Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Ripping Software

I forgot to mention, just because a disc looks pristine doesn't mean it can't have problems being read. Bad stampings etc.

I just stick with 5 the default for FLAC conversion. I have only a few discs out of 200 that required more frame scans. Most I have spent on a disc is about 10 minutes. Most are around 2 to 5 minutes.

...and copy protection...

FYI Maybe you already know.

I finally ripped an HDCD to FLAC 24 bit! Horrified by the loud hiss from my speakers when I pressed play. Turns out FLAC must be converted to PCM in the squeezebox not the PC for 24 bit FLAC.

Now I know!

Say again? Your post was a little confusing.

I go FLAC to HDCD filter back to FLAC in dBpoweramp and on squeezecenter it's FLAC to FLAC (i.e. squeezebox/transporter decodes the FLAC).

Actually if I recall squeezebox/transporter cannot handle 24bit WAV (as it's not a standard). And if I recall you said you were going FLAC to WAV in squeeze center which might cause problems with 24 bit. Is that what your saying?

Yup! You got it! I was using FLAC to WAV in squeezecenter and 24 bit just isn't supported. No big deal.

The problem is, and this is something I discussed with the SlimDevices guys years ago, that the SqueezeBox does not read the header of a wavefile and assumes it is 16 bits ... the solution is indeed as you already discovered to use FLAC. This is also the reason the Audio Remaster 'script' for the convert.conf file encodes the result of Audio Remaster to FLAC.

Ahhh. This explains the duff results I had a couple of months ago when ripping my few HDCDs with the HDCD DSP option... I was also trying it with a SB1 which IIRC doesn't have hardware FLAC support.

I will not bother with HDCD conversion to 24 bit FLAC for the few HDCD's I have. I just find decoding FLAC to PCM in squeezecenter before streaming to the squeeze box to sound better. I tried to live with streaming FLAC but I can't. When I compare the sound from my 598 with the squeezebox clearly they sound very similar when I stream PCM. Streaming FLAC the sound stage is smaller and less dynamic and bass is not as tight. It's not a big difference but it's there.

Encode the HDCD in WMA lossless or Ogg and let that format only transmit native.

Squeezebox natively supports WAV, FLAC, Ogg, and WMA and you can handle each format differently.

I only have a couple/few HDCD's anyway. I may run into the same issue I have now with the other formats. So 24 bit WAV streamed to the squeezebox will work? I thought you could only use FLAC files for 24 bit audio with the squeezebox 3.

No, you can use any native format that supports 24 bit, FLAC isn't the only one. WAV doesn't support greater than 16bit but the other formats do that are still native. You can trick it but using a different native format with different rules applied. If you don't hear a differnce worth while on HDCD processing but do on WAV vs FLAC I don't know what to say.