KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Mar 17, 2017 16:09:28 GMT -5
I used to have SqueezeBox (well, several), and, as I recall, Logitech would have described the situation as: - storing the file on the SqueezeServer - (the server then transcoding the file into a format that the SqeezeBox could play if necessary) - sending the file to the SqueezeBox - then having the SqueezeBox play the file (In other words, they looked at it as "sending the file to the Squeezebox to play" and not as "streaming to the Squeezebox".) However, the answer to your question is that there are streaming services that currently use the FLAC format for their music. Most streaming services tell you the quality of the MUSIC they're delivering - like "CD quality" (which means 16/44k) or 24/96k. However, in general, they don't always specifically tell you the CODEC they use to deliver it - and they don't always tell you exactly how much bandwidth they're using either. A lot of people don't specifically know that the lossy CODEC used by Spotify is Ogg Vorbis and, apparently, Tidal in fact uses "FLAC or ALAC" for their lossless streams - "depending on the device you're using".) The simple fact is that, when you're talking about lossless, until MQA started trying to make a big deal out of it, nobody much cared what format was being used - because lossless formats do, after all, all sound the same. (With LOSSY CODECS you might care - but that's only because they do sometimes sound slightly different.) If you check out the News section on the FLAC site, they list several services that stream using FLAC in one form or another. xiph.org/flac/index.htmlHhmmm, I think that we do FLAC Streaming all the time locally. For instance, I have an aging Logitech Squeezebox Touch[1] to which I believe I'm streaming FLAC over Ethernet, where it translates that into PCM over Optical S/PDIF to my DMC-1. At least I'm pretty sure that the PCM conversion isn't happening in the Squeeze Server running on my computer where all my FLAC files are stored. So it doesn't seem so crazy to think of streaming FLAC (or some other loss-less compression format) over a longer distance. If one of the arguments for MQA is bandwidth, we'd want to be comparing against other compression formats. Casey [1] Insert Obligatory Plug here for Emotiva to come up with some form of "Streaming Device". Something with Ethernet on one side, USB & S/PIDIF on the other and some kind of Client Endpoint running on the device. At this point, just run them all: Squeeze Client Endpoint, Roon Endpoint, DLNA Endpoint, etc. No display needed. At this point there are iOS and Android controllers aplenty to do that and I could just toss an iPad up permanently to display Currently Playing if I want.
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Post by Casey Leedom on Mar 17, 2017 16:21:10 GMT -5
Snarky, but fun. One thing I would hate is if a real advancement for sound quality got lost in the midst of a bunch of marketer's over-hyped, licensing-based bravado. You can count me firmly in the MQA Skeptics camp, but there are some concepts worth investigating in terms of the original lossy Analog-to-Digital Conversion and the eventual lossy Digital-to-Analog Conversion. That's certainly worth investigating. One could easily see a possible benefit of encoding a particular ADC's Error Signature along with its digital output, and then have a downstream DAC take the digital input plus the ADC Error Signature and use that, with its knowledge of its own DAC Error Signature, to try to do a better job of reconstructing an end analog output result. And if you separately want to come up with some kind of lossy Digital Compression in the middle which allows to to somehow encode ADC Error information in a sub-audible manner or in an out-of-band manner, that's fine too. But it should be considered and done separately in order to avoid confusing the issue. And finally, I would prefer that all of this just be done in an Open Standard rather than a particular company or group of companies trying to make a buck on this. If you want to make money, make better ADCs and DACs, and find ways to get a really good handle on their Error Signatures so the entire Analog -> ADC -> Digital + ADC Error -> DAC -> Analog + ADC/DAC Errors sounds better. Charge money for the good hardware engineering you do. Casey
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Post by Casey Leedom on Mar 17, 2017 16:27:24 GMT -5
I used to have SqueezeBox (well, several), and, as I recall, Logitech would have described the situation as: - storing the file on the SqueezeServer - (the server then transcoding the file into a format that the SqeezeBox could play if necessary) - sending the file to the SqueezeBox - then having the SqueezeBox play the file (In other words, they looked at it as "sending the file to the Squeezebox to play" and not as "streaming to the Squeezebox".) ... If you check out the News section on the FLAC site, they list several services that stream using FLAC in one form or another. xiph.org/flac/index.htmlI know the Squeeze Server does transcode fales that the Squeeze Player can't decode. For instance all of my friends insane forays into DSD get transcoded in the Squeeze Server. As does anything above 96kHz/24bit if I recall. Maybe the FLAC is decompressed. I really don't know. But you've pointed out several services which do stream FLAC, so there's that. [[ And note how adroitly he completely avoided my footnote ... ]] Casey
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Mar 17, 2017 16:39:11 GMT -5
We're thinking about it... really.... [[ And note how adroitly he completely avoided my footnote ... ]] Casey
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Post by Casey Leedom on Mar 17, 2017 16:57:07 GMT -5
