FLAC Problem

[ddjksa]

Hi

Just demoing the 30 day version of Asset UPnP and have to say I'm quite impressed. My set up is using Hi-Fi Cast on my Android phone to stream music from my Asset server on my PC to a Bose SoundTouch ST20 wireless speaker. Works flawlessly most of the time (Hi-Fi Cast being the only Android app I've come across which fixes Bose's crappy implementation of DLNA and actually plays full playlists uninterrupted). Anyway, this setup normally plays every format flawlessly but today I tried a new FLAC album which although it shows as playing on the speaker and the Hi-Fi Cast app on my phone, no sound comes out. I think it's to do with the fact that this FLAC is 24 bit whereas the other FLACs Asset plays seamlessly are 16 bit. The speaker (and Hi-Fi Cast) can both handle 24bit FLAC as is evident when I pick a different server (J-River) so it must be something in Asset. Can Asset handle 24bit FLAC or is there an option to resample/decode it down to 16bit prior to streaming to the speaker? Any help much appreciated otherwise I have to flick to J River every time I want to play a 24bit FLAC.

Thanks

DDJ

[mville]

Re: FLAC Problem

I tried a new FLAC album which although it shows as playing on the speaker and the Hi-Fi Cast app on my phone, no sound comes out. I think it's to do with the fact that this FLAC is 24 bit whereas the other FLACs Asset plays seamlessly are 16 bit. The speaker (and Hi-Fi Cast) can both handle 24bit FLAC as is evident when I pick a different server (J-River) so it must be something in Asset.

Not necessarily. Are you sure the Bose SoundTouch ST20 supports 24-bit flacs? Perhaps the J-River is transcoding to 16-bit.

Can Asset handle 24bit FLAC or is there an option to resample/decode it down to 16bit prior to streaming to the speaker?

Yes, Asset handles 24-bit flacs.

You can tell Asset to transcode to 16-bit. Take a look at the Asset UPnP Configuration help pages.

[ddjksa]

Re: FLAC Problem

Not necessarily. Are you sure the Bose SoundTouch ST20 supports 24-bit flacs? Perhaps the J-River is transcoding to 16-bit.



Yes, Asset handles 24-bit flacs.

You can tell Asset to transcode to 16-bit. Take a look at the Asset UPnP Configuration help pages.

Thanks for the quick reply Mville. I suspect you're correct about J River as I have set the option there to downsample 24bit FLAC to 16bit FLAC. I've set the configuration option in Asset to transcode FLAC as WAV and will let you know if this solves the problem once my library has been rescanned (I may have clicked something incorrectly by accident but it seems that Asset is now rescanning my entire library which is a PITA).

Regards

DDJ

[timster67]

Re: FLAC Problem

mville is quite right. What HiFi review of that speaker has a big "No hi-res support" in the Against column.

[ddjksa]

Re: FLAC Problem

Thanks for the replies guys (Mville I replied to you yesterday but it said it was awaiting "Moderator Approval" and hasn't appeared.) Basically you're quite right. In order to stream these hi-res flacs to my speaker I have to set the options in J River as PCM 16bit and downsample everything to 44100Hz and then they play fine. In Asset I've set the options attached in the picture. Ive tried FLAC as is, as WAV and as LPCM but none work. Is the frequency the problem in that the lowest I can set is 48KHz? Thanks for any help/advice you can give.

DDJ

[timster67]

Re: FLAC Problem

Looks like it is the frequency and I don't know why it's limited to a minimum 48 in Asset. That does seem odd.
You certainly don't want LPCM. If it starts to work you may damage the speaker with that.
Seeing as your speaker is pretty low spec, I'd just transcode everything to mp3!

[ddjksa]

Re: FLAC Problem

Thanks Timster67. I'll keep digging but for now will just need to switch to J River as the Media Server any time I want to play these H-Res files unless anyone else has any ideas? Should've bought a Sonos!

DDJ

[ddjksa]

Re: FLAC Problem

The Digging worked! Had to set the maximum number of channels to 2 (as well as the other options as per the attached screenshot)



Thanks again guys

DDJ

[mville]

Re: FLAC Problem

Remember also, that these maximum settings (bits, frequency and channel) in Asset are global settings.

You are also able to use the Settings Override (Control Point Specific) options [StreamMax16Bit], [StreamMax48KHz] and [StreamMax2Channels], where you can set these settings by a known control point name i.e. your Bose SoundTouch ST20.

[garym]

Re: FLAC Problem

Should've bought a Sonos!

Huh? Sonos won't play any file greater than 16/44.1 (or it may be 48). It doesn't handle 24 bit files at all, no hi-res files, and importantly, has no settings for on the fly conversion. The hi-res files simply won't play in SONOS without the files being manually downconverted to 16/44.1.