Janet and John do streaming

[Leftfield]

Whilst waiting for my newly purchased RP6 to be replaced I've been thinking about where I can store all my CDs. (I need the space for my expanding vinyl collection). All of my CDs are ripped as ALACs on iTunes for use on iPhone or iPod, however could I use the rips rather than the physical disk?

I have had a nose around various forums and it appears that buying a nas drive would be advantageous as this would negate the need to leave the laptop on. (WD my cloud OK for this?)

I would also need someway of getting the 'music' into my amp. I have a Quad CDP which has a number of digital inputs and as such I think I only need a receiver and not a DAC. If this is correct would this be suitable?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/like/181423593227?limghlpsr=true&hlpv=2&ops=true&viphx=1&hlpht=true&lpid=108&chn=ps&device=t&adtype=pla&crdt=0&ff3=1&ff11=ICEP3.0.0-L&ff12=67&ff13=80&ff14=108

Alternatively would I be better served buying a dedicated streamer like a Pioneer N50? If so how would this work?

Any advice on a simple to set up and use cost effective streaming solution would be gratefully received.

Cheers

Simon

[synsei]

Thanks Simon, your Janet & John reference brought on my Lumbago... :wheniwasaboy: :D

[Leftfield]

I think it paints the picture for people over a certain age regarding the grasp (or lack of) I have of digital streaming.:scratch:

[Stratmangler]

I think it paints the picture for people over a certain age regarding the grasp (or lack of) I have of digital streaming.:scratch:

You seem to have a better idea than most - all the stuff you listed looks as though is should play nicely together.
As to how it works it's a case of RTFM! :)

Google Twonky and see what that brings ...

[johnB]

Google Twonky and see what that brings ...
"Google Twonky", now that's a term you don't hear every day.
Two brand names, one of which has become a verb.....sounds like a vaguely rude practice or else Bill Gates is starring in drag in Aladdin this Christmas?

[Stratmangler]

"Google Twonky", now that's a term you don't hear every day.
Two brand names, one of which has become a verb.....sounds like a vaguely rude practice or else Bill Gates is starring in drag in Aladdin this Christmas?

It's not unusual (as Tom Jones sang) for nouns to also become verbs - what about Hoover or Tannoy?
However, Google Twonky does sound like some kind of deviant practice :eyebrows:

[The Black Adder]

Also look at the ROCKI.

[awkwardbydesign]

It's not unusual (as Tom Jones sang) for nouns to also become verbs - what about Hoover or Tannoy?
However, Google Twonky does sound like some kind of deviant practice :eyebrows:
In that case shouldn't they be lower case? As in hoover, tannoy and google?:whistle:
BTW, I never hoover nowadays; I kirby.

[Leftfield]

I've had a look at twonky and rocki but now there are other questions.

1. Twonky as I see it is software and not hardware. From the reasearch I have already done it appears worthwhile re ripping my CDs to flac using EAC or something similar. Do I need to install twonky prior to ripping or just store the flacs in a folder?

2. If I were to purchase a nas drive and the air music device from eBay what connects to what and how? Is anything hard wired if so what?

3. If I bought a dedicated network streamer would I need my CD player?

Sorry for the questions but its the software and connectivity that is causing me the biggest headache:doh:

[StanleyB]

If you are ripping the files to put them on a harddisk, I would suggest that you do a WAV rip instead of FLAC. On a Caiman MKII powered by a 12V battery, it is not too strenuous to hear a difference between a FLAC and a WAV rip. Mind you, this might not be the case with your current DAC, in which case FLAC could well be good enough for the equipment that you'll be using to do the D to A processing.

[Leftfield]

If you are ripping the files to put them on a harddisk, I would suggest that you do a WAV rip instead of FLAC. On a Caiman MKII powered by a 12V battery, it is not too strenuous to hear a difference between a FLAC and a WAV rip. Mind you, this might not be the case with your current DAC, in which case FLAC could well be good enough for the equipment that you'll be using to do the D to A processing.

Would it make any difference if I were to use the Dac of a Cambridge Stream Magic 6 as this is lijely to be the top end of whatever kit I end up with? If not I'll start the ripping now whislt deciding on suitable devices.

Do I need to do anything with thr new ripped music or just store in a windows folder ready for transfer to nas drive? Does it need any software to allow me to access it?

