DSD playback options

[Kevin Scott]

I hope this is the right place for this question.
I was following another thread about ripping SACD files to DSD using a blu-ray player. I did all that successfully.
I have these files now and I wanted to hear the quality of the files through a Sonos Beam I just picked up recently. I may have bitten off more than I can chew however, I DID burn the files in multichannel and that seems to be more than SOMETHING can handle, whether it's my NAS Synology software or my own limited understanding, speaking of which...
It seems to me that to hear the separation of the multichannel recording I need to be working with PCM files and I've now tried converting the original .dsf files to both FLAC and WAV. I thought that to mean no loss of sound quality but if it's going to turn them into stereo files, that WOULD be a loss of sound quality, would it not?
Anyway the NAS software doesn't know what to do with the .dsf files and it also won't even recognize the FLAC ones even though it's supposed to play them.
I'm not even a newbie at this stuff, I'm an absolute beginner but I have a LITTLE bit of knowledge now and that seems to be messing me up. If anyone can offer suggestions please be gentle and I thank you in advance.

 

[MikeyFresh]

I hope this is the right place for this question.
I was following another thread about ripping SACD files to DSD using a blu-ray player. I did all that successfully.
I have these files now and I wanted to hear the quality of the files through a Sonos Beam I just picked up recently. I may have bitten off more than I can chew however, I DID burn the files in multichannel and that seems to be more than SOMETHING can handle, whether it's my NAS Synology software or my own limited understanding, speaking of which...
It seems to me that to hear the separation of the multichannel recording I need to be working with PCM files and I've now tried converting the original .dsf files to both FLAC and WAV. I thought that to mean no loss of sound quality but if it's going to turn them into stereo files, that WOULD be a loss of sound quality, would it not?
Anyway the NAS software doesn't know what to do with the .dsf files and it also won't even recognize the FLAC ones even though it's supposed to play them.
I'm not even a newbie at this stuff, I'm an absolute beginner but I have a LITTLE bit of knowledge now and that seems to be messing me up. If anyone can offer suggestions please be gentle and I thank you in advance.

Don't worry about being a newbie at anything, we all started somewhere and in fact all continue to learn new things, or explore areas of audio reproduction that we know little or nothing about. Don't sweat it.

In your above post you are conflating several things that don't have much to do with each other, so we'll start there with that basic clarification, and then from there hopefully other members more attuned to all things multichannel can hopefully chime in, as I don't have a MCH setup and am thus poorly equipped to fully comment on it.

In terms of the MCH files you ripped from SACDs, those can only be played back on a proper multichannel system, those files will have either 4, 5.1, or even 6 discrete channels of audio on them. That means you need a system that has that number of speakers, and channels of amplification, not mention a source that can output 4-6 channels to those amps/speakers.

A Sonos Beam is a very nice unit, but it's not a true multichannel system as described above, though you can add two rear channels in the form of the Era 100. I believe the only input option is HDMI, so you'd need an HDMI source such as an AVR, or a Blu-ray player to send the data to the Beam. I know the Beam does Dolby Atmos, but thats not at all the same format as that found on an SACD, or even a DVD for that matter. Let's set aside the Sonos Beam, and ultimate playback through it for a moment.

Moving backwards, the data you ripped from SACD is in .dsf file format, and you mentioned a Synology NAS as the storage point for that, but that the NAS doesn't recognize the .dsf tracks? What media server software are you using on that NAS, just the Synology DLNA media server? If so you will need to install and activate something like MinimServer, as that program once configured does recognize .dsf files, and it sounds like whatever you are currently using as a media server on that NAS does not. But before you do that...

Since the Sonos Beam will never play .dsf files, this sounds very much like a common situation with various playback pieces including AVRs, Blu-ray players etc... whereby those .dsf files you ripped from the SACDs will need to be converted to FLAC (PCM) before you can play them. A version of that very same topic is being discussed in the previous few posts in this same thread, in that case to enable gapless playback, but in your case to enable playback at all, you'll need to convert those .dsf files to FLAC as the Beam will never play them as dsf. But before you do that...

