Bob Stern

New device inputs in Network Audio Daemon 4.0.0: Can you explain how this is intended to be used? Since the upsampling & modulator functions are performed in Desktop or Embedded, it seems that the Daemon must receive its input from Desktop or Embedded. Is the new device input merely a pass-through without upsampling or DSD modulator?

Excellent point. I forgot about that because I don’t have Catalina on any of my Macs. However, APFS has some disadvantages for spinning disks rather than SSD's. I'm not sure I understand the first paragraph. If all you're saying is that you can backup a non-bootable volume to a folder on a backup volume rather than to a disk image, then I agree. However, I disagree that an inherent flakiness of disk images is why Time Machine often gets corrupted. The developer of Carbon Copy Cloner would not recommend disk images as targets if that were true.

Time Machine's method of backing up multiple source volumes to a single destination volume is to create a sparse bundle disk image file on the destination for each source volume. Disk images are perfect for backing up non-bootable volumes such as your music library volume. For backing up a bootable volume, a disk image has the disadvantage of not being bootable itself, so if the source disk completely fails and you need to get the source computer running, you must restore the backup to another volume. On the other hand, if you backup a bootable volume to the root level of a volume rather to a disk image, you can immediately boot the source computer from the backup without having to do a restore. Therefore, my recommended solution for using Carbon Copy Cloner to backup one bootable volume and one volume of music files is to not partition the destination volume. To backup the music volume, specify a sparse bundle disk image on the destination volume as the target. (Let CCC create the disk image rather than creating it yourself.) To backup the MacBook's startup volume, specify as the target the destination volume itself, not a disk image, and tick the checkbox to "Protect root-level items on the destination." The advantage of this over kumakuma's advice to create two partitions on the backup volume is that you don’t have to guess how much space to allocate to each of the two backups.

Have you done a Spotlight search for the file when that happens? I've never found a music file to disappear, but iTunes often claims a music file is missing when the file actually exists but iTunes somehow loses track of it. (I'm chagrined Apple doesn’t store a unique identifier tag in each music file to enable iTunes to always find it.)

XLD will convert ALAC with .m4a extension to FLAC. I've done it a hundred times. What is the filename extension? How do you know it's ALAC? Perhaps the HD refers to some proprietary encoding. In the Terminal program, type afinfo, then a space, then drag the track into the terminal window, then press return. If it's ALAC, the output should include something like: File type ID: m4af Data format: 2 ch, 96000 Hz, 'alac' While you're in Terminal, you can use ffmpeg to convert it to FLAC. Type: ffmpeg -i type a space drag the track into the terminal window type: -vn type a space drag the track into the terminal window again delete the filename extension and type flac in its place press return

@Ellsworth I forgot to suggest: The most basic first step when you have problems with a computer is to restart the computer. Did you do that? Next, launch Activity Monitor and sort by highest CPU usage to see if there is a process using more than 10% CPU. Wait 30 seconds for Activity Monitor to settle down before reaching conclusions. The Spotlight-related processes have names beginning "md" (metadata).

@Ellsworth 1. Time Machine must be disabled. In OS X Prefs > Time Machine, delete any reference to a time machine backup volume and turn off automatic backups. 2. Try disabling Spotlight indexing with this command in Terminal: sudo mdutil -ai off If that solves the problem, but you want to use Spotlight, you can try turning it back on with: sudo mdutil -ai on If turning on Spotlight subsequently interferes w HQP, "App Tamer" from St Clair Software ($15) can be configured to limit Spotlight indexing to less than 1% of CPU. https://www.stclairsoft.com

Facebook is undermining democracy and facilitating ethnic hatred all over the world.

@ambre: Try the free demo of Rogue Amoeba "Loopback" to send realtime audio to HQP. Although it is $100, a hardware solution probably would be more expensive.

The Visual Ping service can automatically check a website for changes at an interval you choose. Checking one website every 12 hours or two websites every 24 hours is free. https://visualping.io

It's more effective to set the dither bit depth to the resolution of your DAC chip, or even 1 or 2 bits less. I'm unaware of any DAC chip having better than 20-bit resolution, so setting Bits to 19 seems a reasonable place to start. See this brief discussion: https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/13649-hqplayers-network-audio-adapter/?do=findComment&comment=952886

/Applications/HQPlayer4Client.app/Contents/MacOS/hqp-control2

Mozart's last 2 symphonies. Fanfare magazine reviewers praised Andrew Manze's conducting as highly nuanced and in the tradition of Bruno Walter rather than HIP. (I haven’t heard it myself yet.)

Debussy & Ligeti — excellent picks today: Debussy late sonatas on Harmonia Mundi. Debussy "Jeux" and Ligeti "Melodien" on Pentatone with Jonathan Nott & Orch. Suisse Romande. (I skipped the Strauss.)

Ivan's older brother Adám has a Mahler cycle from Dusseldorf. His 4th is very detailed. It starts out slow but picks up speed and remains interesting thereafter.