Euphony Stylus: FLAC vs WAV

[davide256]

I've been having a problem for a while with stridency on massed violins and a glazed sound on massed choir. Seem to have found a cure for it,

playing through my collection of offenders now and all seems well. The only change I've made is to download my Qobuz purchases as wav instead of flac.

Wondering if anyone else has tried this with Euphony Stylus version 3 and what their outcome was?

[MarcelNL]

I'm not using Euphony but Daphile and play all FLAC local files as WAV from RAM (which means the conversion from FLAC into WAV is done upfront), makes quite a difference. I happen to believe the difference is somehow casued by higher CPU utilization when converting FLAC on the FLY.

[davide256]

5 hours ago, MarcelNL said:

I'm not using Euphony but Daphile and play all FLAC local files as WAV from RAM (which means the conversion from FLAC into WAV is done upfront), makes quite a difference. I happen to believe the difference is somehow casued by higher CPU utilization when converting FLAC on the FLY.

I do think that something detrimental is going on with compressed data dense passages. Had observed elsewhere that I didn't see this with downloaded DSD,

Sometime ago when I ripped my SACD's, found them a snore only to get far more enjoyment out of them  this past year when I converted them to PCM WAV files with PGGB.

Now I'm learning that SACD DFF tracks are compressed with something called DST

 

https://www.hiresedition.com/industry-insights/dsd-basics.html

[kumakuma]

40 minutes ago, davide256 said:

Now I'm learning that SACD DFF tracks are compressed with something called DST

 

https://www.hiresedition.com/industry-insights/dsd-basics.html

 

I think this is only applicable to multi-channel data. Stereo data in both DFF and DSF formats is always uncompressed, in my experience.

 

[davide256]

51 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

I think this is only applicable to multi-channel data. Stereo data in both DFF and DSF formats is always uncompressed, in my experience.

 

I like to test hypotheses. Wonder if there is a way to tell if a ripped stereo SACD file uses DST compression.

[davide256]

Found this, apparently some FiiO DAP's won't play DST compressed files

 

https://www.fiio.com/newsinfo/44244.html?templateId=1133604

 

And there is a tool to decompress those files, site is Japan, google translate not helpful but download link is visible at bottom

 

http://www.nakata-jp.org/computer/freesoft/DST2DSD/index.html

 

when unzipped and run,  a window prompts you to drop a file on it for conversion, will play with it, but carefully, need to be sure it doesn't overwrite original file.

[MarcelNL]

16 minutes ago, davide256 said:

I like to test hypotheses. Wonder if there is a way to tell if a ripped stereo SACD file uses DST compression.

I'd talk to @John Dyson about that one

[kumakuma]

19 minutes ago, davide256 said:

I like to test hypotheses. Wonder if there is a way to tell if a ripped stereo SACD file uses DST compression.

 

Do you have a way to convert your DFF files to DSF?

 

DSF and DFF files will be almost identical in size if uncompressed.

[stefano_mbp]

9 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

Do you have a way to convert your DFF files to DSF

dff2dsf works fine (Mac only)

https://2manyrobots.com/plaster/

[davide256]

2 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

Do you have a way to convert your DFF files to DSF?

 

DSF and DFF files will be almost identical in size if uncompressed.

 

Also, I can't imagine any reason why you want to rip stereo recordings to DFF as it's essentially the same as DSF without the ability to store metadata. 

looks like whatever is going on with my SACD rips is something different (not DST) as all the ones I checked are DSF. These were all ripped using an Oppo 103

[kumakuma]

7 minutes ago, davide256 said:

looks like whatever is going on with my SACD rips is something different (not DST) as all the ones I checked are DSF. These were all ripped using an Oppo 103

 

Perhaps you just prefer the sound of PCM to DSD