Converting HD Tracks to FLAC

[brentano]

Hi all,
As you can see I am new here and don't know much of what I am trying to do, so please be patent with me.

What I am trying to achieve is: I have bought Music Albums from HD Tracks that are as the name suggests in HD quality 96000Hz in 32 bit I think. I can play them OK on my Windows PC using MediaMonkey or Audacity, but I can not play them through my main system my Yamaha AV plays FLAC , MP3, and more but not HD.
The Support people from HD tracks adviced me to call in here, suggesting that db Poweramp would be able to convert to FLAC.
Audacity will only convert to MP3, but why convert such quality sound to MP3.

So this is it in a Nutshell, can anyone guide me to success here.
Many thanks in advance.

[mville]

Re: Converting HD Tracks to FLAC

1. What exact file format, sample rate and bit depth are the HD Tracks?

2. Please confirm which file format, sample rate and bit depth your Yamaha AV plays?

3. How does the Yamaha AV read audio files? i.e. are you streaming the files, playing them from DVD/CD etc.?

[Spoon]

Re: Converting HD Tracks to FLAC

You can convert FLAC to FLAC, include the DSP effect 'resample' and 'bitdepth' set to the maximum that the Yamaha can play. Be-careful not to over write the existing higher quality flac files.

[brentano]

Re: Converting HD Tracks to FLAC

Hi, and thank you mville and Spoon,
as mentioned in my first post, please be patent. I am only beginning to experiment in the finer art of listening to music and don't understand a lot of tech talk, but I am trying.
The HD tracks are in flac 96KHz / 24 bit that is what it states here. Link to HDTracks:

https://www.hdtracks.com/index.php?file=catalogdetail&valbum_code=HD090368032362

Studying my Yamaha Manual again I think I have found something, by the way the Model is: Yamaha RX - V2065.
The following Features I have found:
Digital audio decoders
Dolby True HD, Dolby Digital Plus decoder
DTS-HD Master Audio, DTS- HD High Resolution Audio, DTS Express
Dolby Digital/Dolby Digital EX decoder
DTS, DTS 96/24 decoder, DTS-ES Matrix 6.1, DTS-ES Discrete 6.1
Dolby Pro Logic/Dolby Pro LOgicII/Dolby ProLogicIIx decoder
DSD decoder DTS Neo:6 decoder

This makes me wonder now, if I do can play HD tracks. By the way I should mention that the rest of my music FlAC and some MP3's (320) are all on a 2½" external hard drive that I connect to my USB port on the Yamaha.
I can not find any specific figures as to what sample rate and bit depth the Yamaha can go to for audio only. DTS 96/24 is what I would be capable to produce in audio playing blu ray movies.
What are your thoughts.

[garym]

Re: Converting HD Tracks to FLAC

why not just copy the file to your yamaha connected harddrive and try to play it?

[brentano]

Re: Converting HD Tracks to FLAC

Hi garym, that is what I had done in the first place, but the Yamaha gives me the message " Can not play this file" . Problem being is the Yamaha unable to play it through the USB input, or have I just not been able to find the correct settings. I can play standard flac files without any problems.
Hence my original request to convert HD FLAC to standard FLAC.
I have 3 HD albums on the hard drive and it is the same with all 3.

[garym]

Re: Converting HD Tracks to FLAC

aha. sorry, I missed that point.

[mville]

Re: Converting HD Tracks to FLAC

I can not find any specific figures as to what sample rate and bit depth the Yamaha can go to for audio only. DTS 96/24 is what I would be capable to produce in audio playing blu ray movies.
What are your thoughts.

Email Yamaha and ask them what audio file formats, sample rate and bit depth the Yamaha RX-V2065 plays.

Then you can use dBpoweramp to convert the Hi-Res flacs.

[brentano]

Re: Converting HD Tracks to FLAC

Thank you mville, great idea, I have done so, now I will have to wait and hope that Yamaha will send me a reply.
Know of any AV,s that can play 96/24 tracks.

[garym]

Re: Converting HD Tracks to FLAC

I use Squeezebox players for my audio. The TOUCH and the TRANSPORTER both play 24/96 FLAC files natively. You'd connect the SB player to the analog input of your AV (like a CD player).

[garym]

Re: Converting HD Tracks to FLAC

I use Squeezebox players for my audio. The TOUCH and the TRANSPORTER both play 24/96 FLAC files natively. You'd connect the SB player to the analog input of your AV (like a CD player).

or the squeezebox has digital out (s/pdif or optical) that you can connect to the receiver's digital in, assuming the receiver handles 24/96 (and you think the receiver's dac is better than the TOUCH or transporter DAC.

