[Marco Prozzo]

Peter (Blue Smoke Audio; creator of Black Box music server) believes Wavpack and WMA are superior to FLAC cuz FLAC decoders are asynchronous??  Dunno any more than that..  I don't know.  I rip to both (wavpack for hirez, FLAC for redbook).  I do think I can tell the difference between server side and player side decoding, as sated in the Discless Forum (thread about SC 7.4).

However, the Audiogon test is really a comparison of EAC and Itunes as a lossless ripper, not really of format differences.  It is the conventional audiophile wisdom that EAC rips to bit perfect, if set correctly, and that iTunes is a relatively miserable ripper (compared to EAC, Plextools, etc.), even when set for error correction.  It's error correction and read-until-right capabilities are not robust enough for anything but nearly perfect discs, IMO. 

Again, not the same Peter.  No relation whatsoever.  They do share the same first name.

I'm not sure if you understood the comparison on the Audiogon thread I referenced.  The file that distinguished itself above the others was ripped first as a WAV file in EAC, then converted to lossless in iTunes.  In doing this all content info (album, song, date, etc) is lost and would need to be manually added afterwards.   This file sounded superior, to my ears, as well as to Peter's, to a WAV file ripped in iTunes with error correction, as well as an Apple Lossless file ripped in iTunes with error correction.  If you have a PC with EAC do the experiment yourself and post your results.  I found it very difficult to believe there could be any difference in any lossless files until I heard it myself.  What I heard was better definition of instruments defined within space, cleaner vocals and better bass.  Mostly an overall improvement in soundstage definition.  I tried the same files downstairs on my much less resolving office system and could not hear any difference between the three files. 

[Philistine]

Peter (Blue Smoke Audio; creator of Black Box music server) believes Wavpack and WMA are superior to FLAC cuz FLAC decoders are asynchronous??  Dunno any more than that..  I don't know.  I rip to both (wavpack for hirez, FLAC for redbook).  I do think I can tell the difference between server side and player side decoding, as sated in the Discless Forum (thread about SC 7.4).

However, the Audiogon test is really a comparison of EAC and Itunes as a lossless ripper, not really of format differences.  It is the conventional audiophile wisdom that EAC rips to bit perfect, if set correctly, and that iTunes is a relatively miserable ripper (compared to EAC, Plextools, etc.), even when set for error correction.  It's error correction and read-until-right capabilities are not robust enough for anything but nearly perfect discs, IMO. 

Again, not the same Peter.  No relation whatsoever.  They do share the same first name.

I'm not sure if you understood the comparison on the Audiogon thread I referenced.  The file that distinguished itself above the others was ripped first as a WAV file in EAC, then converted to lossless in iTunes.  In doing this all content info (album, song, date, etc) is lost and would need to be manually added afterwards.   This file sounded superior, to my ears, as well as to Peter's, to a WAV file ripped in iTunes with error correction, as well as an Apple Lossless file ripped in iTunes with error correction.  If you have a PC with EAC do the experiment yourself and post your results.  I found it very difficult to believe there could be any difference in any lossless files until I heard it myself.  What I heard was better definition of instruments defined within space, cleaner vocals and better bass.  Mostly an overall improvement in soundstage definition.  I tried the same files downstairs on my much less resolving office system and could not hear any difference between the three files. 

Marco, an interesting and probable more relevant comparison for TP owners would be to also include a FLAC file ripped using EAC.
My understanding of the experiment is the same as Ted's - it appears to demonstrate the inferiority of iTunes as a ripper.

[Marco Prozzo]

Marco, an interesting and probable more relevant comparison for TP owners would be to also include a FLAC file ripped using EAC.
My understanding of the experiment is the same as Ted's - it appears to demonstrate the inferiority of iTunes as a ripper.

Yes, I'm going to ask Peter to do that as well.  It's probably already been discussed ad nauseum on various forums,  but much of this is new to me.  I've been using Macs for almost twenty years and don't have a PC with EAC to experiment with.  Why is "FLAC ripped on PC" particularly relevant to TP owners?  I can't imagine that all TP owners are PC users, or did I miss that requirement when I was recruited?    Maybe that's why my Maccentric question went unanswered here.  Am I going to be snubbed when I don't return the secret handshake properly?  I can see it now, I'll be at RMAF and one of the TP crowd will see my name tag, extend a fist with only the pinky pointing upwards...I'll hesitate and his mouth will open to let rip one of those horrifying Invasion of the Bodysnatchers screams.  I'll end up in a pod somewhere in a basement catacomb deep beneath the Redmond campus.   Oh god, I'm going to have nightmares tonight!

