USB DAC into USB Hub?

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viggen

USB DAC into USB Hub?
« on: 14 Jan 2015, 11:33 pm »
My MS Surface only has one USB port.  It's occupied by an USB DAC.  I want to also connect an USB hard drive. 

I installed EAC on a new laptop and found that it's ripping wav with tagging now.  So, I could rip to wav format, but this will take up more space.  My Surface is 128gb only though.

The Surface does have a 64gb SDHC card inserted.  However, Foobar2000 is not recognizing it as "library".  So, can't use SDHC to expand on my internal memory. 

Now, if only an USB hub could work... I tried this many years ago and the PC didn't recognize the DAC.  I don't have an USB hub to try now though. 

So, I have a few issues.  Not enough hard drive space.  Could this be solved with hub/external hdd?  And, why can't Foobar recognize the SDHC card?

paul79

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Re: USB DAC into USB Hub?
« Reply #1 on: 14 Jan 2015, 11:49 pm »
Does your Surface have any other ports? Like Ethernet perhaps?

viggen

Re: USB DAC into USB Hub?
« Reply #2 on: 15 Jan 2015, 12:19 am »
it has these:

Ports
Full-size USB 3.0
microSDXC card slot
Headset jack
Mini DisplayPort
Cover port

srb

Re: USB DAC into USB Hub?
« Reply #3 on: 15 Jan 2015, 12:37 am »
If the SDXC card is visible as a drive in Windows Explorer / Computer, then you should be able to add it to the foobar library.  Are you not able to browse it under Library > Configure > Add (under Music folders)?

Steve

viggen

Re: USB DAC into USB Hub?
« Reply #4 on: 15 Jan 2015, 01:33 am »
srb.  that's not true in my case.  both the surface and foobar can see the drive.  but, when adding that drive to foobar library, foobar is forever in searching or processing mode whichever it's called.

srb

Re: USB DAC into USB Hub?
« Reply #5 on: 15 Jan 2015, 02:15 am »
For me it seemed to hang on "Status: Initializing ..." when the song folders and files were directly in the root of the card and I selected the drive as the location.  I don't know if it was because there were some other non music folders or hidden folders or files, but when I moved all of the music folders into a new folder and specified that folder location to add to the library, the "Initializing ..." completed fairly quickly and ended with "Monitoring".

When testing, I was using a smaller capacity SDHC card, but 300 files took ~ 20 seconds to scan.

Steve



JRace

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Re: USB DAC into USB Hub?
« Reply #6 on: 15 Jan 2015, 02:16 am »
Can foobar read wav tags?

viggen

Re: USB DAC into USB Hub?
« Reply #7 on: 15 Jan 2015, 02:32 am »
steve.  i will check my folder later.  thx.

just checked.  the library that used to be hanging on "initializing" actually started monitoring without me doing anything.   :duh: :thumb:

jrace.  i don't know i didn't keep the wav i ripped last night to test.  but, i checked the properties, and song names etc. all seem to be in the right place.

JRace

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Re: USB DAC into USB Hub?
« Reply #8 on: 15 Jan 2015, 02:46 am »
steve.  i will check my folder later.  thx.

just checked.  the library that used to be hanging on "initializing" actually started monitoring without me doing anything.   :duh: :thumb:

jrace.  i don't know i didn't keep the wav i ripped last night to test.  but, i checked the properties, and song names etc. all seem to be in the right place.
I would double check that you can even read the tags on the surface through foobar,
When you tag a wav file you are not actually putting info into the file (as you do with flac).
Not all programs will read wav tags, especially when tagged from another program.

You could just recreate the tags in foobar if it wont read the eac ones.

Re: hub an usb dac, you may have better luck with a powered usb hub (if your dac requires usb power).

srb

Re: USB DAC into USB Hub?
« Reply #9 on: 15 Jan 2015, 03:41 am »
When you tag a wav file you are not actually putting info into the file (as you do with flac).

In programs like iTunes, when you add tags to WAV files, the information is stored separately in the iTunes database and these tags are nonexistent when these files are imported into another player.

But you can embed metadata tags into WAV file Info headers with certain programs and that's what I think Viggen did with EAC.  But these tags and their locations within the header are nonstandard and sketchy at best for compatibility different player software.  If these embedded WAV tags can be read in foobar, and that's the program you'll likely use "forever", then you'll be okay.

But file/player compatibility is something to consider for the future.  I use JRiver and iTunes, and the uncompressed AIFF files (that support tagging) that I use are readable in both.  I will likely keep using these programs or updated versions of them for the foreseeable future.  But they're not as universally compatible as FLAC (other than iTunes), as foobar doesn't even recognize AIFF files, let alone read their tags!

Steve