FLAC files from 16/44 CD (WAV) files are smaller than MP3s.

[kumakuma]

1 minute ago, dalethorn said:

 

Thank you.  That's the second possibility I've been suggested.  Now to find the time to repeat a (possible) second scenario like the first here, hoping for success....

 

I see that JRMC is a primary advertiser here.

 

Good luck!

 

Sorry that JRiver didn't work out for you. I've been using it on a daily basis for years and never had a issues with it. I've got a massive library and I couldn't imagine trying to manage it without this program. 

[kumakuma]

5 minutes ago, dalethorn said:

 

Another amazement - the payment asks for the money without allowing selection of the proper version (Mac).  I'm sure there's a simple explanation....

 

On the page I linked to::

 

Quote

The activation allows 3 parallel installations. In fact, it is possible to use the Windows and MacOS X Version in parallel by just using one activation key.

 

In other words, downloading the software and buying the license key which works for both versions are separate operations.

[dalethorn]

7 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

Good luck!

 

Sorry that JRiver didn't work out for you. I've been using it on a daily basis for years and never had a issues with it. I've got a massive library and I couldn't imagine trying to manage it without this program. 

 

Thanks again.  But...

1) Did you do conversions from DSD to high res PCM using the Mac version?

2) Did you try to play those high res files on a PC using an internal soundcard without a specific DAC connected?

 

The reason for these questions is in the JRiver documentation that says the Mac version is incomplete, and elsewhere in the docs that some aspect of MC's conversions are targeted at specific DACs.

[mansr]

27 minutes ago, dalethorn said:

I told you to go away, so go away.  If you insist on keeping up the nonsense, it will inform everyone who you are.  I'm reporting your continued abuse.

Is that supposed to be a threat? Who do you think I am? (Who do you think you are?)

 

I'll go away now, but I must say you have an odd way of thanking people who go out of their way to help you.

[kumakuma]

9 minutes ago, dalethorn said:

 

Thanks again.  But...

1) Did you do conversions from DSD to high res PCM using the Mac version?

2) Did you try to play those high res files on a PC using an internal soundcard without a specific DAC connected?

 

The reason for these questions is in the JRiver documentation that says the Mac version is incomplete, and elsewhere in the docs that some aspect of MC's conversions are targeted at specific DACs.

 

I don't use a PC at all. I've converted DSD files to 24/88.2 hundreds of times in the past to put them on my DAP.

 

I don't understand how a conversion to a standard format like FLAC can be targeted at a specific DAC.

[esldude]

Okay, took your DSD file and converted with Sonore into Flac at 88khz.  Plays on several different softwares on my linux machine. 

 

Pulled out a Win10 laptop.  Used Foobar2000, and it does not play.  Shows an unrecoverable error message and will do nothing.  Doesn't blow up my Foobar, but does not play. So the problem is Foobar and something about this file. 

 

You sent us on a bad direction by refusing to believe piano compresses more than other types of music.  That is a non-factor. 

 

The file on the same Win10 machine plays fine in Audacity and VLC.  

 

Foobar is not perfect.  My favorite Windows player and I have never seen this before. The issue is probably with Foobar.  Didn't you try this file with anything other than Foobar?

[dalethorn]

13 minutes ago, mansr said:

Is that supposed to be a threat? Who do you think I am? (Who do you think you are?)

 

I'll go away now, but I must say you have an odd way of thanking people who go out of their way to help you.

 

I posted my specific issues with clear examples of what worked for years 100 percent.  That alone should have made it clear that the MC conversions were bad, to isolate that problem.  I had all the help I could have asked for to do those conversions, so when they didn't work (but *all* downloads worked), something was wrong in the conversion.  Further, no one (apparently) said they converted on the Mac version and then ran the files on a PC using Foobar without requiring a specific DAC.

 

BTW, I never make threats.  If there's something to be handled, it's handled by the proper people.

[dalethorn]

18 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

I don't use a PC at all. I've converted DSD files to 24/88.2 hundreds of times in the past to put them on my DAP.

 

I don't understand how a conversion to a standard format like FLAC can be targeted at a specific DAC.

 

I dunno either.  But I have all the high res downloads in the world that play perfectly, so obviously the conversions I did were faulty.  If the JRiver people had been helpful instead of arrogant, dismissive, and then locking the topic after blaming me, then things could have been different.  In my software world, we never treated customers that way.

