SACD Ripping using an Oppo or Pioneer? Yes, it's true!

[Robby G]

1 hour ago, MikeyFresh said:

 

I don't know exactly what is going on there except to say this: Post #4426 contains the download links for mindset's SACDExtractGUI, which is and has been the state-of-the-art ripping tool since fall 2018.

 

While the venerable ISO2DSD has served us quite well, it is neither as fast nor as capable as SACDExtractGUI is. One of the additional features is the ability to name your output directory, so you don't have to worry about the ISO or DSF tracks being written to an already full HDD, you can write them anywhere you want including directly to the NAS for instance.

 

I'm surprised you got ISO2DSD to work at all after moving the .jar file, the instructions specifically say to leave all of the downloaded folder's contents together, you can't separate it:

 

Requirements: The sacd_extract file, version.txt, and the iso2dsd_gui.jar file need to be in the same folder, Java needs to be installed, 64 bit OS

I know, but I don't have enough space on my laptop so I unzipped it to my NAS drive and that's the way I've been using it.  It worked fine until this morning and it's working again now.  I think part of the problem today is from an Apple update that occurred last night and I found I had two copies on the NAS.  I've got the newly ripped file playing now and, so far, it sounds good.  Thanks for the assist.

[Timb5881]

Found an SACD that does not rip well.  The soundtrack to O Brother Where Art Thou.  Tried ripping it twice and file always comes out as unreadable.  No problems with the other's I have ripped.

[EugenF]

11 hours ago, Timb5881 said:

Found an SACD that does not rip well.  The soundtrack to O Brother Where Art Thou.  Tried ripping it twice and file always comes out as unreadable.  No problems with the other's I have ripped.

Hi Timb5881,

Please try my sacd_extract app  (Windows or Linux only) to see if it can rip well.

 

https://github.com/EuFlo/sacd-ripper/releases/tag/0.3.9.3

 

 

[decibals]

13 hours ago, Timb5881 said:

Found an SACD that does not rip well.  The soundtrack to O Brother Where Art Thou.  Tried ripping it twice and file always comes out as unreadable.  No problems with the other's I have ripped.

Hi, I also have this SACD and had no problem ripping it with iso2DSD. I am sure you have tried powering down and removing the USB stick and powering back up again, this has worked for me when on occasion a disc wouldn't rip.

[Timb5881]

So do your files, do they go on the flash drive?   I should point out that the files get ripped but when I play back the files I get an error:

Unable to open item for playback (Seek offset out of range):
"E:\Various Artists - Original Soundtrack - O Brother, Where Art Thou\01 - James Carter & the Prisoners - Po Lazarus.dff"

Unable to open item for playback (Seek offset out of range):
"E:\Various Artists - Original Soundtrack - O Brother, Where Art Thou\02 - Harry McClintock - Big Rock Candy Mountain.dff"

 

[Timb5881]

I have ripped other discs after this one.  I will try and power it down again.

[EugenF]

10 hours ago, Timb5881 said:

So do your files, do they go on the flash drive?   I should point out that the files get ripped but when I play back the files I get an error:

Unable to open item for playback (Seek offset out of range):
"E:\Various Artists - Original Soundtrack - O Brother, Where Art Thou\01 - James Carter & the Prisoners - Po Lazarus.dff"

Unable to open item for playback (Seek offset out of range):
"E:\Various Artists - Original Soundtrack - O Brother, Where Art Thou\02 - Harry McClintock - Big Rock Candy Mountain.dff"

 

It looks that flash drive is full and cannot write dff files (there are empty files)

Try to rip ISO file only on the flash. Then try to convert ISO file to DFF/DSF files on desktop/laptop.

 

[Timb5881]

Got it figured out!  It was not the software or the sacd player, it was a dirty disc.  I cleaned it up low and behold, it ripped properly.

[decibals]

Sometimes it is the little things that throw the biggest challenges...glad you were able to figure it out!

[austinpop]

Hi folks,

 

I haven't been active in this thread for a couple of years, but have watched with admiration as some of you have really taken this topic forward - both in terms of discovering players that can rip SACDs and in terms of software, like the new SACDExtractGUI.