Would it help if I said I'd trade you these Money Things in my pocket for it? Oh, and even better if it was one of those RMC-1 Expansion Modules but I'll live with it separate ... Casey
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KeithL
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Post by KeithL on Mar 17, 2017 17:04:24 GMT -5
I agree absolutely..... For example, assuming that their encoder can really improve the quality of digital audio files by detecting and removing pre-ringing.... - then I'd be happy to buy a software version, or a plugin for Foobar2000 or jRiver, to make the files and discs I already own sound better - or even a little black box that I could put between my CD player and my XMC-1 And, if they really can do a better job of engineering DACs, then I'm sure someone would pay for that service too.... And, if their CODEC works really well, then folks like Tidal should be happy to use it, and happy to keep paying a modest licensing fee to do so. But, of course, they don't WANT to make $20 by selling me a piece of software; they want to get a licensing fee for every song..... I can see all sorts of ways they could sell various parts of their technology that would be genuinely useful - and that I would be happy to buy. However, they don't seem to want to do that... and I agree with your hope that the real benefits don't get buried in the hype. - I don't want to see the genuinely useful parts of the technology disappear if the overall campaign fails - and I don't want to see them remain so imbedded in the parts I don't care about that I can't benefit from them without buying a bunch of junk I don't need (and, yes, that includes NOT having to buy the music that's on the CDs I already own all over again) Of course, I should add one other thought at this point....... While their specific methods are proprietary, and surely well protected, their idea is not. If it becomes obvious that there are enough people out there who would pay for a program to detect and remove ringing from digital audio files, and so "post process" it to make it sound better, odds are that eventually someone else will start selling a software program that does pretty much the same thing (but using independently developed code that doesn't infringe on their patent). Note that this description actually already fits a feature built into the latest version of Dolby's Professional Encoder. That's basically what happened with Photoshop. Photoshop started with some reasonably effective options for making blurred photos look better - reasonable but not great. Then one or two companies came up with their own third party plugins that did the job much more effectively. And, once it became obvious that people were willing to pay extra to get really good picture sharpening, several other companies came out with competing products. Now, years later, there is a lively competition between Adobe's attempts to improve the sharpening features built into Photoshop, and the third party programmers trying to top them with plugins that provide enough improvement over the built-in features to convince people to pay extra for them. As of now, the sharpening built into Photoshop works much better than their early versions, and some of the third party options work amazingly well. (So, perhaps, with luck, MQA will trigger a whole crop of new plugins and processing modules designed to correct flaws in existing files in new and interesting ways.) Snarky, but fun. One thing I would hate is if a real advancement for sound quality got lost in the midst of a bunch of marketer's over-hyped, licensing-based bravado. You can count me firmly in the MQA Skeptics camp, but there are some concepts worth investigating in terms of the original lossy Analog-to-Digital Conversion and the eventual lossy Digital-to-Analog Conversion. That's certainly worth investigating. One could easily see a possible benefit of encoding a particular ADC's Error Signature along with its digital output, and then have a downstream DAC take the digital input plus the ADC Error Signature and use that, with its knowledge of its own DAC Error Signature, to try to do a better job of reconstructing an end analog output result. And if you separately want to come up with some kind of lossy Digital Compression in the middle which allows to to somehow encode ADC Error information in a sub-audible manner or in an out-of-band manner, that's fine too. But it should be considered and done separately in order to avoid confusing the issue. And finally, I would prefer that all of this just be done in an Open Standard rather than a particular company or group of companies trying to make a buck on this. If you want to make money, make better ADCs and DACs, and find ways to get a really good handle on their Error Signatures so the entire Analog -> ADC -> Digital + ADC Error -> DAC -> Analog + ADC/DAC Errors sounds better. Charge money for the good hardware engineering you do. Casey
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Post by Casey Leedom on Mar 17, 2017 18:32:00 GMT -5
So then here's a question: The idea that Analog-to-Digital and Digital-to-Analog Conversions have inherent Error Signatures is probably not news to the designers of ADCs and DACs. And some of the Error Signature is probably inherent in the very process as opposed to being specific to one ADC or DAC or another. Therefore I'd be Really Surprised™ if DAC designers weren't already designing their Reconstruction Filters to accommodate for these common ADC & DAC Error Signatures. For instance, I see that the AK4490 has five Reconstruction Filters and the new AK4497 has six. Are these already trying to fix things up? I.e. the "Photoshop Sharpening Filters" in your metaphoric example? Or is it the case that each ADC brings its own unique Error Signature which a DAC can't "reverse" because it doesn't know which ADC was used?