[ted_b]

Again, we should prolly take this ripping and format wars stuff to the Discless circle. 

Marco, your orphaned question was about Apple Airport.  There is an Apple Circle (The Apple Core)  here that would have had a few hits, hopefully.  I know nothing of Apple Airport, but assume it's WEP uses the same 8 or 10 digit encryption pwd as the rest of your router/network.

[Philistine]

Marco - it;s probably a left brain/right brain issue.
With you being a creative right brain guy then you go down the Mac path, whereas left brain PC guys need all the logical analytical skills to get EAC configured to rip CD's  Now that the right brain guys try to be analytical about ripping, with all these experiments, then it all goes pair shaped as they try to figure out whats going on

I just switch from right to left and get even more confused    

At the moment they're many conflicting opinions on what are the best options to rip and encode, many of these are put about by industry manufactures and industry groupies with no supporting analysis.  Another variable is wireless or ethernet, ethernet is claimed to be superior sonically but this is countered by the left brain guys claiming it's the same 1's and 0's   With all this confusion any attempt to structure a comparison using two ears is welcomed by me - PC or Mac.

[Marco Prozzo]

Again, we should prolly take this ripping and format wars stuff to the Discless circle. 

Marco, your orphaned question was about Apple Airport.  There is an Apple Circle (The Apple Core)  here that would have had a few hits, hopefully.  I know nothing of Apple Airport, but assume it's WEP uses the same 8 or 10 digit encryption pwd as the rest of your router/network.

Thanks for pointing out the other circles which I was not aware of. 

I did figure out my Airport issue and posted the solution.  FWIW Airport uses ASCII WPA passwords, which is what makes it so difficult to figure out.  I could have a password of 4 characters or 8 or 15 and any one will yield the 26 character WEP key...the frustrating part was finding just where that key is hidden and there is NOTHING in the TP instructions that helps you find it.

I thought this subject was relevant to users of Transporters since you are exclusively listening to ripped files, and I thought that's what this thread was about.  Again, sorry, I didn't realize there was a forum so specific to discuss this topic, but I was looking for feedback from fellow TP users.  There's something like 23 pages to this thread and it wanders all over the map. Anyway, I was just trying to contribute something that I thought might be interesting to others.

[ted_b]

Marco,
I apologize.  I spend sooo much time in the MW TP tube rolling thread that I just assumed this was it.  No, no reason to feel defensive or that you've abused the thread at all.  My bad.  This thread IS, indeed, all about the idiosyncrasies and other wonderful technoid issues that us MW TP'ers come across, and your WEP stuff is right there with the rest.   

However, once you see you're getting no responses, a good idea is to reword more topically to that thread (i.e not specific to TP) and then repost in a niche Circle.  (Note: the moderators frown on a simple double post, i.e copy and paste, to broadcast to multiple Circles).

[Marco Prozzo]

Marco,
I apologize.  I spend sooo much time in the MW TP tube rolling thread that I just assumed this was it.  No, no reason to feel defensive or that you've abused the thread at all.  My bad.  This thread IS, indeed, all about the idiosyncrasies and other wonderful technoid issues that us MW TP'ers come across, and your WEP stuff is right there with the rest.   

However, once you see you're getting no responses, a good idea is to reword more topically to that thread (i.e not specific to TP) and then repost in a niche Circle.  (Note: the moderators frown on a simple double post, i.e copy and paste, to broadcast to multiple Circles).

No sweat, Ted.  I have a pretty thick skin and, I hope, a good sense of humor about all this.  Thanks for clearing that up as it was a bit confusing to me.

I do appreciate the posting etiquette input as I may otherwise be lacking there.  I've also not explored the entire AudioCircle and frankly don't have that much free time (probably like most of us) to do that so tend to stick around topics I feel like I'm more directly interested in.

[Marco Prozzo]

Marco - it;s probably a left brain/right brain issue.
With you being a creative right brain guy then you go down the Mac path, whereas left brain PC guys need all the logical analytical skills to get EAC configured to rip CD's  Now that the right brain guys try to be analytical about ripping, with all these experiments, then it all goes pair shaped as they try to figure out whats going on

I just switch from right to left and get even more confused    

At the moment they're many conflicting opinions on what are the best options to rip and encode, many of these are put about by industry manufactures and industry groupies with no supporting analysis.  Another variable is wireless or ethernet, ethernet is claimed to be superior sonically but this is countered by the left brain guys claiming it's the same 1's and 0's   With all this confusion any attempt to structure a comparison using two ears is welcomed by me - PC or Mac.

