[skunark]

Fellow BDP owners,

I've noticed an issue with both FLAC and ALAC files when the BDP transitions to the next song there's an annoying and sometimes scary audio artifact between songs.   I've tried other players (apple tv, mac mini, PS3) and other DACs (BDA, MF VDAC) and this has only been an issue with the BDP.  A quick google on this topic will lead you to believe that there is an issue with some sources on how they change tracks with what the DAC is expecting, but also I got the impression that it might be how the file was ripped.   

I would love to hear from both who have experienced this and have not with the BDP.  Also if you could describe what you use to rip, file format, etc that would be nice.     For those that have experienced this with other players any insight might also be useful. 

My current setup is simply BDP -> BDA -> pre/amp/speakers.

Thanks

Jim

[alinto]

I have noticed a brief sharp static like sound when I go from a song ripped as a wave file to the next song in a flac file. This sound occurs because my dac becomes unlock at the end of the wave file and has to re-lock on to a flac file. I now keep all my 16 bit music as wave and 24bit as flac.

[werd]

I have never experience that. To me its not the player. The bdp is scaled such that i doubt its a player issue. I would say its an issue with alac somehow, not to dis alac but use wav. or at least flac. Problem solved.

[skunark]

I have noticed a brief sharp static like sound when I go from a song ripped as a wave file to the next song in a flac file. This sound occurs because my dac becomes unlock at the end of the wave file and has to re-lock on to a flac file. I now keep all my 16 bit music as wave and 24bit as flac.

I normally play the entire album which what I've notice for ALAC to ALAC and FLAC to FLAC.    ALAC is what i normally rip, and FLAC is what I normally download. 

[Ned F. Kuehn]

The only times I encountered the problem described was with use of the Bryston Mini or Max interface (all FLAC files). I have not encountered this with the MPoD interface.
Ned

[skunark]

I stopped using the Mini and Max interface when I noticed it would cause the music to skip, so for me it's strickly mPod, mPad or remote.

I've only converted a few albums but so far AIFF has been glitch free on the song transition. I think WAV has been as well, but since AIFF has better tagging support, that's what I'm going to focus on.

[skunark]

So far so good on the AIFF playback, hopefully I can avoid the glitch between songs by just avoiding FLAC and ALAC.

[Marius]

Hi,

I posted this in another topic, and stumble on your now. Maybe the two are relatred problems, gapless playback seems to be a problem some players have, and others don't. My Marantz na7004 has it, and according to James the BDP-1 also (couldn't believe it but thats what the "software guy" tells James, I asked again to be sure) but the much cheaper Sonos players apparently don't suffer :


somehow my previous post got lost. I cant find it anymore.

But please James, this has got to be resolved before anything. No matter how good the BDP-1 sounds, if gapless playback of files, in my case the flac files is not supported, the machine is useless for anyone playing recordings where  musical pieces consist of several tracks within the piece. almost all of my listening consists of opera's and live recordings where this applies to.
Imagine Isoldes Liebestod at the end of Tristan und Isolde being separated form the musical scene leading up to it. And then a gap. A musical disaster.

"We may in future with software updates" just isn't good enough. And not very much "Bryston Professional".

Hope your software guy is mistaken....


Marius
Quote from: James Tanner on Today at 09:35 PM
Hi Marius

That is what my software guy tells me so I will have to experiment. I cant say it has ever come up though so maybe he is mistaken?

James

Fellow BDP owners,

I've noticed an issue with both FLAC and ALAC files when the BDP transitions to the next song there's an annoying and sometimes scary audio artifact between songs.   I've tried other players (apple tv, mac mini, PS3) and other DACs (BDA, MF VDAC) and this has only been an issue with the BDP.  A quick google on this topic will lead you to believe that there is an issue with some sources on how they change tracks with what the DAC is expecting, but also I got the impression that it might be how the file was ripped.   

I would love to hear from both who have experienced this and have not with the BDP.  Also if you could describe what you use to rip, file format, etc that would be nice.     For those that have experienced this with other players any insight might also be useful. 

My current setup is simply BDP -> BDA -> pre/amp/speakers.

Thanks

Jim

[skunark]

Hello Marcus,

After transitioning everything to AIFF I have no issues with the glitch and for what it's worth gapless playback does work flawlessly.  Well at least for the albums that have gapless playback.

I should point out that I haven't done a thorough review of which format caused the glitch, but was focused on solving the problem .   AIFF has done the trick and would clearly avoid Apple Lossless (ALAC) on the BDP as it not only glitches between tracks, it would cause the player to hang. (MPD service crashed)

My FLAC has mostly been downloaded from the Society of Sound and Nine Inch Nails' The Slip, so I will load those up today and review then today.  If you can select an album on HDTracks or some place where I can download the file today I can give that a shot to review the gapless playback with FLAC. I would think you will have to rely on others for details on FLAC since it's never been a significant format for my collection.