[dalethorn]

27 minutes ago, esldude said:

Okay, took your DSD file and converted with Sonore into Flac at 88khz.  Plays on several different softwares on my linux machine. 

 

Pulled out a Win10 laptop.  Used Foobar2000, and it does not play.  Shows an unrecoverable error message and will do nothing.  Doesn't blow up my Foobar, but does not play. So the problem is Foobar and something about this file. 

 

You sent us on a bad direction by refusing to believe piano compresses more than other types of music.  That is a non-factor. 

 

The file on the same Win10 machine plays fine in Audacity and VLC.  

 

Foobar is not perfect.  My favorite Windows player and I have never seen this before. The issue is probably with Foobar.  Didn't you try this file with anything other than Foobar?

 

Your claim is technically correct, but otherwise incorrect.  Foobar2000 plays every (and I mean every) download in the world correctly, but not JRiver's DSD conversions. So we can argue this back and forth, and how these "other non-free" players are right and Foobar (free) is wrong, but the world of download providers argues strongly against your perspective.  And BTW, JRiver's conversions to 16/44 did work, so there's something very funky going on in their DSD to high-res conversions.

 

I will not accept that Foobar is at fault until enough expert users confirm that Foobar is missing something - something that's fully open and generic and *not* intended to restrict playback in any way, that Foobar is stumbling on.  At this point, my suspicions have to be toward JRiver, since it's the only known source that creates these bad files.

 

BTW, thank you (after 7 pages of replies!!) for being the first person to confirm the error.

[esldude]

1 minute ago, dalethorn said:

 

Your claim is technically correct, but otherwise incorrect.  Foobar2000 plays every (and I mean every) download in the world correctly, but not JRiver's DSD conversions. So we can argue this back and forth, and how these "other non-free" players are right and Foobar (free) is wrong, but the world of download providers argues strongly against your perspective.  And BTW, JRiver's conversions to 16/44 did work, so there's something very funky going on in their DSD to high-res conversions.

 

I will not accept that Foobar is at fault until enough expert users confirm that Foobar is missing something - something that's fully open and generic and *not* intended to restrict playback in any way, that Foobar is stumbling on.  At this point, my suspicions have to be toward JRiver, since it's the only known source of error.

 

BTW, thank you (after 7 pages of replies!!) for being the first person to confirm the error.

Guess how much help or response you'll get from me from here on out?

 

Right now if I knew what the issue was, I wouldn't tell you.  Don't crap on people who try and help you figure something out. 

[dalethorn]

1 minute ago, esldude said:

Guess how much help or response you'll get from me from here on out?

 

Right now if I knew what the issue was, I wouldn't tell you.  Don't crap on people who try and help you figure something out. 

 

I'm sorry that you took it emotionally.  After so many non-help replies here and at JRiver, I stopped being emotional about it.

 

If you think I'm being insincere, then say so, but don't accuse me of something I didn't do, because that goes to you, not me.  I'm serious, and focused on the issues.

[kumakuma]

1 minute ago, dalethorn said:

 

Your claim is technically correct, but otherwise incorrect.  Foobar2000 plays every (and I mean every) download in the world correctly, but not JRiver's DSD conversions. So we can argue this back and forth, and how these "other non-free" players are right and Foobar (free) is wrong, but the world of download providers argues strongly against your perspective.  And BTW, JRiver's conversions to 16/44 did work, so there's something very funky going on in their DSD conversions.

 

I will not accept that Foobar is at fault until enough expert users confirm that Foobar is missing something - something that's fully open and generic and *not* intended to restrict playback in any way, that Foobar is stumbling on.  At this point, my suspicions have to be toward JRiver, since it's the only known source of error.

 

Did you read what @esldude wrote?

 

Foobar shit the bed when fed a file converted with a different program (Sonore's DSD2FLAC program), not JRiver. This clearly shows that JRiver isn't the culprit.

[dalethorn]

4 minutes ago, esldude said:

Guess how much help or response you'll get from me from here on out?

 

Right now if I knew what the issue was, I wouldn't tell you.  Don't crap on people who try and help you figure something out. 