What is connected to the Sonos Beam, i.e. what is the source that drives the Beam via HDMI, is it a Blu-ray player, or is the NAS connected directly to it via Ethernet (or WiFi)?

For the Control Point app, are you using Android, or iOS?

 

[Gene_StL]

When you go from Stereo to Multi Channel the complexity goes up especially with the multiplicity of formats both physical and software.

I am sure it is why multichannel audio is not more popular.

I put audio on hiatus about 1994 when I was using Red Book CD audio. At that time I had built multiples of most everything in the system including etching a circuit board for a four way electronic crossover and collecting parts for a straight line tone arm. I also had some computer experience.


I liked the idea of Quadrophonic in the seventies but I stopped listening to rock and there was little classical music released at the time. Not enough to make me expand my stereo.

When I came back to the hobby I was very delighted to see the expansion of lossless multichannel. But I was completely confused. So don't let it overwhelm you. It is a very complex thing to try and get a multichannel system working especially if it started out as stereo and or was not concieved from the ground up to do so.

I personally found it cognitively dissonant to not understand these many layers that all need to work together. It was very useful to me to read and study Dr. Mark Waldrep's book. In it you will likely find answers to questions you didn't know to ask.

Music and Audio:

A User Guide To Better Sound

www.musicandaudioguide.com

The questions you didn't know to ask are a continuing theme in this journey. There is another very nice forum you can attend if you get very interested in multichannel. That is the place for multichannel die hards. Like this group it is a very nice and well moderated group.

New posts

www.quadraphonicquad.com

My point is that even though I had a great stereo, electronics and computer background , it took me a good while of actually studying all the formatting in multichannel. And because Atmos is a highly restricted , licensed black box it is even more complicated , although there are starting to be some open source and free standing solutions appearing.

 

[MikeyFresh]

When you go from Stereo to Multi Channel the complexity goes up especially with the multiplicity of formats both physical and software.

I am sure it is why multichannel audio is not more popular.

I put audio on hiatus about 1994 when I was using Red Book CD audio. At that time I had built multiples of most everything in the system including etching a circuit board for a four way electronic crossover and collecting parts for a straight line tone arm. I also had some computer experience.


I liked the idea of Quadrophonic in the seventies but I stopped listening to rock and there was little classical music released at the time. Not enough to make me expand my stereo.

When I came back to the hobby I was very delighted to see the expansion of lossless multichannel. But I was completely confused. So don't let it overwhelm you. It is a very complex thing to try and get a multichannel system working especially if it started out as stereo and or was not concieved from the ground up to do so.

I personally found it cognitively dissonant to not understand these many layers that all need to work together. It was very useful to me to read and study Dr. Mark Waldrep's book. In it you will likely find answers to questions you didn't know to ask.

Music and Audio:

A User Guide To Better Sound

www.musicandaudioguide.com

The questions you didn't know to ask are a continuing theme in this journey. There is another very nice forum you can attend if you get very interested in multichannel. That is the place for multichannel die hards. Like this group it is a very nice and well moderated group.

New posts

www.quadraphonicquad.com

My point is that even though I had a great stereo, electronics and computer background , it took me a good while of actually studying all the formatting in multichannel. And because Atmos is a highly restricted , licensed black box it is even more complicated , although there are starting to be some open source and free standing solutions appearing.

Well said, and I'm sure QQ is a better place to get into the weeds with expert advice on multichannel playback. I think we can probably get the NAS/DLNA media server side of things settled here, but from there in terms of actual playback using the chain as described, I fear Sonos will be the devil in the details.

