist  genre/artist etc  & it all includes the art

However I invariably use my preferred simple no bling "view by folder" (a folder is a folder,  not art)   the art does not appear until you open the album

From memory, this problem occurred when I was transcoding FLAC to WAV with the Synology media server - the files all said .flac at the end.  With Minim, doing the same transcoding, there is no such extension on any of my music. 

A question on the Minimserver forum should elicit a fix. 

..........  yup yr right,  just looked up a search 

Strange it seems Harty has a very similar issue when using Minimserver 

This might be something for the "how to fix-it" file after a chat with Minimserver 

I'll just tried transcoding my .flac test tracks on both SynMS & Minimserver & don't see the same problem.  

NB: HH, I still have Minimserver loaded,  whilst I don't nomally use it,   it's fun to play once in a while

I have to confess when I said re-tagging I just filled in Artist, Album, Album Artist and album art detail.  As it already displayed the track info, albeit with .wav at the end, I bulk edited each album which was much quicker.  Hoping I won't have to do each individual track, but hopefully reading your replies above , that may not be necessary.  I'll do a bit more research, thanks chaps.