Casey
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Post by audiobill on Mar 17, 2017 18:32:33 GMT -5
So, what does it sound like, all that matters....
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Post by goodfellas27 on Mar 18, 2017 8:00:04 GMT -5
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Post by melm on Mar 18, 2017 9:24:03 GMT -5
Not too impressed. What equipment? What methodology for comparison? His friend listened and could "count the raindrops". LOL
mel
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Post by brutiarti on Mar 18, 2017 9:32:30 GMT -5
I only tried it with Tidal PC to my very revealing system and it wasn't worth it IMO. SACDs were better, more dynamic range and excitement. I did not try it with an MQA dac yet, but so far meh...
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Post by melm on Mar 18, 2017 9:48:24 GMT -5
Yes, quite happy with SACD as a format. I rip them to a hard drive and listen on my Oppo 203 through my XMC-1. Heaven.
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Post by monkumonku on Mar 18, 2017 10:46:49 GMT -5
His friend listened and could "count the raindrops". LOL mel
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Post by goodfellas27 on Apr 6, 2017 13:48:32 GMT -5
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Post by audiobill on Apr 7, 2017 20:07:34 GMT -5
A great quote, IMO:
"I've seen systems with five digital boxes all strung together with wires and antennas, connecting a laptop or iPad to the line-level input of a preamp. I don't fully understand why this is necessary. I'm concerned about what appears to be the growing complexity of "high-quality" digital playback. I still remember the dizziness I experienced when I first looked at the block diagram of a digital converter. Error correction? Upsampling? MQA? DSD? SACD? Why must digital be so tedious, pedantic, and boring? Why must digital—even at its very expensive best—sound less real, direct, and tangible than a 7" 45rpm or a 10" 78rpm?"
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Post by ludi on May 5, 2017 15:02:42 GMT -5
Why some MQA 192 kHz files stop at 20 kHz
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Post by charlieeco on May 5, 2017 15:15:28 GMT -5
Yes, quite happy with SACD as a format. I rip them to a hard drive and listen on my Oppo 203 through my XMC-1. Heaven. Melm, quite agree with you. What method and software do you use to rip SACD in to your hard drive? Thanks
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Post by goodfellas27 on May 8, 2017 5:15:13 GMT -5
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Post by melm on May 8, 2017 12:27:25 GMT -5
Yes, quite happy with SACD as a format. I rip them to a hard drive and listen on my Oppo 203 through my XMC-1. Heaven. Melm, quite agree with you. What method and software do you use to rip SACD in to your hard drive? Thanks Sorry for the delay in responding, didn't notice your question. I'll refer you to this forum which has links to Mac and PC software that does the trick. It only works on some disc players, including the Oppo 103 and some Pioneers. It doesn't work on the Oppo 203, but I've kept my 103 online for this purpose, and playing movies in an auxiliary system. www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/28569-sacd-ripping-using-an-oppo-or-pioneer-yes-its-true/Hope this does the trick for you. If you have the right player it will function perfectly. mel
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Post by jamco on May 23, 2017 13:18:03 GMT -5
Stereophile - Munich Milestones for MQA
Additional hardware partners, computer playback software announcements and Merlin Network is onboard. (Link)
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