Author Topic: Hi Res Flac (96 & 192 khz) will play a few seconds then goes to next in queue  (Read 6503 times)

Megavar110

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Thanks everyone for your input. I am using UPnP and I did have the plugin installed. I went back and did some more investigation and it appears that large file sizes tend to lag.
MusicBee appears to interpret these pauses as eof possibly or something else. I believe my issue is that I cannot stream 150 meg + flac files wirelessly with my setup. Perhaps there is software out there than can help the dac to convert the digital data stream more efficiently (Audirvana) ??? I used to think that if I could stream 4 gig video then 150 meg audio should be a cinch but when you consider that a movie averages an hour at least and a song averages 5 to 10 minutes then I guess I have my answer. I love the software but will have to use another method to play my hi res files. Looked so easy at first - buy a good DAC/Amp and use a conputer as a server. I even bought a NAS so things would work more smoothly but as NigWills pointed out, he moved to a wired setup for his hi res and I believe I need to as well, for now. Any suggestions would be appreciated if there are workarounds.

vincent kars

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As you are using a PC running MusicBee and a Hegel Rost, it it an option to connect the PC to the Rost over USB?
If this is doable, you might connect the PC to the NAS for the audio files using file sharing.
In this scenario you don't use UPnP at all.



Megavar110

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I am using a PC which has a usb 2.0 connection with my Hagel amp/dac. The issue is that the usb connection only supports a maximun of 96 khz-24 bit. The UPnP or DLNA connection supports the 192 khz files. I can look at purchasing another device that would either store the files internally or receive them via wifi and output to the Hagel via a coax or optical connection.
I could also run a hardwired ethernet cable to the Hagel but that would be a lot of work and a lot of cable. The issue I have learned is not with Musicbee but with the limitations of my setup. I will need to look at what will interface with the Hagel to allow me to play the large files without issue or lower my expectations and be happy with 96 khz files and lower. Trouble is I can hear a difference and I like it.

Thanks Vincent for your input as it was on the money for getting rid of any lag. Trouble is I am too spoiled and want the good stuff. lol

vincent kars

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The very few 192 kHz files I have, I always analyze.
Recently I got one with not much live above 30 kHz except a tremendous spike around 80 kHz.
Likely the refresh rate of a CRT monitor!
Down-sampled it to 96 kHz to get rid of this trash.

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I have music files on my home server and send them by wifi to a network switch which has an ethernet port wired to the back of my Hegel Roost amp

Likely the WIFi is the bottleneck.
Many ways to skin the cat
-Try moving stuff, sometimes you simply get a better reception
-WiFi repeater
- Homeplug (Ethernet over the powerlines)
-PC (with external HD if needed) wired to the same switch as the Rost is connected too. Allows you to do the DLNA thing as well.
- USB to SPDIF converter or USB DAC

Success

Megavar110

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Thanks Vincent, you have given me some good options, and some I would never have thought of as possible remedies. What software do you use to analyze your audio files?
As for the higher resolution audio files, I would not expect them to contain more information in the higher frequencies but only that they would more closely replicate the analogue waveform that our ears are supposedly more used to. The other obvious thing would be that higher frequencies are harder to replicate accurately with low resolution sampling and my ears can hear the difference, on my system, with the higher res files appearing brighter, though not necessarily better (more musical). If they were well recorded/engineered then the black background is deeper and the higher frequencies appear to have a reverb or echo quality. Mark Knopfler's guitar chords on some of his better stuff is a pleasure to listen to in hi res as well as jazz and blues.
I should try to not be too long winded but I want to thank you and the others for their input. AND I think MusicBee is one heck of a great piece of software and I will continue to use it with great pleasure. I just have to improve my system a bit.

Stay healthy in these troubled times!

vincent kars

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For spectrum (and a bit more) I use MusicScope: https://www.thewelltemperedcomputer.com/SW/AudioTools/Spectrum.htm
Unfortunately they are out of business

Don’t make to much of Hires. 176 kHz sounds impressive but it is only 4 time  44.1
Doesn’t make it 4 time as analog :)

But you do have a point, most DACs do up-sampling as this is easier on the filtering.
Anyway, experiment a little and hopefully you find a solution.

Stay healthy too!

hiccup

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The issue is that the usb connection only supports a maximun of 96 khz-24 bit. The UPnP or DLNA connection supports the 192 khz files.

Are you very sure about that?
Usually the USB connection will be the interface that is able to achieve the maximum of what the dac chip is capable of.

Off-topic, but since you seem to put high value on hi-res audio; pretty much every audio expert agrees on that it is a complete waste of time/effort/bandwidth for the end product.
(it is very useful in the studio recording/mixing stages though)

How did you ascertain a difference in sound?
What did you compare to what exactly?

Megavar110

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Hi hiccup,

The usb 2.0 standard only support 96 khz 24 bit is my understanding and the Hagel Roost manual states that the usb maxes at 96 khz and you need to go coaxial or optical on the digital side from higher res sounds. I suppose I could buy another dac and use my analogue inputs as well.

As for the hi-res argument, I need to qualify that I am  unable to do much testing yet with the 192 khz files so I assume your question pertains to the difference between 96 khz and 44.1 and also 320 khz mp3 files.

