In the process of converting Flac files to Wav..have I gone mad!? Well, no actually..

[Gazjam]

Gaz - do you use "Play Files From Memory Instead of Disk" in Jriver Media Center?

I do - and I can't detect a difference between FLAC and WAV. My theory is that it unpacks the FLAC file to WAV before buffering in memory so by chosing this, so you are effectively playing WAV anyway... As I said MY theory, and not sure if it is how it works or not.

I'm certainly not going to convert nearly 2TB of FLACs back to WAV though, as I just can't tell the difference.

hi Alex,

I dont use memory play with Jriver as I don't hear any improvement with it since going to v18 of Jriver.
Also, if your pulling in your Flacs over a network it requires copying the file across the network INTO MEMORY ANYWAY before any playback can occur.
So having the "memory play" button ticked is redundant as files are loaded into memory anyway if your playing over a network.

I had a conversation with Jim Hillegass (the Jriver guy) about this and he confirmed it.
Good discussion about it here:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=75097.0
and here
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=75123.0


The last thing I wanted to do was to convert ANYTHING (I have a similar sized library to you Alex and still relive the horror of ripping all those CDs ) and I looked in to different ways to achieve uncompressed audio from Jriver without converting.

I tried a thing called AssetUPnP, which is an audio only DNLA server?
The Naim and Linn guys talk a lot of this in their forums as it does the conversion process first THEN sends the uncompressed PCM to Jriver for playback.

I tried it, but found it to be a bit fiddly and unreliable.
It wasn't finding all my music library and didn't always play nice with Jriver.
Playlists etc didn't really work the way they were supposed to and it would have meant a lot of work to recreate them in a way that did.
So in the interests of a simple life I decided against it.
Also, it was an extra process in the chain again.

With Jriver you can select which library you listen from and I sat down and listened to the same tracks, swapping between the DNLA served "uncompressed" version and physical converted AIFF files on my HDD.

Playback from DNLA server was missing something that direct playback had.
They sounded subtly different and I preferred the direct playback.
Maybe down to network issues, who knows?

Given that it was a "do once and forget" thing with no fannying about involved and it just...worked...I decided to convert my library.

If you can get a 5% improvement (say) for nothing but your time then that works for me.
Subtle, but you miss it when its not there.

All of this stuff is based on what I'm hearing with my ears in my system in my room by the way

[Alex_UK]

Thanks Gaz.

Interestingly, I find that I prefer the sound directly from an external USB HDD, so I thought that might be the difference, but this would disprove either theory:

Vincent Cars Said:

I’m afraid memory playback as implemented in JRiver won’t help us.
It is an input buffer. The track is read and stored in memory.
The decoding is done during playback.

Memory playback as implemented in Foobar/Cplay/ SignalistHQ read the track and do the decoding on the fly. What is stored in memory is an output buffer with “DAC ready” output.
This eliminates both the differences in I/O and processing regardless of the format.
This is the trick to eliminate any possible audible difference between (lossless) formats.

So I can see why it is possible that the decoding of a FLAC file might interfere with other processes - and therefore sound quality...

Luckily, as I can't notice any difference I shall carry on in blissful denial with my FLAC library!

[Gazjam]

ok...
so that's the "B's" done...24 more to go

[ppat2]

I've read the articles in Stereophile and Absolute Sound and others who mentioned that converting the FLAC to WAV makes an improvement. All of my files are now in WAV format, attached to a 500-GB external HDD via USB to my Logitech SB Touch.

I have downloaded a bunch of 16/44 and 24/96 from HDtracks.com in FLAC format, and converted them to WAV. I have in many cases left the FLAC and WAV copies of the same files in the folder so I can listen to the FLAC version of a song, and then skip to the WAV of the same piece, and so on.

In every case, I have much preferred the WAV over the FLAC, and for me it was not even really close. The FLAC to my ears have sounded a bit muddy and congested compared to the WAV which have more definition and air and quieter background. If you have not convered FLAC to WAV yet, give it a try and trust your ears. You might not go back.

[morris_minor]

I'm quite happy myself with FLACs but I was wondering how folk who stream WAVs tag them?

[Clive]

I'm quite happy myself with FLACs but I was wondering how folk who stream WAVs tag them?

The same way I tag my LPs Actually I use a mix of FLAC and WAV but I can't be bothered with the UI as I use a player aimed at the best sound and minimising the UI is part of achieving this. If the UI with great tagging is important then you MAY need to compromise. If you find in-memory players don't increase sonics then you can happily use FLACs and tag them to your preferences.

[Stratmangler]

ok...
so that's the "B's" done...24 more to go

You are retaining the FLAC library aren't you, just in case something comes along sometime down the line which makes the FLAC stuff sound better?

That way you'd still keep all the tagging too

[morris_minor]

The same way I tag my LPs Actually I use a mix of FLAC and WAV but I can't be bothered with the UI as I use a player aimed at the best sound and minimising the UI is part of achieving this. If the UI with great tagging is important then you MAY need to compromise. If you find in-memory players don't increase sonics then you can happily use FLACs and tag them to your preferences.

Ok. Then I really am happy to stick with FLACs for all my Squeezeboxes!

[Stratmangler]

Gary

You're not converting all of your music files a folder at a time are you?
I think I'd set up Foobar to batch convert the lot in one hit

[John]

I got a few files on FLAC and just tried this on some Ben Harper and will be doing this with the remaining files