 

Oh, BTW, in a sad sort of way, I feel vindicated in the sense that other users here and at JRiver also withheld helpful information, just because their egos were hurt.

[dalethorn]

1 minute ago, kumakuma said:

 

Did you read what @esldude wrote?

 

Foobar shit the bed when fed a file converted with a different program (Sonore's DSD2FLAC program), not JRiver. This clearly shows that JRiver isn't the culprit.

 

JRiver was clearly 100 percent the culprit in my case, because it failed to make a 24/88 file that *all* other download sites do not fail at.

[Kal Rubinson]

Post deleted.

[dalethorn]

Just for the record, JRiver seems to have been turned off.  Tracks will play, but the conversion options are dead.

[dalethorn]

Another interesting find that I assumed wrongly.  The seven 16/44 WAV files that I got from JRiver's conversion from the DSD files - I had converted those to FLAC in Foobar2000, and both the WAV files and corresponding FLAC conversions played OK in Foobar.

 

I assumed that I could flop the FLAC files back to WAV and they would match the original WAV files, but they don't match.

 

Redoing the WAV to FLAC conversion in Foobar, I watched the progress bar announce every second or two the conversion speed (i.e. 24x, 50x, etc.) and it was extremely jumpy - zero to 150x, then 10x, then zero, then 30x, then 90x, ..... and so on.  When I reversed the conversion from FLAC to WAV, the progress bar announcement values were much smoother.

 

Conclusion: While the 16/44 WAV files seem to sound OK, they aren't normal in any sense, as were the thousand-plus high res files I got online, as well as the CD rips that I've done.

[dalethorn]

New update - the Glenn Gould / Bach French Suites CDs have arrived, and the FLAC conversions (using Foobar2000) from the WAV tracks I ripped from these CDs are 37.6 percent the size of the WAV files.

 

That puts this one in the middle (35 to 40 percent) of the last 8 solo piano CDs I've ripped and converted, with only the Debussy/Bavouzet compressing (way!) outside of that range at 22.2 percent.  Given that the content of that Debussy CD was about the same as an average pet rat walking back and forth across the piano keys (not a stretch BTW), it's not as surprising as I once thought.

 

I now have a new solo piano SACD with CD layer that I'm going to rip and convert, and it's a 'IsoMike' recording - same as the DSD download that I purchased at the beginning of this process.  It will be most interesting to see how that CD compresses from 16/44 WAV to FLAC, compared to the DSD-to-16/44 conversion I did that I'm skeptical about.

[dalethorn]

I ripped 2 IsoMike SACDs today (CD layer only) to WAV and FLAC, and the FLACs were 31.0 and 31.8 percent respectively of the WAV sizes.  These IsoMike solo piano recordings are consistent with the Silverman/Last Waltz DSD recordings in terms of sound and dynamics (no significant silent pauses), which adds evidence that the MC WAV conversions from DSD were lacking something.  I still have 7 IsoMike SACDs of Silverman playing Mozart, but I'm not expecting a different result there.

 

The 31+ percent results today are about 11 percent smaller (more compressed) than the average of my piano CDs so far, but ~40 percent larger than the one CD I noted (Debussy) with the large percentage of silence within its music tracks.

 

[dalethorn]

Ripped a piano/violin SACD from IsoMike today (CD layer only) and the FLAC compression was 38.5 percent.  A very simple sound actually, and an excellent recording I recommend - "Formosan Duo, Romantic Album".  I'll get to the Mozart CDs next week after reviewing a couple of IEMs.

[dalethorn]

I finally got caught up this evening on my backlog of reviews, so I ripped Disc 1 of my Silverman/Mozart Sonatas by IsoMike on SACD.  I ripped the CD layer only, and converted the 16/44 WAV tracks to FLAC using Foobar2000 and the FLAC v1.3.1 codec.  The compression was to 36.5 percent of the WAV size, i.e. the totals:

 

WAV: 697115244 bytes

FLAC: 254379988 bytes

 

Since this is essentially the same type/technique/content density as the Silverman/Chopin IsoMike DSDs, and since the IsoMike folks made this SACD and its CD layer using the correct conversion software, it's clear that the compression to 23 percent that I got from the JRiver-produced WAV files is very short on 16/44 content.

 

[Indydan]

The problem sounds like a "Code 18".

 

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Code 18