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

I thought about getting a linear power supply for the SB3 to see if that makes a difference.

Hey George,

HDCD's do sound wonderful in 24 bit! The WMA lossless worked great. I did compare the WMA and FLAC files and they sound the same in 24 bit. I then listened to the 16 bit FLAC without the HDCD decoding and streaming PCM to the SQ3 sounded closer to the 24 bit than streaming FLAC to the SB3. The 16 bit FLAC has louder low level sounds thus less dynamic. Streaming FLAC 16 bit just sounded even flatter. By the way I did this listening to the HDCD "Pomps and Pipes!" The Dallas Wind Symphony! I could listen to the placement of the band members on the stage. Depth, detail, Macro and micro dynamics are really great on the 24 bit files. The 24 bit files are like being there. Sounded as good as any of my best DVD-Audio discs for sure.

I love this! Having all my collection at the tip of my fingers. I still have a way to go before i am finished ripping the remainder of my collection. My Classical collection takes extra time to get the meta data right. Rock I can fly through. I have to scan cover art for my time life and classical CD's.

Ron

Well while you are at it, can you try comparing the same 16bit song in wma, FLAC, pcm, and FLAC with 0 compression.

Technically they should all sound the same but if you hear a difference it would be nice to know where it's coming from.

Also I should point out I am using Squeezecenter 7.4 builds. It required new firmware for the SQ3.

It sounds similar to sending 24 bit and cutting it off some bits. The sound is flatter streaming FLAC. I should set my 518 to bypass or 24 bit input and see if it changes the sound when streaming FLAC instead of PCM. I assume it is sending 16 bit but maybe its not or maybe dither is set to the wrong level. It may just be somthing like dither making it sound different.

16bit WAV vs 16bit FLAC of the same content should be sending the same thing out over SPDIF.

I would hope so! Maybe my 518 has something to do with it. I'll try bypass tonight and eliminate the 16 to 24 bit conversion in the 518.

Try the other formats too (WMA and FLAC with 0 compression) if you can, should not take that long to try it out.

For Macintosh users that require additional features to iTunes (up to 20 compressed and uncompressed formats) I suggest the open-source software known as 'Max'...

http://sbooth.org/Max/#max