Jim

[OgOgilby]

I have never heard any transition artifacts in the seven months I have been using the BDP. I only use FLAC files with the player.

[skunark]

I've listen to a good chunk of my FLAC today and haven't heard the glitch.  So I can only assume what I thought was an issue with FLAC was mostly a transition between FLAC to ALAC or ALAC to FLAC.   For the BDP, I will recommend to avoid ALAC, but for FLAC, I don't have any hard evidence of issues with it.  I can't comment on gapless playback with FLAC, it appears all of the music I have are not gapless albums.  So no segue flac goodness for me.

[Marius]

Hi Skunark,]
Thanks for your elaborate explanation.
Have to find out which format would be best to rip cd's again then, since all of my rips on my Apple system are ALAC...

greetings,
Marius

Hello Marcus,

After transitioning everything to AIFF I have no issues with the glitch and for what it's worth gapless playback does work flawlessly.  Well at least for the albums that have gapless playback.

I should point out that I haven't done a thorough review of which format caused the glitch, but was focused on solving the problem .   AIFF has done the trick and would clearly avoid Apple Lossless (ALAC) on the BDP as it not only glitches between tracks, it would cause the player to hang. (MPD service crashed)

My FLAC has mostly been downloaded from the Society of Sound and Nine Inch Nails' The Slip, so I will load those up today and review then today.  If you can select an album on HDTracks or some place where I can download the file today I can give that a shot to review the gapless playback with FLAC. I would think you will have to rely on others for details on FLAC since it's never been a significant format for my collection.

Jim

[skunark]

You have various options to convert the music with Max, XLD and even iTunes to avoid or just delay re-ripping your CDs.  For iTunes, just set the preferred rip settings to AIFF and then you can convert everything to AIFF with just a right click.   You will have duplicate files, but easy enough to remove.  XLD also does a good job but you lose iTunes album art for a few albums.   I've kept the ALAC original rips and will probably go back and re-rip key albums and then wait advances in the checksums of already ripped music (probably 5-15 years out ) before i rip the others.  I'm not talking about exact audio copy, rip, xld etc that does will do a checksum while you rip but one that will perform the checksum after the fact.   Of course it's just a race on if ALAC improves with the MPD daemon and the BDP-1.

In the end AIFF, WAV, ALAC and FLAC all can contain a bit-to-bit equivalent PCM data, so if you can trust the conversation between formats, there's no need to re-rip.    One thing is clear is that the ALAC library for linux is not mature enough to be a viable option.  IMO, FLAC isn't accepted enough to be a viable option either, WAV has no support for ID3 tags so to me the only viable option is AIFF. 

Good luck in your quest for the BDP-1.

[Marius]

Ok well that's a very clear answer. Aiff the way to go. That right click is imminent...
Problem is that for example Chandos doesn't have that option, either Flac or Wav. http://www.chandos.net/details06.asp?CNumber=CHUSB%200008 , other than MP3.

Now what?

Marius.

You have various options to convert the music with Max, XLD and even iTunes to avoid or just delay re-ripping your CDs.  For iTunes, just set the preferred rip settings to AIFF and then you can convert everything to AIFF with just a right click.   You will have duplicate files, but easy enough to remove.  XLD also does a good job but you lose iTunes album art for a few albums.   I've kept the ALAC original rips and will probably go back and re-rip key albums and then wait advances in the checksums of already ripped music (probably 5-15 years out ) before i rip the others.  I'm not talking about exact audio copy, rip, xld etc that does will do a checksum while you rip but one that will perform the checksum after the fact.   Of course it's just a race on if ALAC improves with the MPD daemon and the BDP-1.

In the end AIFF, WAV, ALAC and FLAC all can contain a bit-to-bit equivalent PCM data, so if you can trust the conversation between formats, there's no need to re-rip.    One thing is clear is that the ALAC library for linux is not mature enough to be a viable option.  IMO, FLAC isn't accepted enough to be a viable option either, WAV has no support for ID3 tags so to me the only viable option is AIFF. 

Good luck in your quest for the BDP-1.

[skunark]

For Society of Sound, I download the FLAC, use XLD/MAX to convert it to AIFF for iTunes and also copy the original files to a USB drive for backup.   Since I haven't found an issue with the FLAC, I will probably just copy those straight to the BDP and still convert for iTunes.   If they had the WAV option, I would just pick that as the source to do the conversion with as AIFF and WAV both store the PCM data untouched, but I would still have to deal with the tagging.

Its clearly not a perfect world.

[terrycym]

dBpowerAMP converts anything to AIFF too, FYI