Thanks, Phil.  Yes, I am decidedly right-brain.  I'd definitely encourage you to try the comparison yourself.  What was interesting to me was exactly that it is supposed to be the same zeros and ones....obviously there must be more to it.  I cannot imagine any manufacturer yielding any benefit whatsoever from the ripping scheme outlined by Steve & Peter that yielded the superior file.  Who in their right mind would want to go through all those hoops and manually insert the meta-data?!?  It's interesting though.  I hadn't heard that running an ethernet connection was superior to Wifi.  Is there an Ethernet Discussion Circle I should be looking at? I did compare a digital input from my transport (Oppo 983H) to the EAC converted file and that was difficult to tell apart, though I think I marginally preferred the transport.  

[Marco Prozzo]

Here's another consideration and question for you TP users, that may have some impact on what's going on here.  I'll just quote from the post to the A'gon thread for those who are not following it:

I want to try the experiment outlined by Peter_S, Dtc, et al, which Steve had urged me to do weeks ago. In my case, I can rip on a PC using EAC, but would then want to move the file to a Mac for iTunes playback since that is my music server platform. Seems to me this hardware/OS platform change introduces a significant additional variable. Have others of you crossed platforms in your tests, or kept it all on PCs?

Marco: am I correct that Slimcenter converts all files to FLAC for transmission and the Transporter then de-compresses? How might that factor into the results?
(snip)

Can anyone tell me the answer to the SlimServer / FLAC question Drubin poses here?

[zybar]

At the moment they're many conflicting opinions on what are the best options to rip and encode, many of these are put about by industry manufactures and industry groupies with no supporting analysis.  Another variable is wireless or ethernet, ethernet is claimed to be superior sonically but this is countered by the left brain guys claiming it's the same 1's and 0's   With all this confusion any attempt to structure a comparison using two ears is welcomed by me - PC or Mac.

To my ears, the ethernet connection sounds better.  Well worth the $10 to buy a 75' ethernet cable.   

George

[zybar]

Here's another consideration and question for you TP users, that may have some impact on what's going on here.  I'll just quote from the post to the A'gon thread for those who are not following it:

I want to try the experiment outlined by Peter_S, Dtc, et al, which Steve had urged me to do weeks ago. In my case, I can rip on a PC using EAC, but would then want to move the file to a Mac for iTunes playback since that is my music server platform. Seems to me this hardware/OS platform change introduces a significant additional variable. Have others of you crossed platforms in your tests, or kept it all on PCs?

Marco: am I correct that Slimcenter converts all files to FLAC for transmission and the Transporter then de-compresses? How might that factor into the results?
(snip)

Can anyone tell me the answer to the SlimServer / FLAC question Drubin poses here?

Marco,

It depends on how you set things up in the advanced setting tab.  You can have things decoded at the server or the TP.

There is a thread that talks about this exact topic here:

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=64267.40

George

[ted_b]

Here's another consideration and question for you TP users, that may have some impact on what's going on here.  I'll just quote from the post to the A'gon thread for those who are not following it:

I want to try the experiment outlined by Peter_S, Dtc, et al, which Steve had urged me to do weeks ago. In my case, I can rip on a PC using EAC, but would then want to move the file to a Mac for iTunes playback since that is my music server platform. Seems to me this hardware/OS platform change introduces a significant additional variable. Have others of you crossed platforms in your tests, or kept it all on PCs?

Marco: am I correct that Slimcenter converts all files to FLAC for transmission and the Transporter then de-compresses? How might that factor into the results?
(snip)

Can anyone tell me the answer to the SlimServer / FLAC question Drubin poses here?

No, Squeeze Center (the name change from Slimserver a few versions back) will convert what and when you tell it.  You can convert from a-to-b at the server end or at the player end.  look at my post and pictures of the format screens here:
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=64267.msg588814#msg588814

Edit:  I answer the phone while typing and George beats me to it.       Thanks George,  BTW, if it weren't for your avatar they're be nothing about you to hate!!

[ted_b]

At the moment they're many conflicting opinions on what are the best options to rip and encode, many of these are put about by industry manufactures and industry groupies with no supporting analysis.  Another variable is wireless or ethernet, ethernet is claimed to be superior sonically but this is countered by the left brain guys claiming it's the same 1's and 0's   With all this confusion any attempt to structure a comparison using two ears is welcomed by me - PC or Mac.

