Author Topic: Cataloging and playing DSD files  (Read 63700 times)

patdipole

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I confirm, Musicbee 3.2 (3.2.655) working with Dop

Tried in RAW, no go. My DAC switched to DSD but got only some kind of white noise.

Teac UD-501 on Windows 8.1 x64.
Raw works fine with Teac player.

Mr. Trev

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Gave this a try on my Shanling M2s.

No go on DoP, just staticy noise with very faint music in the background. The M2s did show a dsd64 lock (dsf file)

Oh well, can't win them all ;)

redwing

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Since DSD is slightly better quality than existing PCM files, then there is a slight quality loss, but since 24/88.2 is really outstanding quality already, doing the conversion could be a practical way to go.

Yeah I agree and that's what I'm doing with all high-resolution audio files: convert to FLAC and edit tags freely and apply ReplayGain tags.
But there are some limitations with MB at the moment in terms of helping managing and organizing those files.

1. <Kind> and <Channels> properties display is wrong for DSF files: it shows them as "mp3" and "stereo" for multi-channel DSF files.

2. Support <Bit Depth> field as it already shows for FLAC 24-bit file in file properties tab of tag editor.

3. Show ISO files in the main panel to help managing and organizing SACD-ISO files (also to send them to external tools).

4. Writing tags to DSF files would be great (but unless it could do volume analysis for those, I will still convert to FLAC).

Update on this: I am no longer converting DSF files to FLAC as I found out foobar supports writing all tags including ReplayGain tags with volume analysis on these files.

- <Kind> tag is still wrong showing "mp3" for DSF files. Though it correctly shows "DFF" for DFF files what's expected to see for this tag would be "DSD64" or 'DSD128".
- <Channels> tag is working correctly showing multi-channels as 5 Channel or 5.1 properly.
- <Bit Depth> field is still missing.
- For SACD ISO files, a foobar component supports tagging and playback without splitting to individual files whereas MB can't even detect them as audio files.
- Foobar can play DFF files and show their tags (even though editing is not possible) while MB can't play them showing no tags.
- Still no support for writing tags and volume analysis for DSF files.

Steven

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I am surprised MB cant play your DFF files as mine play fine. Regarding tags, none of mine show any in foobar and MB doesnt attempt anything so I dont have any file to look at. If you are able to point me to a weblink with a tagged DFF file i will have a look
I am willing to spend time supporting writing tags to DSF files (reading is already supported)
Kind will be fixed for the next update, bit-depth probably but i dont have a 24-bit file to test with.

redwing

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PMed one DFF file and one 24-96 FLAC file for your test. The DFF files is a DST compressed one, so maybe that's the difference.

Steven

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I confirm that the bass library cant play the DFF file you sent but foobar can. I also tried with xm-play, so i will the file to the bass developer to see if he will look into it.
I noticed foobar didnt show any tags for the DFF file (as I would expect). Was there a specific plugin setting you needed to enable for that to work?

redwing

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redwing

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Kind will be fixed for the next update, bit-depth probably but i dont have a 24-bit file to test with.

Both foobar($info(bitspersample)) and mp3tag(%_bitspersample%) supports configuring a separate Bit Depth column that shows Bits per Sample info for all files. Currently MB only adds "24-bit" to the property tab of tag editor.

Also the both programs show "DSD64" for codec rather than "DSF" that MB currently shows.

Steven

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Also the both programs show "DSD64" for codec rather than "DSF" that MB currently shows.
the codec information and DSD source sample rate are displayed only in the track info panel for the playing track only. I doubt i will enhance that for display in the main panel.

This has support for editing/ saving DSD file tags as ID3v2:
http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V3_2/MusicBee32_Patched.zip


edit:
I will also look to add reading of artist and title from DFF files which is a documented standard.
For the DFF file you sent, it looks like ID3 tags have been appended to the end of the file but from what I can gather thats not really a valid thing to do for DFF files - that could be the reason that BASS doesnt play the file
Last Edit: January 21, 2018, 10:58:54 AM by Steven

redwing

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Thanks for the improvement!
I just ran volume analysis for couple of DSD albums and it looks like the average RG values are 5-6 dB lower than those from foobar. Can you replicate this?

Steven

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i do recall there being a bass setting to bump the volume by 6dB as by default DSD files play at 6dB lower than the original sound data so i will look into that

redwing

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That 6 dB issue looks quite complicated, but from listening thru PCM MB's current RG values sound right when compared with the same source in FLAC files. So why not just leave it as is?

Steven

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this has support for reading DFF file tags (artist/title for the official tags if present and also handles reading ID3 tags)

http://musicbee.niblseed.com/V3_2/MusicBee32_Patched.zip

redwing

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For files larger than 2 GB, MB doesn't show their size correctly nor sorts them properly. The red-highlighted files are all larger than 2 GB, but MB shows "N/A" for size unlike other files and sorting is inconsistent.


Steven

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are they DFF files or a particular file extension?
I am not seeing any reason for this bug. Perhaps try rescanning the files in question