Vortexbox serving WAV files

[aVB4myHifi]

Hi

Is it now possible for a VB to serve WAV files to your renderer of choice? If I understand the ripping process correctly, VB rips to WAV, albeit temporarily, and then transcodes to FLAC adding the required metadata. But can it be set to transcode those FLAC files back to WAV on the fly before sending them to a renderer of choice?

Many thanks for your help with this!
Dan

[andrew]

WAV files are almost useless because of their lack of ID3 tags. You might be able to get this working with some hacking but it won't do you much good. Why would you want wav files?

[aVB4myHifi]

I have a Naim Audio system and WAV sounds slightly better with Naim streamers than FLAC. I know FLAC is lossless but it needs to be decompressed by the renderer before it can be played. It seems that this decompression process has a slightly negative impact on sound quality. WAV sounds slightly better with Naim streamers, it's what they recommend too. Hence it would be great, if VB were able to transcode FLAC to WAV on the fly before sending the file out to over the network. Asset UPnP server has that functionality as an option. If you guys implemented this as an option in the VB GUI it would be a big hit with the Naim community and there are a lot of Naim Audio owners out there. What do you think, can this be done? I couldn't do it, I don't know anything about software programming...

Many thanks
Dan

[garym]

Hmmm, Sorry I can't help here, but it seems surprising as there is not much processing power needed to decode a FLAC file. Have any NAIM users done some simple double blind tests to confirm that they are actually hearing a difference between WAV and FLAC on the NAIM units. The suggestion by NAIM is not surprising, as many high-end audio manufacturers/dealers are very confused about lossless audio and the sound benefits of WAV. See for example the insane stuff being published by TAS on digital files.

p.s. although I wouldn't need this option, if easy enough to implement, it could be useful to users in different situations I suspect and could help expand the userbase.

[andrew]

You might want to work with Naim to resolve this. SqueezeBox used to have this problem as well. But they fixed their FLAC decoding code so now there is no difference between WAV and FLAC. Decoding FLAC is trivial and if done right requires very little processing power. If Nami can't fix their code you might want to look into a player such a Linn that can play FLAC with the same quality as WAV.

[aVB4myHifi]

Hi Andrew, thanks for your reply. Naim have chosen WAV as the format they found to deliver the best quality sound at the high end of hifi, so their streamers simply sound best with WAV files. The difference is small but in a high end system it is audible. So if you are interested in the best quality sound possible than WAV is the best format to deliver to their streamers. At the very high end every little performance issue can make a difference and the decompressing of FLAC files introduces some amount of noise into the electrical circuit thereby having an influence on sound. So it would be great if VB could be configured to deliver WAV files. Would this be possible? Asset UPnP can do it why not VB?

garym - yes there have been people doing blind tests and they have heard a difference, albeit small.

Many thanks
Dan

[beeka]

The theory is that the decoding of FLAC will introduce variability into the system: i.e. each frame will require different sums to be applied. Also the required rate of data transmitted over the Ethernet / read from the drive will also vary depending on the compression achieved in each frame. This causes the processor load to vary and creates RF interference / changing load on the power supply and can affect the sound. Statistically reliable A-B double-blind testing of Hi-Fi is notoriously difficult and measurable qualities in audio seem elusive (e.g. how do you measure one hi-fi to be "less tiring" than another one).

My personal view is that the effects are either psychological or need fixing - buying any piece of equipment from Naim is not cheap and they should be able to design something to shield RF noise from the DAC section. I have a NaimUniti and am very happy with the FLAC stream. I would hope the new NDS with matching pre/power amp and associated power supplies would be more forgiving with an input signal rather than less - the NDS is over £6,000 so a full system must be around the £15,000 mark.

Having said all that, I have successfully compiled miniDLNA with the transcoding patch for my vortexbox. It streams PCM to my Samsung DLNA blu-ray player (which doesn't handle FLAC) and also the PS3. MiniDLNA only supplies PCM if the device asks for it and the Naim front display suggests it is getting FLAC. It may be possible to force transcoding but I haven't looked into it. If PCM is the preferred streaming format, maybe Naim could change the streamers to ask for it.

Regards,

Steve.

[Ron Olsen]

Naim users could also consider using Serviio for the DLNA server instead of minidlna. Serviio has transcoding options that may help. See How To Install the Serviio DLNA Server

[andrew]

At the very high end every little performance issue can make a difference and the decompressing of FLAC files introduces some amount of noise into the electrical circuit thereby having an influence on sound.

This is actually not true. There is a processor in the Naim as in all network players that decodes the sound and sends it to the DAC. There in no difference in the amount of electrical noise decoding a FLAC or WAV. When you are decoding FALC the stream is not linear so you need to buffer it correctly to make sure your not introducing jitter. May players from the low end Logitech Touch to high end $15K+ players have code that does this very well.

Your saying that because Naim refuses to optimize their code that we should write code make up for it? I'm not sure we should write special code just for one player. We would need to be very careful when writing the conversion code as to not introduce jitter in the VortexBox. Wouldn't it be better to get the player manufacture to just fix their unit to work with standard files?

When FLAC files were first introduced they got a bad reputation with Audiophiles because many players could not play them as well as WAVs. Now virtually all the players out there can play FLACs as well as WAVs and Audiophiles can finally have one standard format to store their files.

[aVB4myHifi]

This is actually not true. There is a processor in the Naim as in all network players that decodes the sound and sends it to the DAC. There in no difference in the amount of electrical noise decoding a FLAC or WAV. When you are decoding FALC the stream is not linear so you need to buffer it correctly to make sure your not introducing jitter. May players from the low end Logitech Touch to high end $15K+ players have code that does this very well.

Your saying that because Naim refuses to optimize their code that we should write code make up for it? I'm not sure we should write special code just for one player. We would need to be very careful when writing the conversion code as to not introduce jitter in the VortexBox. Wouldn't it be better to get the player manufacture to just fix their unit to work with standard files?

When FLAC files were first introduced they got a bad reputation with Audiophiles because many players could not play them as well as WAVs. Now virtually all the players out there can play FLACs as well as WAVs and Audiophiles can finally have one standard format to store their files.

Sorry, I was trying to make sense of it somehow, I thought this might be the reason, obviously I was wrong. Suffice to say that Naim have a number of streaming products on the market now and as far as I know all of them fall into the bracket where WAV sounds slightly (and I emphasize the word slightly) better than FLAC on a high end and revealing enough system. The new NDS may be an exception but it's beyond what I can afford, so it's out of the question I'll be buying one anytime soon. It remains to be seen what improvements Naim make to their code, if as you say this is the area that needs improving, I don't know. Otherwise I believe Naim are likely to take the stance, if you want best results get a server that can serve up WAV files. They do have their own server solutions that save and serve in WAV. Other UPnP servers can do it as well, I mentioned Asset. My hope was that you VB guys would have an interest in implementing a function that allows for on the fly transcoding of FLAC to WAV as it would widen the appeal of your solution, giving VB a broader market appeal and acceptance. As I have mentioned there is a large Naim community globally. Anyways, I will test it myself and see what I hear. I just took delivery of one of their streamers a couple of weeks ago and thus far have been running PlayBack on my MacBook as my UPnP server of choice. I have an old Windows laptop lying around and will install Asset to test FLAC vs. WAV. If I can't hear a difference VB could be an option, if I do, I need to think about it.

Thanks
Dan