Thanks

[skimminstones]

just be aware if youre ripping to WAV you wont have any metadata to keep your files catalogued properly

[Markiii]

For me the key to a stream in solution you actually use is the user interface which is where for me squeezebox or sonos come into their own

In principle flac, wav, and Apple lossless should sound identical however i appreciate some claim wav to sound better. I can only put that down to the hardware decoding the wav.

This makes a degree of sense as I personally have my nas convert wav to PCM and then stream that to my squeezebox estate.

That sounds best to my ears

[Leftfield]

Thanks all. I am going to use Flac for the very reasons given by skimminstones. However I hadn't realised the array of software and hardware available to interface between the flac and my amp.

I think I might take a punt on the airplay receiver for £20 and see how I go from there, but will give serious consideration to a dedicated streamer and getting rid of my CD player completly.

[Stratmangler]

If you want to play WAVs you could always rip CDs to one big WAV file and use a Cue sheet to define how the file is split down into tracks and what each song is etc.
It's the old fashioned way of doing things, from back in the day when software quite literally wouldn't do gapless playback.
Neither would CD burning software for that matter, but it would always do a gapless burn from a Cue sheet.

I've found Foobar is quite happy playing such rips from a cue sheet, and my Squeezeboxes are happy playing them too whilst running on LMS.
I can't vouch for any other software media players, but if they've been properly written then they should play from Cue sheets too.

Now I have just compared a track from a Cue sheet ripped album with its FLAC counterpart, and I can hear bugger all difference.
I've had to turn off Replaygain adjustment on LMS in order to get the track to play at equal volume. Normally I use Replaygain to prevent those heart stopping moments when the volume swings wildly from one album to another.

To clarify one thing, a FLAC is a WAV packed into a convenient wrapper with redundant zeros compressed down.
On playback the FLAC is unpacked back to being a WAV.
Any files you have on your computer that are FLAC were originally ripped as WAV and the compression packaging runs after the ripping process.

[Werner Berghofer]

Mark,

[…] however i appreciate some claim wav to sound better
are you a diplomat by profession? Lossless is lossless is lossless! Some claim audio playback from harddisks spinning with 5,400 rpm sounds different than audio from harddisks running with 7,200 rpm, while others unwaveringly believe in Virgin Mary’s immaculate conception.

[StanleyB]

Mark,

are you a diplomat by profession? Lossless is lossless is lossless! Some claim audio playback from harddisks spinning with 5,400 rpm sounds different than audio from harddisks running with 7,200 rpm, while others certainly believe in Virgin Mary’s immaculate conception.
People like me have listened to claims and counter claims over a long period of time. I for one can hear a difference between FLAC and WAV, and that's with downloads from HD Tracks as well. I find the standpoint that lossless is lossless far more laughable than the rejection of opinions that audible differences can be heard between FLAC and WAV. It's an obvious case of hanging on to your own believes, whilst rejecting any notion that alternative opinions have no value. Once you get it in your head that lossless is lossless, you are going to stop listening out for any differences. And that's the problem with disbelievers (sorry Justin.) I posted a link to a Philips challenge some time ago, where listeners have a chance to evaluate a varied amount of audio file formats and bit/sampling rates. It's a good test to see how good your hearing and system is in its ability to distinguish between several similar sounding tunes. People can tell the difference between milk, cheese, and butter. But a chemical analysis would probably show that they are of the same chemical composition, making it highly unlikely that they could taste or smell different.

I must express my displeasure as well about the use of religious believes in any discussion. One's religious faith and believes should not be used as an example to poke fun at. People get killed in the name of religion and in disputes between different interpretation of religious believes.

[Gordon Steadman]

I can hear A difference but I'm not entirely sure that I get any more musical communication from one format compared with the other. Tiny qualitative differences don't seem very relevant in my experience. Provided I can relax and enjoy what the musician is trying to say to me who gives a damn frankly. Obviously that doesn't include MP3 but WAV, AIFF or any of the lossless formats mean I can enjoy the music and not obsess over minutiae. Thats for the hi-fi fans.

I was listening to three different TTs yesterday. Each of them had a different presentation and there was one which was certainly 'better' in purely technical terms than the other two but I could, never the less, happily listen to any of them and still enjoy the music.

Music versus hi-fi? Each to their own.

