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    The Computer Audiophile

    Audiophile Style Podcast: Episode 28 | OraStream Interview

     

     

     

    Episode 28, the season one finale, is up and being delivered to all the podcast platforms right now. 

     

    In this episode I talk to CEO, Co-Founder & Board Director Frankie Tan and CTO & Co-Founder Kelvin Lee of OraStream.

     

    Based in Singapore, OraStream offers both behind the scenes technology and services to music streaming companies such as the Neil Young Archives, Naxos, and Primephonic, and it offers a direct to consumer application and service called Brio. 

     

    If there is one technology that should be embraced by all the music streaming services, it’s Orastream’s MPEG-4 SLS offering. It’s a solution to real problems, that requires no special hardware or decoder, and leaves the audio signal 100% unaffected for those streaming with a good network connection.

     

    As you’ll hear, The OraStream Service is an end-to-end audio delivery platform. It works with full resolution audio recordings to deliver the highest quality of streaming audio on web, desktop, and mobile music players. The Audio adapts automatically to network bandwidth fluctuations for uninterrupted playback on cellular, Wi-Fi, or wired networks. When bandwidth allows, music plays at full bit-perfect resolution. When bandwidth degrades, music plays at less than full resolution audio quality. The process of network-based, audio quality adaptability is dynamic and transparent to the music listener.

     

    Both Frankie and Kelvin have a wealth of education and experience, and knowledge about streaming audio and the technologies surrounding it. Listeners on the geekier side will enjoy their technical descriptions of how OraStream works, but those a bit less tech savvy will equally appreciate how they explain the clear benefits to consumers. For example, it’s fascinating to hear Frankie describe how Amazon Music HD works  by slipping lower resolution audio into the middle of a high resolution track, and this being the reason Amazon can’t offer exclusive mode in its applications.

     

     Enjoy :~)

     

    More from OraStream here - https://www.orastream.com

     

     

     

    Listen via the embedded player below or subscribe on any platform.

     


    Current Podcast Setup.jpgAs much as I'd love to deliver this show to everyone in lossless high resolution audio, the podcast platforms only accept MP3. So, I record everything as lossless WAV files using a Neumann TLM 103 transformerless cardioid condenser microphone, then convert to 320 Kbps MP3 to give everyone the best quality currently possible. Given that I'm using a Merging Technologies Anubis analog to digital converter to record, I technically could do everything at DXD (384 kHz) or DSD256, but that's a bit over the top, even for me.

     

    A big thanks to David Chesky for allowing me to use the track East Harlem, from the album The Body Acoustic. The album can be purchased and downloaded at 24/96 from the Chesky Records site here

     

    All AS Podcast episodes can be found here, or you can find / subscribe on every podcast platform known to man. If I missed a platform some people use, just let me know. Here are links to the most popular platforms.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

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    Chris, thanks for doing Orastream. I worked with them back when they were getting started with Naxos. Frankie and Kelvin are real pros and also really great people. I lost track of them recently but it was great to hear them tell the Orastream story. I am about halfway through the podcast and look forward to the rest.

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    Tried Brio, contrary to your experience, Chris, out of 15 albums I attempted to upload to the cloud (no more than 10-12 gb total) only 5 albums successfully uploaded. I am out. And I didn't even attempt playback. If I can't upload my music, it's worth less than zero, let alone the cost of a subscription. Sad.

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    42 minutes ago, senorx said:

    Tried Brio, contrary to your experience, Chris, out of 15 albums I attempted to upload to the cloud (no more than 10-12 gb total) only 5 albums successfully uploaded. I am out. And I didn't even attempt playback. If I can't upload my music, it's worth less than zero, let alone the cost of a subscription. Sad.

    I have an article coming out Thursday about Brio. Today I just uploaded content and Brio was uploading at over 500 Mbps on my 1 Gbps up/down connection. Blazing fast. 

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    Just tried it and got one song in mp3 format to upload after about 20 minutes...

    Will try it again another time.

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    12 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

    I have an article coming out Thursday about Brio. Today I just uploaded content and Brio was uploading at over 500 Mbps on my 1 Gbps up/down connection. Blazing fast. 

    I have nowhere near that robust a connection (lucky to get 80mbps via ethernet), but it should still be sufficient, just slow. Which it is, but I am used to that. I have no problem streaming 4k video, so...

     

    Frankie did contact me directly in response to my comment above, to see some examples of the files I couldn't upload, so they are quite responsive thus far. $200/yr might be a pittance to some, but might be a bridge too far for me. Couldn't afford Roon either, so I am used to that as well.

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    14 hours ago, firedog said:

    Just tried it and got one song in mp3 format to upload after about 20 minutes...

    Will try it again another time.

    While lossy formats (aac and mp3) are supported in the desktop uploader, they were omitted from the web-based uploader. We have now added mp3 support for web-based uploads to cloud storage.

     

    I should point out that mp3 and aac audio files uploaded to BRIO cloud storage also gets encoded in MPEG-4 SLS - as such, although they appear/stream as 44.1k/16b audio, they only contain lossy audio data from the original aac or mp3 source files.

     

    I also wish to take this opportunity to thank Chris and Audiophile Style for the opportunity to tell the OraStream story; the attached provides an insight to adaptive streaming for those inclined to find out more. 

     

    Quality_Whether_You_Want_It_Or_Not.pdf

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    1 hour ago, OraStream said:

    While lossy formats (aac and mp3) are supported in the desktop uploader, they were omitted from the web-based uploader. We have now added mp3 support for web-based uploads to cloud storage.

     

    I should point out that mp3 and aac audio files uploaded to BRIO cloud storage also gets encoded in MPEG-4 SLS - as such, although they appear/stream as 44.1k/16b audio, they only contain lossy audio data from the original aac or mp3 source files.

     

    I also wish to take this opportunity to thank Chris and Audiophile Style for the opportunity to tell the OraStream story; the attached provides an insight to adaptive streaming for those inclined to find out more. 

     

    Quality_Whether_You_Want_It_Or_Not.pdfUnavailable

     I previously dowloaded the desktop (Windows) version. Says it's uploading, but nothing actually uploads. Even after a few hours. And yes, I decided for the trial to try mp3, as I'm fine with that quality for mobile listening.

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    OFF Topic and very late ... sorry.
    Radio!

    I discover that Vtuner and TuneIN - the all-catching "aces" of radio streaming - ARE NOT FLAC COMPATIBLE!

    So, after getting this answer directly from them via email, to play a flac radio stream (Paradise, D-Dur for example) do I necessarily have to rely on an APP like that of BluSound, Lumin and ROON?
    But will it be true? Is there anything I don't know?
    Why is this "question" still not publicized (radio flac stream) by streamer producers who insist on writing about TuneIN and VRadio?

    Thanks,

    Luca

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