Sonos does not play well with others, they want you firmly in their ecosystem to stay, and so they don't document or explain their proprietary implementations of things like DLNA, or UPnP, to the extent it is easy to see what will work/interoperate with a Sonos playback system. This is true not only of the hardware itself, but also of the Sonos app. I think using a media server such as MinimServer on the NAS, and a 3rd party Control Point such as Bubble or mconnect might be the only solution here in getting around the Sonos walled garden. Logitech Media Server (if it runs on a Synology NAS) would also be an excellent choice in the category of "it just works".

 

[Kevin Scott]

Don't worry about being a newbie at anything, we all started somewhere and in fact all continue to learn new things, or explore areas of audio reproduction that we know little or nothing about. Don't sweat it.

In your above post you are conflating several things that don't have much to do with each other, so we'll start there with that basic clarification, and then from there hopefully other members more attuned to all things multichannel can hopefully chime in, as I don't have a MCH setup and am thus poorly equipped to fully comment on it.

In terms of the MCH files you ripped from SACDs, those can only be played back on a proper multichannel system, those files will have either 4, 5.1, or even 6 discrete channels of audio on them. That means you need a system that has that number of speakers, and channels of amplification, not mention a source that can output 4-6 channels to those amps/speakers.

A Sonos Beam is a very nice unit, but it's not a true multichannel system as described above, though you can add two rear channels in the form of the Era 100. I believe the only input option is HDMI, so you'd need an HDMI source such as an AVR, or a Blu-ray player to send the data to the Beam. I know the Beam does Dolby Atmos, but thats not at all the same format as that found on an SACD, or even a DVD for that matter. Let's set aside the Sonos Beam, and ultimate playback through it for a moment.

Moving backwards, the data you ripped from SACD is in .dsf file format, and you mentioned a Synology NAS as the storage point for that, but that the NAS doesn't recognize the .dsf tracks? What media server software are you using on that NAS, just the Synology DLNA media server? If so you will need to install and activate something like MinimServer, as that program once configured does recognize .dsf files, and it sounds like whatever you are currently using as a media server on that NAS does not. But before you do that...

Since the Sonos Beam will never play .dsf files, this sounds very much like a common situation with various playback pieces including AVRs, Blu-ray players etc... whereby those .dsf files you ripped from the SACDs will need to be converted to FLAC (PCM) before you can play them. A version of that very same topic is being discussed in the previous few posts in this same thread, in that case to enable gapless playback, but in your case to enable playback at all, you'll need to convert those .dsf files to FLAC as the Beam will never play them as dsf. But before you do that...

What is connected to the Sonos Beam, i.e. what is the source that drives the Beam via HDMI, is it a Blu-ray player, or is the NAS connected directly to it via Ethernet (or WiFi)?

For the Control Point app, are you using Android, or iOS?

OK, I'll address these in the same haphazard order I presented them...

My understanding with the Sonos Beam is that while it's not a system with 4-6 speakers it's supposed to approximate that with just the one bar. I hope I haven't misrepresented that but that's how it was explained to me. I HAVE noticed it does that quite well with things in 5.1 surround sound so I guess I just expected it would behave the same way with SACD files. It's never going to be a 4-speaker thing but I hoped for the closest approximation. I will go full multichannel with the appropriate number of speakers someday but that's a ways off.

Thanks for the tip about MinimServer, I will try that out. I think what I use now is just called Media Server which I downloaded from Package Center.

I have the Beam connected to my TV - in the ARC port. Trying for improved sound in all areas, not just audio.

Using iOs.

Huge apology for the delay in posting, I had gotten conditioned to checking only when there was a notification. For whatever reason that stopped happening.

 

[Kevin Scott]

When you go from Stereo to Multi Channel the complexity goes up especially with the multiplicity of formats both physical and software.

I am sure it is why multichannel audio is not more popular.

I put audio on hiatus about 1994 when I was using Red Book CD audio. At that time I had built multiples of most everything in the system including etching a circuit board for a four way electronic crossover and collecting parts for a straight line tone arm. I also had some computer experience.