To my ears, the ethernet connection sounds better.  Well worth the $10 to buy a 75' ethernet cable.   

George

+1

[Philistine]

At the moment they're many conflicting opinions on what are the best options to rip and encode, many of these are put about by industry manufactures and industry groupies with no supporting analysis.  Another variable is wireless or ethernet, ethernet is claimed to be superior sonically but this is countered by the left brain guys claiming it's the same 1's and 0's   With all this confusion any attempt to structure a comparison using two ears is welcomed by me - PC or Mac.

To my ears, the ethernet connection sounds better.  Well worth the $10 to buy a 75' ethernet cable.   

George

+1

Unfortunately this is not a practical solution for everyone and wireless is the only option, or is it?
I started a thread on the HomePlug which is an 'ethernet over AC mains' option on the following thread:

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=64794.msg591570#msg591570

I have no opinion on this or wireless vs ethernet, my objective was to raise the option as it is less well known solution and learn from the practical experience of others. 

The 1's and 0's fraternity will claim that wireless and ethernet are identical, but I would guess that there's more going on to influence what's going on (such as the wireless circuitry in the TP being switched off?).  Both Ted/George believe ethernet is better, can you elaborate a little on what 'better' is?
My to do list has running a temporary ethernet cable to do this experiment and also compare with wireless and HomePlug.   

[ted_b]

I used to run HomePNA (phone wire ethernet) before I had a Squeezebox or TP though.  Don't know it's issues sonically.  I'd be concerned about power line noise with HomePlug, but probably not a scientific concern...I gotta assume they covered that when inventing it, right?

The sound of wired ethernet connection includes less harshness in the high end (cymbals, etc.) and a tighter bass control.  These are likely network buffering issues I guess.

[Marco Prozzo]

Thanks, Ted and George.  Wow, that's a whole lot to take in.  So rather than jump into that thread I'll ask here: Given that I'm currently using Wifi for my TP, which settings are ideal.  I'm using v 7.3.2.  In my Settings>Advanced>File Types I have the following settings currently, and this is how my listening was done:

Apple Lossless:
FLAC > alac/flac
WAV > alac

WAV:
FLAC > flac
WAV > Native

I assume these settings are the default as I have not tinkered with them before.  So which settings have you guys found ideal for Wifi?

[Mr P]

I've had my ModWright Transporter since last August (except for when I sent it back for the Hyper-Drive mod) and I love it.  My understanding of the latest version of the software (7.3.2)is that it will downsample 24/176.4 and 24/192 FLAC files to 24/96.  In the next version it looks like it will have the ability to downsample 24/176 WAV files to 24/96.  A couple of questions. 

1. Am I interpreting the software revisions correctly?
2. Is there any benefit to purchasing a 24/176.4 resolution recording and having it downsampled by the Slim Devices software compared to just purchasing the 24/96 resolution version?
2. What prevents the Transporter from processing native 24/176.4 and 24/192?  Is it the software or the DAC chips or something else?
3. Will the Transporter always be limited to a maximum resolution of 24/96 or could there be future hardware/software mods that can expand the capability of the Transporter?

These are probably very basic questions, but it quickly gets to a point where this stuff makes my head hurt! javascript:void(0); Any help here would be appreciated.  Thanks - Mark

[ted_b]

No the TP is and always will be a 24/96 dac; it's the hardware. And SC will not downconvert higher rez than 24/96. It does 24/48 (from 24/96) for the duet/SB3 but thats it.

[Mr P]

Ted - Below is what's on the Slim Devices website comparing the Version 7.2 to 7.3.  What am I missing here?  This sounds like it will downsample.   

7.3.2 Release Highlights

Improved playback of high-resolution audio tracks. Sound eXchange (SoX) now resamples higher-rate FLAC or Ogg tracks to lower sample-rate FLAC compatible with your player. Previous 7.3.1 release resampled only to MP3 format.

Summary of higher sample-rate capabilities:

      Player                                SqueezeCenter 7.2                                     New in 7.3
SB2, SB3, Receiver, Boom            24/48 tracks                       24/88.2, 24/96, 24/176.4, 24/192 tracks
Transporter                              24/88.2, 24/96 tracks                            24/176.4, 24/192 tracks

For SB1 and SliMP3 players, higher sample-rate tracks are resampled into MP3 format.