Time To Dump Tidal? Bluesound / BlueOS Now Has Deezer HiFi

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15 minutes ago, Melvin said:

I've been listening to Dark Side of the Moon .. it's gapless.

Thanks for confirming that.  Also, I enjoyed reading your blog.  Interesting that the 320kbps MP3 sounds so good on your system.  I have never been unhappy with the sound of 320 kbps MP3 or ACC.  If fact I am almost thankful for the gap problem with MP3 since it gives me a concrete reason to pay more for Deezer Hifi's gapless FLAC.

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1 hour ago, Cebolla said:

 

I've checked this on the Deezer HiFi via the ickStream Platform for Logitech Media Server, which serves as the audio file source for Squeezebox type players and there's no such issue.

The ickStream platform must be more robust in dealing with whatever corruption the file has.  The Deezer beta Windows app also seems to have a problem with it.  It shows track length as a little over 6 min.  However, it plays for over 10 min and almost makes it to the end but not quite... cut off at about 10:05. 

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41 minutes ago, Cebolla said:

 

I've fired up the current beta version of the Deezer Windows Desktop app (0.2.46) and it has no problems with the HiFi lossless FLAC version of the track (apart from the expected lack of gapless) and it is also showing the correct length of 10:20!

 

Are you sure you've set the Desktop app's audio setting to HiFi 1411kb/s, so that you are actually playing FLAC tracks?

 

I think the early cut off you mentioned at about 10:05, is a huge clue as to why you may be having problems with the Bluesound & Sonos devices. When the track is playing normally just before the end, at around the 10:07 mark, the musicians suddenly pause for dramatic effect for less than a second before playing the last few seconds of the piece. This sudden very large drop in volume is probably triggering a false crossfade point in those devices, if they are using a crossfader to implement gapless.

 

Incidentally, crossfading with end of track detection is not necessary to implement gapless for lossless file formats, such as FLAC. There is naturally no artificial gap when you splice together the audio contained in an album's sequential FLAC file tracks.

On Sonos and Bluesound the track is cutting off much earlier, more mid track, so I don't think it has anything to do with crossfade.  I'm pretty sure I would notice cross fade if it was engaged so I'm pretty sure there is no cross fade on those devices playing Deezer FLAC streams. Normally they play perfectly gapless on seamless adjacent tracks.  I have no idea why your beta Deezer Windows app is showing the correct track length and mine is not.  I did check that the app was set to play FLAC.  But possibly I don't have the latest version.  Or I wonder if the stream to your location could possibly be coming from a different file.  Are you in the USA? (I am in northeast USA)

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I should mention that this is the first case I've seen for this problem.  I've been playing flac files on Deezer (mostly with Sonos) for a couple years and had not ever seen this until it was mentioned in this thread.

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28 minutes ago, Cebolla said:

Could it be that they are only supplying MP3 tracks for that album when streaming from the US?

The icon for format shows "HIFI" and the BluOS log is showing 44100/16/2 for that track.  I don't see any errors showing up in the log even though the track cuts off at something like 8:32.

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This is interesting - Deezer seems to be quietly streaming some 24-bit tracks (it looks to be ordinary 44/24 with FLAC compression).  See the posts by ymjonline on the Deezer Community forum, link below.  The BluOS controller format icon is "HR" for the 24-bit tracks instead of the normal "HIFI".

https://en.deezercommunity.com/what-are-you-listening-to-17/finding-mqa-titles-184/index1.html#post11936

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On 1/4/2018 at 10:33 AM, Cebolla said:

 

I can varify that all of the tracks on Impact's Scriptura album are currently 24-bit FLAC, not just the track mentioned in one of the posts - tested using LMS via the ickStream platform.

Yes, the whole album is showing "HR" for me on bluesound too.  I haven't been able to find any of these on my own, though, and I've been streaming a lot of music on Deezer.  So I don't think there are many of these. @Cebolla - have you looked for more HR tracks, found any?

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Interesting that Deezer just raised a whole lot of money, mostly Saudi Arabian.  Meanwhile, we are approaching a year of no updates since the announcement last September that MQA would be coming to Deezer.

 

http://news.abs-cbn.com/business/08/03/18/streaming-giant-deezer-raises-186-million