HDX and MP3 files

Posted by: DiggerM on 11 June 2016

Has anyone had problems playing MP3 files produced by an HDX? I wanted to use MP3 files in my car (using a small hard drive, but half of them don't play. 
However, if I drag one of the 'offending' files to a browser , then it plays perfectly.
I have a feeling it's due to metadata failure, (but all the WAVs produced by the HDX play perfectly).

Has anyone met this problem, and if so, how can I fix it (without editing 20 thousand metafiles)?
Any hints would be most welcome!

 

Posted on: 11 June 2016 by ChrisSU

I store my CD rips in FLAC so that if I choose to store or use them on a non-Naim device, the metadata is still accessible. When you've done this once, you can then convert them back to whatever format you want on non-Naim devices without loss of metadata. 

I find MP3s sound poor, even in the car, so I still use lossless copies on a USB memory stick, which works fine.

Posted on: 11 June 2016 by DiggerM
Thank you ChrisSU – I’ve now initiated the conversion to FLAC for all my albums (actually, 1319 in total).

What I used to do was collect all the resulting MP3s and then play them on a Samsung HDD through the car’s media player (which only supports MP3 , WMA and .aac media).
Posted on: 11 June 2016 by ChrisSU

Sounds like your HDX might be busy for a while! As you may already know if you've searched the forum, some prefer the sound of WAV on their Naim gear, and set their server to transcode from FLAC to WAV on playback. This gives you the best of both worlds in that you get smaller file sizes and easier metadata access with FLAC, and arguably better sound quality with WAV. 

Posted on: 12 June 2016 by robgr

Does the car media player have a limitation on maximum supported but rate?

Is there anything else that stands out about the problem files?

Posted on: 12 June 2016 by robgr

As I posted my reply I noticed the typo for but instead of bit but when I went to pending posts the post did not appear under appending approval

By the time it had been approved it was after 15 mins, odd that the edit option is however still present but just takes you to the error message

I'm using Vivaldi, when I make my next post I'll try a different browser

Am I missing something?

Posted on: 12 June 2016 by DiggerM

Hi Robgr

Sorry I was a bit long replying - was rehearsing in a local orchestra this morning!
No there's no bit rate limit in the car (it's an Audi A5 13 plate). In fact , I set the mp3 rate in the HDX at 320 KBps, since I agree it's the closest I'm going to get using WAVs in the car.

The other interesting thing was that I re-ran one of my 'failed' CDs through the HDX, and the mp3 file was perfect the second time. I noted the difference in the original and 'failed' files, and there was an absence of data from the 'failed' one.

Since it worked the second time, I can only think that the HDX software to produce mp3 files is slightly suspect.

No, I don't want to re-run 1319 albums through the HDX, but I MIGHT try using the 'MP3 Library' settings to delete and
re-code all the files to mp3 - a bit of a pain, though!