 

One area that is still a problem for me is the issue of pops/crackles on track boundaries. Usually this is not much of an issue, but it seems to really become problematic when track boundaries are in the middle of a piece. Right now, I'm grappling with this album:

 

This symphony has 5 movements, but is sliced into 42 tracks. Indeed - movement 1 alone has 14 tracks. When I first ripped this album back when @ted_b started this topic, I struggled with pops/crackles, and eventually found the only solution was to rip each entire ISO as a single track, which is how I've been listening.

 

I have 2 questions to pose to the group experts:

1. has there been any progress on this pop/crackle issue in later releases of sacd_extract? I know there was a bug before v0.3.8 that put a non-zero offset at a track boundary, which was fixed. However, that didn't completely solve the issue. I suspect there hasn't been, as I just reripped the DSF files from the ISOs with the latest version of the tools, and the pops are still there.
2. Can anyone give me a brief primer on how to set my own track boundaries? Currently, the 2nd ISO contains movements 2-5, and I have it ripped as a single large DSF file. I'd like to create a custom file (CUE?) where I can tell sacd_extract to create a separate DSF file for each movement. As I understand it, the pop/crackle happens when the track boundary occurs at a point where the audio signal is not silent. I'm thinking if I can hand-pick points track boundaries during a silence, I may be able to eliminate (or greatly minimize) the pops.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[One and a half]

48 minutes ago, austinpop said:

Hi folks,

 

I haven't been active in this thread for a couple of years, but have watched with admiration as some of you have really taken this topic forward - both in terms of discovering players that can rip SACDs and in terms of software, like the new SACDExtractGUI.

 

One area that is still a problem for me is the issue of pops/crackles on track boundaries. Usually this is not much of an issue, but it seems to really become problematic when track boundaries are in the middle of a piece. Right now, I'm grappling with this album:

 

This symphony has 5 movements, but is sliced into 42 tracks. Indeed - movement 1 alone has 14 tracks. When I first ripped this album back when @ted_b started this topic, I struggled with pops/crackles, and eventually found the only solution was to rip each entire ISO as a single track, which is how I've been listening.

 

I have 2 questions to pose to the group experts:

1. has there been any progress on this pop/crackle issue in later releases of sacd_extract? I know there was a bug before v0.3.8 that put a non-zero offset at a track boundary, which was fixed. However, that didn't completely solve the issue. I suspect there hasn't been, as I just reripped the DSF files from the ISOs with the latest version of the tools, and the pops are still there.
2. Can anyone give me a brief primer on how to set my own track boundaries? Currently, the 2nd ISO contains movements 2-5, and I have it ripped as a single large DSF file. I'd like to create a custom file (CUE?) where I can tell sacd_extract to create a separate DSF file for each movement. As I understand it, the pop/crackle happens when the track boundary occurs at a point where the audio signal is not silent. I'm thinking if I can hand-pick points track boundaries during a silence, I may be able to eliminate (or greatly minimize) the pops.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Roon has very good transitions between tracks that I don’t hear. Once the ISO is created , Yuri’s ProduceRd software takes care of the track splitting and the transitions. 
That process does take a while to complete , about 30 minutes on a single i7, no issues so far. 
Check with him about long file names, there’s a version out I didn’t need to try, but for this album , a pre plan would be useful.
 

[Synfreak]

The exact same album has given me  _a lot_  of headaches back in the time I tried extracting the tracks into *.dsdiff or *.dsf files.

 

No matter which version of sacd_extract I tried, and no matter what other features I enabled or disabled (i.e. "edit master").

 

So I gave up on extracting my isos and started playing back the isos instead. As I am using Foobar2000 as player, and tagging works quite good, I kept it this way (and as I am listening quite a lot to multichannel content as well ...). The only drawback with playing DST packed isos is the heavier cpu load while unpacking the content has to be perfromed every single playback.

[EugenF]

12 hours ago, austinpop said:

 

I have 2 questions to pose to the group experts:

1. has there been any progress on this pop/crackle issue in later releases of sacd_extract?