[brentano]

Re: Converting HD Tracks to FLAC

Hi garym, thank you for bringing this to my attention, I had never heard of it before (just shows you how far back I am) I have since done some googling on it and it basically appears a great little device.
Since you are a user of it this makes you the target of some questions. My Music setup is quite simple, as I had mentioned it is stored on a external hard drive in 16 different categories with each category in its own folder.
Combined there are some 360 albums (so far) comprising of around 4500 tracks of music.
Reading up on the Squeezebox Touch I have come across this info in Wiki that concerns m:

" Play songs stored on memory card or USB disk, although it can only handle playlists of 100 songs or less when doing this"

If this is so, that it would be not much good for me. But on the other hand I have been going through some Forums with guys having Music libraries ten times to what I have and are using the Touch.
Confused I am, please clarify if you can.

[garym]

Re: Converting HD Tracks to FLAC

Be careful what you read on general sites about the SqueezeBox (SB) players. There is a lot of misinformation and/or missunderstanding about how these things work. I have over 70,000 mostly FLAC files and it all works well. I can set the playlist length to whatever I want in SETTINGS, but even better, I can setup "dynamic playlists" that will continuously feed 10 songs at a time to my active playlist from a longer playlist (or from all songs, certain genres, etc.).

I have many SB players (two different houses both setup with multiroom audio). The players can be WIFI or ethernet connected. Each player has digtial out (s/pdif or optical) and anallog. And all three outs are "on" at the same time. In each location, the files are stored (and served from) a single headless (no monitor or keyboard) computer setup in the back cabinet out of the way next to router). On this computer (in my case a Vortexbox Appliance (VBA), but you can use any old windows machine, MAc, linux, etc. And it can just be your regular home computer that you use for other stuff....I prefer to have the VBA doing just my serving of music. The program logitech music server (LMS) (formally SqueezeBoxServer or SqueezeCenter) is the database that keeps track of your music, etc. This is much more powerful and flexible than a typical DLNA/upnp music server.

It is true that the TOUCH has a built in "server" (and can play from attached USB drive, SD card ,etc.) But this is a somewhat limited approach and may or may not work. My brother uses the built in server with a 1TB USB drive attached to the TOUCH with about 50,000 mp3 files and it works fine. But the TOUCH seems picky about what sort of USB attached drive, etc. None of these problems exist with the full LMS running on a computer.

Essentially, with the SB setup, you have 3 choices:

1. mysqueezebox.com (LMS "in the cloud"). You don't need a local computer for this, but you can't play your own music. You can get internet radio, various services (pandora, MOG, spotify, rhapsody, siriusXM, etc.).
2. local full LMS. running on almost any old computer. You still need a mysqueezebox.com account (credentials) to enter into LMS to access services. But now you get your own music as well.
3. "tinyLMS" inside the TOUCH. Doesn't allow for all the "plugins" that can make things better/more useable and is a little finicky.

I can play different things in different rooms (at the same time) or perfectly sync two or more players to play the same thing. I can control all this from my laptop, from any other computer on my local network, from my iphone, from my ipad, or from the TOUCH itself.

There is a very active and helpful user community at:
forums.slimdevices.com

If you continue to be interested in this option, you should read a bit over there and post any further questions you have on that forum since this has become off topic for dbpa. (and ignore all the threads on mods (software and hardware) for the TOUCH unless you're the type of person that thinks $5,000 USB cables change your audio or you like to put magic rocks on top of your amp (i.e., audiophool nonsense).

My setup is as follows:

Location 1: VB Appliance 6TB (1.10) > LMS 7.7.1 > Transporter, Touch, Boom, Radio w/Battery (all ethernet except Radio)
Location 2: VB Appliance 3TB (2.0) > LMS 7.7.1 > Touch > Benchmark DAC I, Boom, Radio w/Battery (all ethernet except Radio)
Office: Win7(64) > LMS 7.7.1 > SqueezePlay
Retired: SB3, Duet Receiver
Controllers: iPhone4S (iPeng), iPad2 (iPengHD & SqueezePad), CONTROLLER, or SqueezePlay 7.7 on Win7(64) laptop
Ripping (FLAC) - dbpoweramp, Additional Tagging - mp3tag

[brentano]

Re: Converting HD Tracks to FLAC

WOW, thank you very much for filling me in, in such great detail. I can see all the advantages a Squeezebox can provide.
I will wait for the reply from Yamaha before I will move on any further. Assuming that the reply from Yamaha would be negative, I know now what to do to achieve what I desire.
If you have no objections I might send you a PM for additional advice further down the track.
I have been browsing at slimdevices and will visit again much info to study.

[garym]

Re: Converting HD Tracks to FLAC

no problem. A few years ago the SB stuff seemed foreign to me and I had no clue what folks were talking about. A bit of a learning curve, but then once I got past that, all was pretty easy. My wife who hates technology, loves the stuff, because for her, she picks up a controller, chooses what she wants (an album, an internet radio, a sirusXM station, etc.), hits play, and she has music automatically in all the rooms she wants it in.

feel free to PM me here or at forums.slimdevices. Same username over there....