[StanleyB]

I can hear A difference but I'm not entirely sure that I get any more musical communication from one format compared with the other. Tiny qualitative differences don't seem very relevant in my experience. Provided I can relax and enjoy what the musician is trying to say to me who gives a damn frankly. Obviously that doesn't include MP3 but WAV, AIFF or any of the lossless formats mean I can enjoy the music and not obsess over minutiae. Thats for the hi-fi fans.
That's the point of the object. If you can hear a difference, then a difference exists. Whether that difference is important or not to each and every individual is a separate issue. I am in the business of trying to extract as much info as possible from an audio file. What customers do with that info, or whether they even find it useful to have access to it, is up to them. But that's not in question. The main thing is that I can hear a difference, and so can many others. I even design my own range of equipment so that people can have access to a piece of kit that can highlight the differences. So those who claim that lossless is lossless and have bought into those claims by the people who wrote the algorithms that try to prove that there is no difference, should stop repeating claims like a parrot, and do their own extensive research as well. Gordon is at least honest enough to admit that he heard a difference in the face of dismissive claims.

[Gordon Steadman]

That's the point of the object. If you can hear a difference, then a difference exists. Whether that difference is important or not to each and every individual is a separate issue. I am in the business of trying to extract as much info as possible from an audio file. What customers do with that info, or whether they even find it useful to have access to it, is up to them. But that's not in question. The main thing is that I can hear a difference, and so can many others. I even design my own range of equipment so that people can have access to a piece of kit that can highlight the differences. So those who claim that lossless is lossless and have bought into those claims by the people who wrote the algorithms that try to prove that there is no difference, should stop repeating claims like a parrot, and do their own extensive research as well. Gordon is at least honest enough to admit that he heard a difference in the face of dismissive claims.

I do appreciate that for someone trying to design equipment, those tiny differences may well be relevant. Even so, It is surely you making a decision as to which difference is actually better. Does it not come down to which measures more accurately and then we are into that whole other argument:)

[NRG]

That's the point of the object. If you can hear a difference, then a difference exists. Whether that difference is important or not to each and every individual is a separate issue. I am in the business of trying to extract as much info as possible from an audio file. What customers do with that info, or whether they even find it useful to have access to it, is up to them. But that's not in question. The main thing is that I can hear a difference, and so can many others. I even design my own range of equipment so that people can have access to a piece of kit that can highlight the differences. So those who claim that lossless is lossless and have bought into those claims by the people who wrote the algorithms that try to prove that there is no difference, should stop repeating claims like a parrot, and do their own extensive research as well. Gordon is at least honest enough to admit that he heard a difference in the face of dismissive claims.

Stan, I'm curious as to how you stream music IE: what is your system setup and what are you using to listen with, headphones? In your comparisons do you decode FLAC on the fly or do you performa conversion back to WAV and then compare?

I ask because I use your DACs and stream both WAV and FLAC. I've compared the two formats multiple times before and cannot hear a difference, this is with decoding on the fly and with pre converted FLAC... I use a NAS box now (was a Windows XP PC) into a heavily modified SB Classic....all files are 16/44.1

I've also created batch files to test the FLAC conversion to WAV and back again up to 1000 iterations of the same Music file child family tree, the last file binary compared perfectly with the master...

[Canetoad]

People like me have listened to claims and counter claims over a long period of time. I for one can hear a difference between FLAC and WAV, and that's with downloads from HD Tracks as well. I find the standpoint that lossless is lossless far more laughable than the rejection of opinions that audible differences can be heard between FLAC and WAV. It's an obvious case of hanging on to your own believes, whilst rejecting any notion that alternative opinions have no value. Once you get it in your head that lossless is lossless, you are going to stop listening out for any differences. And that's the problem with disbelievers (sorry Justin.) I posted a link to a Philips challenge some time ago, where listeners have a chance to evaluate a varied amount of audio file formats and bit/sampling rates. It's a good test to see how good your hearing and system is in its ability to distinguish between several similar sounding tunes. People can tell the difference between milk, cheese, and butter. But a chemical analysis would probably show that they are of the same chemical composition, making it highly unlikely that they could taste or smell different.

I must express my displeasure as well about the use of religious believes in any discussion. One's religious faith and believes should not be used as an example to poke fun at. People get killed in the name of religion and in disputes between different interpretation of religious believes.

+1

Werner, definitely out of order! Try insulting Islam and see where you get. :nono:

[walpurgis]

I must express my displeasure as well about the use of religious believes in any discussion. One's religious faith and believes should not be used as an example to poke fun at. People get killed in the name of religion and in disputes between different interpretation of religious believes.

True. Just goes to show how 'civilised' we are. Still in the dark ages really.

[Markiii]

Mark,

are you a diplomat by profession? Lossless is lossless is lossless! Some claim audio playback from harddisks spinning with 5,400 rpm sounds different than audio from harddisks running with 7,200 rpm, while others unwaveringly believe in Virgin Mary’s immaculate conception.