I have made a small progress in updating the sacd_extract (in a pre-release ver.  0.3.9.3) by take in account of Track_Start_Time  and Time Code for each audio frames belonging to that track.  And the padding is made with '0x69' s instead of '0x00's. See pm for more details.

[austinpop]

I've now tried v0.3.9 as well as the pre-release v0.3.9.3 from Eugen above, but neither solve the pops.

 

I now remember what I had done. I had extracted each ISO (disc 1 = movement 1, disc 2 = movements 2-5) as a single DFF file (using the option "Philips DSDIFF (Edit Master) file"), and then just converted to DSF using dff2dsf.exe.

 

I think I'll just live with this approach.

[ted_b]

9 minutes ago, austinpop said:

I've now tried v0.3.9 as well as the pre-release v0.3.9.3 from Eugen above, but neither solve the pops.

 

I now remember what I had done. I had extracted each ISO (disc 1 = movement 1, disc 2 = movements 2-5) as a single DFF file (using the option "Philips DSDIFF (Edit Master) file"), and then just converted to DSF using dff2dsf.exe.

 

I think I'll just live with this approach.

Have you tried Bogi's ISO to DSF utility?  It is intended to convert ripped ISO first to DFF tracks (eliminating the track pops due to a DSF bug) and then automatically converts to DSF, and you're done...and you have pop-free DSF tracks.  Is right-click (context menu) capable.

 

[austinpop]

2 hours ago, ted_b said:

Have you tried Bogi's ISO to DSF utility?  It is intended to convert ripped ISO first to DFF tracks (eliminating the track pops due to a DSF bug) and then automatically converts to DSF, and you're done...and you have pop-free DSF tracks.  Is right-click (context menu) capable.

 

 

Yes Ted, I've tried that long ago. It didn't solve the problem.

 

I've been struggling with this issue for years. The sacd_extract fix from v0.3.8 did help, but there is still an issue.

 

The issue appears to be related to track boundaries when the logical "level" is not zero, because it's in the middle of a piece. It could also be my DAC dropping DoP lock momentarily. 

[Kal Rubinson]

18 minutes ago, austinpop said:

I've been struggling with this issue for years. The sacd_extract fix from v0.3.8 did help, but there is still an issue.

 

The issue appears to be related to track boundaries when the logical "level" is not zero, because it's in the middle of a piece. It could also be my DAC dropping DoP lock momentarily. 

It  has been an occasional issue for me but, prompted by your post, I went back to this album which I ripped to ISO and extracted to DSF so long ago that I will presume that the sacd_extract was probably v0.3.7 with which such track-change ticks have often been reported. 

First, I do confirm that I hear a very slight tick on track-change but not a distracting one.  That may be because I listen over speakers and not with headphones where random environmental noises are suppressed.

Second, I use JRiver as my playback software and setting track-change to "Do not play silence (leading or trailing"

Third, I hear the ticks with Roon but, so far, no apparent solution there. 

[MikeyFresh]

45 minutes ago, austinpop said:

I've been struggling with this issue for years

 

Me too, over that time various DAC and Renderer firmware updates have all attempted to fix the issue.

 

45 minutes ago, austinpop said:

It could also be my DAC dropping DoP lock momentarily. 

 

Yes it could, and the end result varies by specific DAC and player software combo.

 

I can rip straight to DSF using SACDExtractGUI (sacd_extract 3.9) and it's Padding-less DSF option setting, and the pops clicks are then eliminated using a JRiver DLNA UPnP server streaming to either a microRendu or RPi/Moode Renderer with various DACs, including cheap ones like a Topping D10, or iFi iDAC2, or various others including a SIMAUDIO Moon 280D.

 

But this isn't trivial in terms of the permutations that need to be tested/altered for any given DAC, as various different settings are possible on both the server and renderer. With JRiver, the server side setting that seems most critical in solving this was the following:

 

Tools -> Options-> Media Network -> Add/configure DLNA Servers -> Advanced -> Bitstream DSD (requires DoPE compliant renderer) [Uncheck/Disable]

 

This enables pop/click free DSF playback to either a microRendu or an RPi/Moode Renderer, however there are settings necessary on the Renderer side then as well. Some of it makes no sense to me, for instance the Moon 280D is supposed to support native DSD playback, however I get no sound from the microRendu unless native DSD is disabled in SonicOrbiter. 