I have had digital music ever since Napster was on the scene and I started with 120 khz mp3 initially, liked vbr mp3's for awhile and then 320 when they became available. I had a friend who liked digital music but was really an analogue guy (turn table) but used digital for his music player when walking etc.

He would ask if I could rip some of his cd's for him from time to time as he had a cd player as well and i used to do so in 320, stating that it was overkill at that. Then I started to get some flac and wav files in my collection and liked them better than the mp3's when it came to higher frequency reproduction. wav or high res flac are the same in my opinion in this regard. My friend asked about them one time when he noticed I had some. He is a digital skeptic and so I thought he would say they were a waste of space but he didn't, he asked if I could rip his cds in flac and I said that I could. THere is a difference if you have a system capable of reproducing hifi sound and you have flac files that come from a "good" source. Remember garbage in...garbage out applies here as well.

The flac will sound brighter (better high frequency replication). The higher bitrate flac  (96 khz) if taken from a good source i.e. (high analogue master or high res digital master) is slightly better again but the law diminishing returns applies to this as well as all other things audiophile. It is logical that the more you sample a source the greater the resolution, the better the high frequency reproduction. Can you hear it, the experts apparently say no, I bought my gear and my files and I say yes.

My testing is simple, I have copies of some good quality mp3, 44.1 cd rips and 96 khz (purchased online) files of the same song. I play each file to a chosen point and then switch to the next one. I can usually hear the difference in well recorded music that is worthy of hires recording. Kiss an angel good morning by Charlie Pride for example sounds great as an mp3, Pink Floyd maybe you might hear the difference on some of their music. Of course higher res does not mean you will enjoy the song more as I have found out. So in closing I have somne music I like to listen to on an analyitical level asit was written that way and other stuff is fine in 320 mp3 (Garth Brooks, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard all come to mind. Female vocals do improve with higher res though (Emmy lou Harris, Eva Cassidy etc.)

There you have it.....fire away if you will.

Stay safe ......

hiccup

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The usb 2.0 standard only support 96 khz 24 bit is my understanding

USB 2.0 by itself has no such restriction.
These days there are plenty modern dac's that can handle 32bit/384kHz and DSD audio over USB.
The limitation will lie in the usb receiver chip that your Hegel uses (and of course the dac chip itself).
(It looks like your Hegel uses the rather old tenor TE7022 usb interface. That one also doesn't support asynchronous transfer, so if you use MusicBee on it's USB connection, be sure to leave 'event mode' unchecked)


I am not arguing differences in possible sound quality between lossy an lossless audio.
But I am firmly convinced that resolutions higher than 16/44 do not improve the sound quality in any way our ears and brain can detect.

If differences in sound quality are observed, I am convinced the reason will be that the recordings have been mastered differently, or that volumes are not identical.

Mastering is probably also the largest factor in the endless analogue vinyl vs. digital audio discussions.
But I don't want to pollute your thread with such discussions.

If your hi-res recordings sound better to you than your 16/44 recordings, stick to them and enjoy!

Megavar110

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Thanks for the information on the Roost dac and the usb settings. You are obviously more knowledgeable about these things than I am and people like you are one of the reasons I posted to this site. I received a lot of good info and perhaps I should try to educate myself a bit more about the gear I have so I can get the most out of it instead of buying extra gear.

As for your belief that audio files do not need to be of any higher resolution than standard cd quality; I can only say that I hope that is true because I have plenty of cds to rip instead of spending a small fortune buying hi res files from the various websites that sell them. Of course we must always take in to account how the music file was created, was it a copy of a copy or was it a high res copy of an analogue or high res digital master.

I can also add DR or dynamic range into the mix as I have some downloaded digital albums that tout improved dynamic range which is the counter to compression I believe. Anyway we are off topic with the exception of my thank you for the help above.

Oh yes and volume level does make a difference.

Stay safe!

vincent kars

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USB audio is defined by USB Audio Class 1 (1998) and UAC2 (2009)
The first uses USB in full speed (USB1) hence it is limited to 2 channel 24 bit 96 kHz sample rate.
The second requires high speed (USB2) hence no limitations on sample rate.
It also took some time before Apple and Linux included UAC2 in their OS (2010) not to mention Microsoft (2017).
This explains why on older models USB is capped at 96 kHz.
Bit more detail: https://www.thewelltemperedcomputer.com/KB/USB.html

One thing to do when comparing highres to CD is making sure you are listening to the same master.
Your best bet is to use a highres you own and down-sample it yourself to 16 bits  / 44.1 kHz.
Before you do make sure the highres recording indeed contains information below -96 dBFS and above 21 kHz. Not all of them are genuine.
https://www.thewelltemperedcomputer.com/SW/AudioTools/Spectrum.htm

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“ tout improved dynamic range which is the counter to compression I believe”

Often people mix up dynamic compression (decreasing the difference between the loudest and the softest passage) with lossy compression, removing information to reduce file size (MP3 style).
Remasters, often in 24/96, often have less dynamic range then die original recording as released on CD. This is known as the loudness war. This yields the paradox that in these cases the highres version often sounds worse than the original.

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Oh yes and volume level does make a difference.

Our hearing is very un-linear and to make matters worse, this varies with the loudness.
Known as the Fletcher–Munson curve.
This is why matching volume is so important when comparing
https://www.thewelltemperedcomputer.com/KB/Hearing.htm