Downloading Music for the first time

Download AIFF/96khz.  Get JRiver for easy playback.

If your DAC runs USB 1, it is presumably a few years old, and probably can't play DSD files. Hi-res files above 24/96 (most commonly 24/192) also will not play. Any CD quality music (16/44.1) should be OK. It is quite easy to to use your Mac to convert these to different lossless formats to suit your DAC if necessary, so WAV, FLAC, ALAC and AIFF downloads are all usable. 

While you are figuring all this out for the first time, I wouldn't get too hung up on the Hi-Res thing. Some really can sound excellent, others less so. I'd rather listen to a well produced album at CD quality than a poorly produced one in DSD or 24/192.

• Download highest resolution available.
• Use uncompressed formats - AIFF is good. Avoid FLAC in your Apple Mac environment - iTunes will not play FLAC files
• Create a separate folder for HiRes downloads - add the files to your music library. If using iTunes SWITCH OFF the automatic iTunes organisation function - it will mess everything up
• Enjoy

So long as you use iTunes to play the music, I'd stick with Apple's lossless format.  You can always convert it to flac, later, if you use a different player at some point.

Thanks.  I downloaded Thousand Shades of Blue from the Sound Liaison website using PCM (24/96 WAV) by Carmen Gomes and dropped it into iTunes  (just right into the iTunes icon in the dock of the MacBook screen) , grouped it into one album using Get Info in iTunes, and everything works but the album art is not permitted into a WAV file.   I am playing it using the new Audirvana Plus which drives iTunes. Frankly I don't know if it is playing the original files at 24/96 or downsampling them into iTunes and then up sampling them back to Audirvana Plus but it says WAVE 24/96 and sounds very good.  Thanks for the help.

Skip,

What do you mean by 'album is not permitted into WAV'?

Adam

Adam & Skip,  I found album art missing in Sound Liaison files,   all mine are DSD & assumed it was because of that.    But DSD or PCM its easy to find the art on www, copy it over to the album as a "folder" .jpg & tag edit it in with dBpoweramp

Skip,  excellent album,  I have a number of Carmen Gomes Inc & Thousand Shades is one of the best.

I think I actually understand what Skip meant by 'the album art is not permitted into a WAV file' .

WAV (generally) will not contain the metadata i.e. track name, artist, album cover.

As Mike wrote - best is to manually download the missing album art and place it into the album folder.

The album art comes with the download if you add it to the Cart.   But the jpeg will not be added to the iTunes file using the Get Info>Artwork>Add Artwork command series.   Reading around iTunes help, it appears that album art is not permitted to be added in this way into a WAV file.   Everything else I have is CD ripped into AIFF.   This is PCM 24/96 WAV downloaded and dropped into iTunes.   This is the only album in my iTunes with no art.

BTW, Audirvana Plus makes it sound a treat!   The new version will open and reach into iTunes to play files without opening iTunes.  At least that is what it seems to do.  I think it does more than that but it is a little clunky.  I can't get the update to download, for example.  That should be automatic.

Hi Skip ,  I guess its a MS licence issue that Apple don't/won't/not permitted to use (WAVE is a MS format)

Adam,  re " WAV (generally) will not contain the metadata i.e. track name, artist, album cover."  ..........  not so my friend,  all my files are WAV & I have never bought or ripped anything without the metadata you list being included.  

Welcome to the wonderful world of audio streaming

What 'add artwork' does it actually embeds the image with the individual tracks

WAV files can have problems to carry that information.What you need to do is manually download the cover in JPG format and place it in the album folder.

Few recommendations, if I may:

• Skip the iTunes - it's not really designed for audio-streaming + it does not handle FLAC files (some high-res audio you will purchase only comes in FLAC format)
• Get a dedicated NAS - this way you don't have to switch on your computer to listen to the music. Synology or QNAP are popular choices with this forum members.
• Install a decent UPnP server software - if you want to test something use Minimsever - it's free but it is customary to make a donation if you are satisfied
• Your next step will probably be decent streamer - given that you already have 552, you will need a quality source.

Adam

Mike-B posted:

Hi Skip ,  I guess its a MS licence issue that Apple don't/won't/not permitted to use (WAVE is a MS format)

Adam,  re " WAV (generally) will not contain the metadata i.e. track name, artist, album cover."  ..........  not so my friend,  all my files are WAV & I have never bought or ripped anything without the metadata you list being included.  

Hi Mike - that's why I wrote 'generally'

It is of course possible to append WAV with the necessary data.

However when files are purchased from a download site, WAV may turn out to be problematic.
Adding metadata to FLAC or AIFF can be easier.

By the by - I've even seen FLAC files which were so strange, that any changes to the metadata made them unplayable. I've seen AIFF files that were sensitive to a 'dot' at the end of a track name, rendering them useless. And then I've seen WAV files which when moved from their folder, lost all the info like track names.

Adam,  Re WAV may be problematic when purchased from a download site,  absolutely not in my experience.

Do you have download sites in mind that have such problems from your experience - I use all the popular ones, HighResAudio, Qobuz, HDT (incl USA),  Naim, Linn, etc., plus numbers of less well known & outside Europe.   

I actually had problems with:

• AIFF files downloaded form HD Tracks
• FLAC files from the Led Zeppelin re-masters.

I don't download WAV files as such, since my home computer network is Apple Mac based, so I mentally prefer AIFF format. If there is an option of formats, I will download AIFF (e.g. HD Tracks typically has 4 basic formats + DSD now).
However all my rips are in WAV - I use UnitiServe SSD to rip and 'manage' my network streaming duties.

I understand the WAV metadata formatting Naim use with UnitiServe & HDX is different from standard.  I'm not sure about the detail,  but it has caused some questions to be posted on the forum.

Mike-B posted:

I understand the WAV metadata formatting Naim use with UnitiServe & HDX is different from standard.  I'm not sure about the detail,  but it has caused some questions to be posted on the forum.

When a Unitiserve/HDX rips a CD, the metadata is stored in a way which is more or less unusable by non-Naim devices. This is only a problem with WAV, so the solution is to convert to FLAC on the Unitiserve before the files are transferred elsewhere.

This is only a problem if you intend to use the music files on a device other than the Unitiserve, so it may never matter to many users.   

Thanks Chris,  I helped someone move his WAV over to a NAS a while back,  fortunately he knew we had to convert to FLAC before the move so I just followed the instructions.  I did not take the time to go dig deeper & look-see what & why in the US "WAV" files.

Just updated Audirvana Plus to the new specs.   It took about a day to find the window when it would work but it was easy once it clicked.