 

There is also a Compatibility Mode setting in SonicOrbiter that is supposed to work with JRiver, but it doesn't work in my set-up, however unchecking that box does work.

 

Sorry to be so lengthy, but maybe the takeaway from this post and the part that is on-topic with respect to using actual rip settings, is that SACDExtractGUI (with sacd_extract v3.9) does seem to produce DSF Files that playback click-free with JRiver as the server and my 2 different Renderers when using the Padding-less DSF rip parameter option, on my specific DACs.

 

A friend reports the same result using Roon as the server and playback software, and he too has a microRendu and an RPi as Renderers, but he uses a Bryston DAC in his big rig, and a similar (though not identical to mine) iFi DAC model in his bedroom than what I'm using.

 

iFi in particular has had numerous firmware updates in the past that addressed this issue among others, however the behavior from their DACs will still vary depending on the Server and Renderer playback settings.

[MikeyFresh]

12 minutes ago, Kal Rubinson said:

Second, I use JRiver as my playback software and setting track-change to "Do not play silence (leading or trailing"

 

That setting applies to local playback only and not DLNA based streaming?

 

12 minutes ago, Kal Rubinson said:

Third, I hear the ticks with Roon but, so far, no apparent solution there. 

 

I wonder if my buddy with Roon just sits far enough away from not so efficient speakers that he can't hear the tick then? Or do his Bryston and iFi DACs somehow handle it better than others?

 

Also interesting that some people call this a loud crack, while most others describe it as just a small click or tick. Seems to me they might be two totally different things causing one or the other to happen.

[Kal Rubinson]

18 minutes ago, MikeyFresh said:

That setting applies to local playback only and not DLNA based streaming?

Well, local playback is what I use and, at the moment, I have no option for DLNA in order to find out.

 

22 minutes ago, MikeyFresh said:

I wonder if my buddy with Roon just sits far enough away from not so efficient speakers that he can't hear the tick then?

This is very possible.

24 minutes ago, MikeyFresh said:

Or do his Bryston and iFi DACs somehow handle it better than others?

Also interesting that some people call this a loud crack, while most others describe it as just a small click or tick. Seems to me they might be two totally different things causing one or the other to happen.

Probably.  I have played with a fair number of DACs and never hear anything of this sort that I would call a loud crack.  It has always been subtle.

[austinpop]

Thanks for your responses, @Kal Rubinson and @MikeyFresh . Yes, this is a tough issue that we've all been dealing with for many years. As Kal said, the pops/ticks aren't loud, but especially on headphones, extremely audible. I've verified it on Euphony/Stylus (my primary player), and also Roon.

 

As I said, I'm fine with my interim solution of one gigantic dsf file for movements 2-5 for this particular disc. The one thing I would like to explore is to move the track boundaries to the logical silences between tracks to see:

1. whether this eliminates to pops, or at least
2. moves it to an inter-movement silence, where it's harmless.

Just from listening, I've identified the ideal time stamps of 11:05, 22:01, and 27:30 as the perfect break points. What I'd like to do is break this ISO up into 4 parts - movements 2, 3, 4, and 5. To do this, I would need to:

1. rip the ISO into a single DFF using the DSDIFF edit master flag. DONE. The resulting CUE file is attached. Latonia Moore, soprano - Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 2 Resurrection . Version from.cue
2. modify this file into a custom CUE file to define 4 tracks with the above track boundaries. I don't know how to do this, but hoping someone here can help me. 
3. run a tool to take the original DFF from step 1, and splits it into 4 using the custom CUE file. This is the biggie. Does such a tool exist? I don't think the free tools embedded in iso_2_dsd, SACDExtractGUI, and ISO2DSF have this capability, but maybe I'm wrong?
4. Final step is trivial - convert resulting dff's to dsf using the dff2dsf tool.

 

[haggis999]

Will SACDExtractGUI ever emulate the capabilities of dBpoweramp?