I liked the idea of Quadrophonic in the seventies but I stopped listening to rock and there was little classical music released at the time. Not enough to make me expand my stereo.

When I came back to the hobby I was very delighted to see the expansion of lossless multichannel. But I was completely confused. So don't let it overwhelm you. It is a very complex thing to try and get a multichannel system working especially if it started out as stereo and or was not concieved from the ground up to do so.

I personally found it cognitively dissonant to not understand these many layers that all need to work together. It was very useful to me to read and study Dr. Mark Waldrep's book. In it you will likely find answers to questions you didn't know to ask.

Music and Audio:

A User Guide To Better Sound

www.musicandaudioguide.com

The questions you didn't know to ask are a continuing theme in this journey. There is another very nice forum you can attend if you get very interested in multichannel. That is the place for multichannel die hards. Like this group it is a very nice and well moderated group.

New posts

www.quadraphonicquad.com

My point is that even though I had a great stereo, electronics and computer background , it took me a good while of actually studying all the formatting in multichannel. And because Atmos is a highly restricted , licensed black box it is even more complicated , although there are starting to be some open source and free standing solutions appearing.

It's a relief to know this is a complex thing for lots of people but I'm maybe attempting too much being so new to it. I can tell you I certainly learned a lot about multichannel/stereo, PCM, FLAC, SACD, DSD etc. in the past couple of weeks. It's hard to know when and if I'm being overambitious.

I'm going to check out that guide you mentioned, thank you SO much and once again apology for the delay in response! It seems the more we try not to let our newbieness show it finds a way to amplify itself.

 

[Kevin Scott]

Well said, and I'm sure QQ is a better place to get into the weeds with expert advice on multichannel playback. I think we can probably get the NAS/DLNA media server side of things settled here, but from there in terms of actual playback using the chain as described, I fear Sonos will be the devil in the details.

Sonos does not play well with others, they want you firmly in their ecosystem to stay, and so they don't document or explain their proprietary implementations of things like DLNA, or UPnP, to the extent it is easy to see what will work/interoperate with a Sonos playback system. This is true not only of the hardware itself, but also of the Sonos app. I think using a media server such as MinimServer on the NAS, and a 3rd party Control Point such as Bubble or mconnect might be the only solution here in getting around the Sonos walled garden. Logitech Media Server (if it runs on a Synology NAS) would also be an excellent choice in the category of "it just works".

It may just be that my Sonos Beam is something that gives me improved sound on my movies and TV shows but with all these esoteric file types it might be better to find another route!

 

[MikeyFresh]

It may just be that my Sonos Beam is something that gives me improved sound on my movies and TV shows but with all these esoteric file types it might be better to find another route!

Could be, but if you care to jump through the hoops of installing a compatible NAS media server such as MinimServer, and can convert .dsf files to PCM, that might just play on the Sonos system.

Probably a good idea to nail down which exact file types Sonos supports before jumping through the above hoops.

 

[Kevin Scott]

Could be, but if you care to jump through the hoops of installing a compatible NAS media server such as MinimServer, and can convert .dsf files to PCM, that might just play on the Sonos system.

Probably a good idea to nail down which exact file types Sonos supports before jumping through the above hoops.

I was away a few days for holidays but am back at this process, still want to hear these Moody Blues SACDs as they were intended! I did get MinimServer installed. You mentioned Bubble or mconnect, am I right in thinking these are the "front ends" I use to play from MinimServer? I looked into mconnect and it appears to have a free version and one you pay for, not sure if the free one gives me what I need. Bubble I couldn't find much information about.

Hopeful to get Sonos to "play nice".

 

[MikeyFresh]

You mentioned Bubble or mconnect, am I right in thinking these are the "front ends" I use to play from MinimServer?

Yes, in DLNA/UPnP parlance they are known as Control Points, as they are used to browse content and control playback.