:-)

Put it this way, there should be no difference between any lossless codec that is truly lossless, in terms of the information it contains

convert a flac or apple lossless back to wav and compare at a bit level, and I'm confident that's true at an engineering level

is all hardware equal? does all hardware do as good a job at converting flac or apple lossless back to PCM as it does with WAV, I doubt it.

Could you hear the difference on a particular piece of kit? that's a whole perception argument

with my squeezeboxes I read somewhere that the processors aren't the quickest things around and anything that takes the load off should in theory help, since at gigabit my network can cope with streaming raw wav files pretty happily, and my homebuilt NAS has a shedload more processing power I figured I'd try decoding on the server.

Personally I could tell a difference in an A to B comparison at the time. Enough that in normal use I'd go, ooh that Flacs not so good?, not really but then since when did that stop us tweaking :-)

[Werner Berghofer]

Stan,

That's the point of the object. If you can hear a difference, then a difference exists.
in the spirit of this statement I now hereby declare: If you cannot hear a difference, then a difference does not exist.


So those who claim that lossless is lossless and have bought into those claims by the people who wrote the algorithms that try to prove that there is no difference, should stop repeating claims like a parrot, and do their own extensive research as well.

Feel free to suspect whatever you want how I came to my opinion. However, I can assure you that I did extensively research and compare the different lossless audio formats before converting my collection of more than 1,000 CDs. I don’t have access to a scientific audio lab, but maybe my equipment wasn’t revealing enough or my ears are just bad. My conclusion was that I did not notice any differences in playback quality when comparing WAV, AIFF, ALAC and FLAC. As a matter of fact, due to the lack of support for useful tags I consider WAV the least suitable file format to use in a file-based music collection.

Please enlighten me: If I decide to use one of your ultra-revealing Caiman MkII DACs powered by a 12V battery, what brand of battery do you recommend? Would it be the best to directly import a certain UK brand, or are the batteries available from the next supermarket sufficient? In case a battery powered PSU is not an option for me, what type of alternating current delivers the best sound: the one from a river power plant, a coal power plant, a hydroelectric or a nuclear power station?

Werner.

[AlfaGTV]

Thanks all. I am going to use Flac for the very reasons given by skimminstones. However I hadn't realised the array of software and hardware available to interface between the flac and my amp.

I think I might take a punt on the airplay receiver for £20 and see how I go from there, but will give serious consideration to a dedicated streamer and getting rid of my CD player completly.

If i were in your situation i would have a look at a Sonos Connect, you could attach your hard drive to your network, share it and be done with it already!
Sonos dont need server software, only a share, manage all formats mentioned so far without complaint including Alac.
It connects easily to your Quad CDP using optical or electrical SPDIF and sound very reasonable as a digital transport!
Besides, the handling and ease of use put most other options to shame, incl the Pioneer N-50 (i have and use both the N-50 and a Sonos)

Atb Mike
Edit: and yes, it sounds quite clearly better fed with AIFF files than ALAC or FLAC for that matter. I can hear the difference so obviously there IS a difference ;)

[NRG]

Stan,

in the spirit of this statement I now hereby declare: If you cannot hear a difference, then a difference does not exist.



Feel free to suspect whatever you want how I came to my opinion. However, I can assure you that I did extensively research and compare the different lossless audio formats before converting my collection of more than 1,000 CDs. I don’t have access to a scientific audio lab, but maybe my equipment wasn’t revealing enough or my ears are just bad. My conclusion was that I did not notice any differences in playback quality when comparing WAV, AIFF, ALAC and FLAC. As a matter of fact, due to the lack of support for useful tags I consider WAV the least suitable file format to use in a file-based music collection.

Please enlighten me: If I decide to use one of your ultra-revealing Caiman MkII DACs powered by a 12V battery, what brand of battery do you recommend? Would it be the best to directly import a certain UK brand, or are the batteries available from the next supermarket sufficient? In case a battery powered PSU is not an option for me, what type of alternating current delivers the best sound: the one from a river power plant, a coal power plant, a hydroelectric or a nuclear power station?

Werner.

I think the topic is worthy of investigation and experimentation, yes, I'm skeptical but I want to understand where Stan is coming from.... however, what it does not deserve or require is cheap sarcasm Werner.