 

I have been ripping my growing SACD collection using my Oppo 105 ever since I discovered this forum thread about 3 years ago. The latest SACDExtractGUI software does an excellent job, with one significant exception - there is no mechanism for controlling the DSF filenames, folder names and metadata in the highly sophisticated manner I am used to when ripping CDs using dBpoweramp (via profile settings and manual editing of metadata sourced from several online sources before starting a rip).

 

Almost all my recordings are of classical music and getting these things right is a vital requirement for properly organising my collection. At present, I am forced to do almost all of this manually after ripping a SACD, though I always rip the CD layer with DBpoweramp, which gives me a source for copying and pasting metadata to the DSF files,   

 

Is this a situation that is ever likely to improve or is it technically impossible to achieve dBpoweramp-style functionality when ripping SACDs?

[snafu_]

9 minutes ago, haggis999 said:

Will SACDExtractGUI ever emulate the capabilities of dBpoweramp?

 

I have been ripping my growing SACD collection using my Oppo 105 ever since I discovered this forum thread about 3 years ago. The latest SACDExtractGUI software does an excellent job, with one significant exception - there is no mechanism for controlling the DSF filenames, folder names and metadata in the highly sophisticated manner I am used to when ripping CDs using dBpoweramp (via profile settings and manual editing of metadata sourced from several online sources before starting a rip).

 

Almost all my recordings are of classical music and getting these things right is a vital requirement for properly organising my collection. At present, I am forced to do almost all of this manually after ripping a SACD, though I always rip the CD layer with DBpoweramp, which gives me a source for copying and pasting metadata to the DSF files,   

 

Is this a situation that is ever likely to improve or is it technically impossible to achieve dBpoweramp-style functionality when ripping SACDs?

 

Crap!

I never thought of using dbpoweramp to rip the CD layer and use that to export the metadata for the DSF files!

D'oh!!!

 

[SACD_Rip_Pup]

I have the BDP-105, the three (3) AutoScript and two (2) sacd_extract files, as well as the sonore iso2dsd_gui files.  My Oppo reports a 192.168.0.6 IP address, yet I can't get the either the sacd_extract files or the sonore iso2dsd_gui to work.  As instructed, I changed the sacd.cmd file and the iso2dsd_gui.exe server dialog box to show the IP address of my Oppo, but there is an appended :2002 which I am unsure about.  Any help would be appreciated here.

[MikeyFresh]

1 hour ago, SACD_Rip_Pup said:

I have the BDP-105, the three (3) AutoScript and two (2) sacd_extract files

The flash drive needs to contain an outer/enclosing folder called AutoScript, it sounds like you lack that enclosing folder. If so, create one and put the 3 files in it. That folder needs to be at the root of the flash drive. Do not name it anything other than AutoScript. That folder structure will look exactly like this:

 

 

 

I don't have any idea what the bolded part of your post I quoted above means, but the screenshot takes care of the flash drive and AutoScript. Don't click into the AutoScript files for any reason, you will just break the script, or have your computer attach an inappropriate file extension such as .txt which will also break the script. There is no reason to click into the AutoScript files at all, and if you already have, I suggest deleting it and starting over with a fresh download, once again ensuring that you do have an outer/enclosing folder called AutoScript as shown above.

 

1 hour ago, SACD_Rip_Pup said:

My Oppo reports a 192.168.0.6 IP address, yet I can't get the either the sacd_extract files or the sonore iso2dsd_gui to work.

 

Have you installed 64-bit Java per the ISO2DSD instructions? If so, just launch the .jar file and enter the Oppo's IP address, after reconfirming that it hasn't changed.

I bolded the above part of your post in my quote because there aren't sacd_extract files (plural) in the Sonore package, there is only one sacd_extract in that package (and also one in the AutoScript folder). They aren't interchangeable, so if you had already started moving things around and/or renaming them, you will need to start fresh as there is no way for anyone to know what you did previously. The Sonore instructions cover that, leave the entire downloaded folder package alone, don't move or rename any of it.

 

Failed attempts are best cleared from the Oppo's memory by power cycling it by means of removing and replacing the AC cord with the flash drive removed. Then restart the Oppo, allow it to boot, recheck the IP address, then insert the flash drive and allow the disc tray to auto-open, place a disc in the tray, close it, and Execute the rip.