Radio 3 Proms FLAC Stream

Must give it a try. Listened to HD which sounded good. As per usual the NAT01 was marginally preferable especially when the stream drops due to our less than wonderful 6 meg download speed! Let's tope they don't pull the plug on VHF ant time soon. 

Listened to FLAC stream via Sqeezebox Touch. Worked perfectly. No dropouts. Same tonight. 

Listned to the flac stream tonight from my PC via my nDAC with no problems and the sound was very enjoyable if a little dry when compared with my NAT 02. 

I also listened tonight, with no interruptions at all. The sound was terrific, the best I've heard ever from the Proms. (The concert was pretty exceptional too. Without wanting to start a flame war on this subject, I find it really difficult to believe anyone could prefer the dynamically compressed FM version.

Listening to today's Prom, A/B comparison done between FLAC and IRadio during the interval discussion, found the FLAC significantly better. Excellent sound quality using Firefox on a cheap Dell APTxing across to the NDX, as in the 1st trial I'm pleasantly surprised by the quality across Bluetooth.

I enjoyed the Birtwistle, one to hear again I think, looking forward to the Elgar.

Hmm personally I didn't think the Birtwistle was quite the thing, on BBC4 anyway. I haven't listened to R3 in FLAC yet on this trial but I did quite a bit on the one a couple of months ago. How are people connecting the Firefox originated stream to their Naim? I used a Dragonfly red plugged into USB on my laptop and the analogue output into my  Superuniti. It was really great last time. I thought better than Radio3HD on iradio and a lot better than the Superuniti FM.  Just very open, low distortion and compulsive listening.

Best

David

Nice to have Nimrod as an encore.

I'm using an iPod streaming at 320 bits into the NDS. I presume I would have to introduce a PC to the equation to try the FLAC ? How is it done?

David

David O'Higgins posted:

I'm using an iPod streaming at 320 bits into the NDS. I presume I would have to introduce a PC to the equation to try the FLAC ?

Intrigued:  Why use an iPod to stream 320kbs ??? !!!   Why not use the NDS built in Naim iRadio (vTuner) service.   You get BBC R3 in HD via HLS 48kHz @ 339kbs..     OK FLAC is another matter & I'll leave others to tell how to do that as I'm away from base at mo & am not sure I can remember how exactly  

David O'Higgins posted:

I'm using an iPod streaming at 320 bits into the NDS. I presume I would have to introduce a PC to the equation to try the FLAC ? How is it done?

David

You need to play it using the Firefox browser, so you'll need to find a way of hooking up your computer to a DAC or streamer.

Yes as Chris says you need a PC running a very recent version of Firefox. You navigate to the FLAC page on the BBC website (easiest to use google to find it) and then you click on "Try it" or similar and "Play".

After that, the only way that I have been able to play it through my Naim streamers is to connect a DAC to the USB port on the PC and connect the analogue output of the DAC to an analogue input of the streamer. Presumably you could use a Naim DAC but no-one here has reported on that yet. I use a Dragonfly Red USB DAC which costs about £170 into my office Superuniti and it sounds much better to my ears than the BBC Rafio3 HD offering or indeed the Superuniti built in Radio 3 FM. It sounds really low distortion and "real".

best

David

I am using the toslink optical output on my Dell pc feeding an optical input on my Naim nDAC. This has been working very well so far and produces more musical, lifelike enjoyment than the 320k aac stream on my HDX or the warmer sounding Nat 02. 

The pilot is down for maintenance at the moment. Earlier this afternoon if you tried to access it you got an error message and were taken to a developers' collaboration area. Interesting in its way, but it didn't sound of anything!

Interestingly it was only when I restarted Firefox (for reasons unconnected with the FLAC pilot) that this became obvious to me.  The previously loaded page from two or three days ago that I had on a tab still worked fine.

best

David

Mike-B posted:

David O'Higgins posted:

I'm using an iPod streaming at 320 bits into the NDS. I presume I would have to introduce a PC to the equation to try the FLAC ?

Intrigued:  Why use an iPod to stream 320kbs ??? !!!   Why not use the NDS built in Naim iRadio (vTuner) service.   You get BBC R3 in HD via HLS 48kHz @ 339kbs..     OK FLAC is another matter & I'll leave others to tell how to do that as I'm away from base at mo & am not sure I can remember how exactly  

Because I live in Ireland, so I can only access the 128kbs stream via Naim iRadio. On the iPod I can run a VPN and access the 320kbs stream.