[Canetoad]

I don't really want to test to see if wav or flac plays better in my system. If wav was better my OC would kick in and I'd be trapped between tagging and sound quality! I'm with Werner, wav is pretty useless as a format to me as well due to lack of tags. :)

[StanleyB]

I don't really want to test to see if wav or flac plays better in my system. If wav was better my OC would kick in and I'd be trapped between tagging and sound quality! I'm with Werner, wav is pretty useless as a format to me as well due to lack of tags. :)
I keep hearing these rumours that WAV has no tags or can't be tagged, but that's not true at all. All my WAV files are tagged :scratch:. Have you guys tried using Tag&Rename to edit and tag your WAV (and other formats) files? Mediamonkey also shows up the tags in my WAV files. So I have to dismiss the urban legend and false claim that WAV can't be tagged.

[purite audio]

You can tag WAV files but the metadata won't stay with the file once you move it, FLAC or AIFF if you are Apple based far more convenient.
Keith.

[Markiii]

According to this wav can be tagged, sort of

http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?94016-Is-it-possible-to-tag-WAV-files/page2

[Koning]

Basically, if you are hearing a difference between a lossless compressed file and an uncompressed file, 'you are doing it wrong'. ;) 'You' in this case being either your hardware, your software or the combination of the two. As Werner explained decompressing a flac file yields exactly the same bits in memory or on your hard drive as the original uncompressed wav file. When playing these files there simply can not exist an audible difference between the compressed/decompressed version and the original wav.

However, when decompressing a flac (or other lossless format) 'on the fly', any number of things can go 'wrong'. For instance there can be electrical interference from hardware components working on the reading/decompression or timing differences due to lack of adequate performance. Therefore the ideal player should first read and decompress (if necessary) an entire disk (or two) worth of files before playing (and only playing) them from memory. In this case the bits in memory will be exactly the same and there won't be a difference between lossless and uncompressed. Given the fact that a CD is less than 1 GB in size and should only take a few seconds to load/decompress, this approach is completely feasable. If you implement this in software, there can still be audible differences between two sessions playing the same song, but this will be caused by the hardware/operating system doing other tasks than just playing music. So ideally, this approach should be implemented on dedicated hardware, not on general purpose PCs.

Maybe somebody has already build a player around this concept and maybe I've now given somebody an idea that will make him filthy rich :doh:

[Werner Berghofer]

Mark,

According to this wav can be tagged, sort of
exactly: “sort of”. The problem with the WAV format is that most advanced meta-tags won’t remain embedded in the file, but are stored in a proprietary format in the audio player’s local library file, separated from the file containing the actual audio data. Once you move your cafefully tagged WAV files to another player software, another operating system or playback device, most of these tags simply vanish. This is not the case when using ALAC or FLAC files; both formats are lossless (100 percent bit identical to the original PCM data on a redbook audio CD) but use less disk space than WAV or AIFF files, non-proprietary, open source, public domain and fully preserve any embedded tags, no matter what kind of playback software, operating system and device is used.

To seriously suggest the WAV file format as foundation for a file-based audio library might be caused by the erroneous assumption that everybody uses Microsoft Windows and Mediamonkey or the (now obsolete) Logitech Squeezebox.

[Markiii]

I'm not seriously suggesting anything, just offering some clarity to the debate as to wether wav can be tagged or not

Which as I said, it can, sort of

[NRG]

You can tag WAV files but the metadata won't stay with the file once you move it, FLAC or AIFF if you are Apple based far more convenient.
Keith.

Sure it can. WAV supports a variety of metadata tags, it just depends on how the file is tagged and what player you are using. IE: if it understands the tag.

More info here: http://wavmetadata.blogspot.co.uk

And here: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/WAV

However, I find FLAC a whole lot easier plus it supports album art where WAV doesn't

[Gordon Steadman]

Sure it can. WAV supports a variety of metadata tags, it just depends on how the file is tagged and what player you are using. IE: if it understands the tag.

More info here: http://wavmetadata.blogspot.co.uk

And here: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/WAV

However, I find FLAC a whole lot easier plus it supports album art where WAV doesn't

That would be a clincher for me. having the album art displayed is, for me, an essential part of the enjoyment.

[Werner Berghofer]

Mark,

I'm not seriously suggesting anything, just offering some clarity to the debate as to wether wav can be tagged or not […]
please excuse me, I didn’t want to affront you. What I wrote about suggesting WAV files for a music library was not directly addressed to you. I’m sorry.

Werner.

[purite audio]

Broadcast WAV does support meta but it is a different protocol .
Keith.