N272 an 24bit 96Mhz WAV

Posted by: fernar on 11 December 2016

I just brought the Peter Gabriel album "Us". This includes a code to download a high res version of the album from the B&W music store.. a choice of CD quality or 24 bit 96 MHZ WAV. I of course chose the 24 bit version on the assumption that this would be playable on my NAC272... but when I  to play these track I get the message "Unrecognised format". According to the manual the NAC 272 should be able to handle this format.. but no luck..

I am streaming the files from a NAS... and when I converted the WAV files to FLAC the NAC272 plays the album just fine at 24 bit 96Mhz...

Anyone else seeing similar issues?

Anyone have any thoughts as to what might the problem... I guess since I can play the converted WAV files I have a workaround.... but really curious as what the issue might be...

Posted on: 11 December 2016 by hungryhalibut

The 272 will play hires WAV happily. It may be that the download has strange metadata that prevents the server handling it. If you set your server to transcode to WAV, it will play FLAC as WAV and very likely sound better. 

Posted on: 11 December 2016 by IanG

I had this problem with a WAV file a while back. As HH said, it's probably an issue with the software you are running on your NAS. I converted it to FLAC and then transcoded to WAV and all was good again. Seems strange and somewhat counter intuitive but it works

Posted on: 11 December 2016 by Adam Zielinski

If the files are from B&W 'Society of Sound' they indeed come in high res audio WAV. I remember they even came with correctly embebed artwork.

So most odd that they don't play....

Posted on: 11 December 2016 by Mike-B

I've never had a problem from B&W,  they are as Adam says very good & are correctly formated, unlike many of the popular www music stores,  correct formating is absolute rubbish at times.

I had the same problem with one WAV file once,  can't remember who supplied it.  I copied it first to preserve the original,  then converted the copy to FLAC & it played OK,  was formated OK, good metadata & cover art.  I then converted it back to WAV & it played OK.   Then I took the original & converted WAV to WAV & guess what,  it was OK.    

BTW - I'm NDX,  but NDX or 272 ........  makes no difference

Posted on: 11 December 2016 by Huge

As Mike-B says, It's a metadata problem.  Convert WAVE->FLAC->WAVE (I use DBPoweramp) and it'll play; there's no loss of quality as both FLAC and WAVE are lossless.

Incidentally I have that recording and after doing that I does play on a 272 (and ND5 XS).

Posted on: 12 December 2016 by fernar

The the files  were from  B&W 'Society of Sound' - and as mentioned, correctly numbered with good art work... I will try WAV to WAV reform to see if that works....