David O'Higgins posted:

Mike-B posted:

David O'Higgins posted:

I'm using an iPod streaming at 320 bits into the NDS. I presume I would have to introduce a PC to the equation to try the FLAC ?

Intrigued:  Why use an iPod to stream 320kbs ??? !!!   Why not use the NDS built in Naim iRadio (vTuner) service.   You get BBC R3 in HD via HLS 48kHz @ 339kbs..     OK FLAC is another matter & I'll leave others to tell how to do that as I'm away from base at mo & am not sure I can remember how exactly  

Because I live in Ireland, so I can only access the 128kbs stream via Naim iRadio. On the iPod I can run a VPN and access the 320kbs stream.

Perhaps you need to stick to good old fashioned FM! I say this purely because, in NW Wales, I can easily pick up Irish stations, even on my car radio, so maybe it works both ways?

David O'Higgins posted:

Mike-B posted:

David O'Higgins posted:

I'm using an iPod streaming at 320 bits into the NDS. I presume I would have to introduce a PC to the equation to try the FLAC ?

Intrigued:  Why use an iPod to stream 320kbs ??? !!!   Why not use the NDS built in Naim iRadio (vTuner) service.   You get BBC R3 in HD via HLS 48kHz @ 339kbs..     OK FLAC is another matter & I'll leave others to tell how to do that as I'm away from base at mo & am not sure I can remember how exactly  

Because I live in Ireland, so I can only access the 128kbs stream via Naim iRadio. On the iPod I can run a VPN and access the 320kbs stream.

I wonder whether the FLAC trial maintains the geographical limitation. You could try easily enough if you google "BBC Concert Sound " using Firefox on a PC and navigate from there.

best

David

David O'Higgins posted:

Because I live in Ireland, so I can only access the 128kbs stream via Naim iRadio. On the iPod I can run a VPN and access the 320kbs stream.

Ahh !!!   logh dom David,  it slips the mind that HLS is UK only.     

Chrissu, it works both ways in some parts, but not where I am in Dublin. I am dependent on a cable signal to my Nat01 and the cable company doesn't give a shit about minorities like me, so even if I can get them to fix the hiss, it soon drifts back to unlistenable. 

So digital it has to be....

David O'Higgins posted:

Chrissu, it works both ways in some parts, but not where I am in Dublin. I am dependent on a cable signal to my Nat01 and the cable company doesn't give a shit about minorities like me, so even if I can get them to fix the hiss, it soon drifts back to unlistenable. 

So digital it has to be....

Fair enough, I thought that as a NAT01 user, maybe you had a big aerial and you just needed to point it across the Irish Sea! (I have memories from when I worked in Dublin, driving home from the Holyhead ferry, with RTE still playing as I crossed Anglesey.)

Lets hope the FLAC trial becomes a permanent thing, at least it gives people some hope for after the switch-off. Maybe Naim's new streaming platform will enable this without having to hook up a PC?

Just had a chance to compare standard streamed naim radio NDS with FLAC via SBT into NDS. Latter soooo much improved.   Amazing. 

I am really enjoying the FLAC stream this year. I'm running it from the optical output on the headphone jack of my MacBook Pro straight into my DAC. I really think that the BBC have done a fabulous job, as the sound has been consistently excellent to my ears. I've found the feed very stable whenever I've been listening too; perhaps one brief moment of dropout all week.

I also think they have stepped up their game from an engineering standpoint. I went to Berlioz Prom this week and, for the first time I can remember, saw that they had put acoustic screens between the brass section and the back of the strings, I'm assuming to allow better separation for the mixing of the broadcast. 

Anyway, suffice to say the quality of audio in the broadcasts is vastly better than that live in the hall, but that isn't going to come as a surprise to anyone who knows the acoustic 'qualities' of the Royal Albert Hall.

A friend of mine has lent me a WAV of the decoded digital stream he recorded from part of that Berlioz concert and the quality is excellent. It of course may end up being an issue for the BBC that it's trivial to make lossless recordings of their lossless R3 feed....

best

David

Can now stream FLAC directly to NDS using combination of plugins on Logitech Media Server:
Triode's BBC iplayer for FLAC stream and 
Philippe's UnP Bridge

NDS shows as a player in the squeezebox app and can be controlled from that. 

No need for Squeezebox hardware