I looked into mconnect and it appears to have a free version and one you pay for, not sure if the free one gives me what I need.

The free version is full featured, but they will occasionally serve you banner ads unless you pay.

 

[MikeyFresh]

I did get MinimServer installed.

Did you configure it, i.e. has it found and scanned your music library?

 

[MikeyFresh]

Bubble I couldn't find much information about.

BubbleUPnP is Android only, if you only have iOS devices then it won't be an option for you.

 

[Kevin Scott]

BubbleUPnP is Android only, if you only have iOS devices then it won't be an option for you.

Thanks. I do have iOS so I won't use Bubble.
My library has been scanned but life has gotten in the way and I haven't been able to really sit down with it, so tonight I'll spend some dedicated time with it and mconnect and hopefully get a bit of happiness.

 

[Kevin Scott]

BubbleUPnP is Android only, if you only have iOS devices then it won't be an option for you.

OK, an update. I really thought I was about to hear the music I've agonized over for so long, but oddly mconnect doesn't display the Moody Blues album folders which contain the FLAC files (which I converted to FLAC from .dsf). It shows all the folders for the albums that have the plain old mp3 files, but not the others.

Have I maybe screwed something up in converting the files from .dsf to FLAC? A setting I missed? Is FLAC always going to be PCM?

There seems to be no issue with MinimServer, it scanned the library just fine.

 

[MikeyFresh]

OK, an update. I really thought I was about to hear the music I've agonized over for so long, but oddly mconnect doesn't display the Moody Blues album folders which contain the FLAC files (which I converted to FLAC from .dsf). It shows all the folders for the albums that have the plain old mp3 files, but not the others.

Have I maybe screwed something up in converting the files from .dsf to FLAC? A setting I missed? Is FLAC always going to be PCM?

There seems to be no issue with MinimServer, it scanned the library just fine.

While mconnect can definitely read FLAC files, I do not know if it supports multichannel FLAC playback. I believe that it does and would even support multichannel DSF too, assuming one had compatible playback hardware, which is typically not the case as that seems to be a very rare thing in terms of hardware compatibility.

I do know that MinimServer supports multichannel playback, and indeed DLNA/UPnP more broadly does too, but the other pieces to your puzzle, including whether or not the Sonos speaker is going to play ball or not I just don't know being I don't actually have any MCH system setup.

So MinimServer finds and scans these tracks, and while the mconnect app seems to find other stereo tracks, it doesn't see the MCH ones, or mconnect is not seeing anything at all on that server?

 

[reverber]

When I rip CDs I can rip all the audio in 1 flac and store a cue file with all the track info, is there such a thing for SACDs?

Ah, a kindred spirit.
I wish there was something like abcde and flactag for sacd.

I just recently started archiving my SACDs and this is what I have so far.
I use the command line ripper in Linux and use the following flags:

-e, --output-dsdiff-em          : output as Philips DSDIFF (Edit Master) file
-C, --export-cue                : Export a CUE Sheet

I then use ffmpeg to convert the .dff file to flac.

ffmpeg -i [filename].dff -af "lowpass=24000, volume=6db" sample_fmt -s32 -ar 96000

(this results in a 24/96 file)
I then edit the cue file to point to the new flac instead of the dff.

My Logitech Media Server (LMS) is able read the cue and play the corresponding track from the flac archive file.

The issue I am having is that I like to embed everything into one file - cue, tags, artwork (which I do with my CDs). For some reason, embedding the cuesheet doesn't work - the index times are stripped of formatting. Maybe because metaflac is expecting a redbook-derived file? I haven't tried embedding tags or artwork yet.

 

[MikeyFresh]

For those who still spin optical discs, this new Shanling player/DAC/streamer looks super nice:

Shanling’s SCD1.3 is an CD/SACD player with virtual VU meters | Darko.Audio

It also features a Bluetooth input and AirPlay/UPnP network streaming.

darko.audio