WMA Lossless 24/96 ripping from a CD, but not gapless? hmm...

[pasty2k2]

Hi, hope someone can point me in the right direction...

I recently installed dbPowerAMP and find the audio CD converter much more versatile than the WMP10 built in thing. I used to rip all my CDs via WMP into Lossless audio, but recently purchased a new Creative X-Fi sound card which boasts a feature that can turn 16bit CDs into 24bit sounding WMAs, which I know is WRONG, but still it does sound better when ripped. Because of this though, I need to use the powerful WMA Lossless 24bit/96khz Lossless codec. No problem, only that WMP doesnt let you choose this. So I got hold of dbPowerAMP and I can rip from there.

The rip itself is perfect - no problems at all. Except one. None of the files are gapless. I have the same CD ripped already using WMP from way back when (Pink Floyd - The Wall) and it is gapless playback as intended. However the new higher quality audio files ripped through dbPowerAMP are not gapless. I have looked around through the settings etc but to no avail... Any tips anyone?

Head-scratching competition time!

Cheers, pasty2k2

[ChristinaS]

Re: WMA Lossless 24/96 ripping from a CD, but not gapless? hmm...

I can't imagine what you mean by gapless when not referring to an audio cd.

An audio cd has gaps between tracks, typically 2 seconds. Some burning software can reduce or eliminate that gap. But that refers to audio tracks.

Wma files, like mp3 or any other files have no notion of gap as such - I believe. Are you referring to the fact that if you make a playlist of several such files you will always detect a slight gap between them? I'd imagine it may be the time the hd read head takes to align itself onto the position of that file, a bit of time the player needs to switch files, but hardly noticeable, unless your files are all over the hd. Or maybe you find there is a bit of silence at either end of the file which was not present in the original audio cd track? Maybe you can remove that using the DSP effect of trim during ripping or subsequent reconversion.

You can also set the dBpowerAMP player to cross fade the audio files from the music collection as well as play gapless. Maybe that's what you're looking for?

[pasty2k2]

Re: WMA Lossless 24/96 ripping from a CD, but not gapless? hmm...

SOME (most) audio CDs have a gap of 2 seconds between songs. Some CDs do not though. Those CDs that have a gap usually have it coded into the previous/next song so its part of the recorded track (I believe thats how it works). But other CDs like those of Pink Floyd do not have a gap and play continuous. These CDs I have ripped before using LAME mp3, WMA Lossless (within MP10) and so on, and the gap is not there. The playback is gapless. Now though, when I rip using 24bit 96khz WMA lossless 2 channel settings, the gap is back. I am wondering if this is a problem with taking too long to cache the next file to play gaplessly. Surely the gap wouldnt be so severe though. The filesize is only just over double of what they used to be like, and the gap is quite large for only double the filesize. If the file was 300mb, then I would understand but these are only 80mb. The gap is the same for each song, so I am wondering if dbpowerAMP is adding in a gap itself?

Or if not, does anyone know of a way to play songs gaplessly using a larger cache? I know you can resize this in WinAMP but this just ends up in part of the song being chopped off instead of a gap. Just as bad. I don't know of a way to increase cache sizes in WMP10...

Thanks,

Paul

[ChristinaS]

Re: WMA Lossless 24/96 ripping from a CD, but not gapless? hmm...

I think the gap between tracks on an audio cd is not part of any audio track, it's a kind of whitespace on the cd. Some software can burn cd's without that, resulting in gapless playing. But here you are talking about audio files on your pc. How are you playing those audio files from ripped audio cd tracks? Have you edited one of those in a wav editor to see if there's any extra silence at the start or end that wasn't part of the original track?

[pasty2k2]

Re: WMA Lossless 24/96 ripping from a CD, but not gapless? hmm...

Funny - I just did that and then came on here and discovered your post.

There is NO GAP recorded into any of the WMAs. By loading 3 songs into Adobe Audition and pasting them to run together, there is no gap, glitch, or nothing - its perfect, but this is of course cheating - its one waveform.

So the problem I think is that the files are just so massive they cannot be cached in time to enable gapless playback. Ive tried used WMP10, dbPowerAMP's player, and Winamp with many different gapless plugins, most of which simply don't support 24 bit audio. But for those that do, and the rest of the players, there is a gap nonetheless...

Strange. Any thoughts? Know any way to increase the time allocated to cache the next file/first few frames of the next file? In WinAmp there is the option to increase the buffer, but I played around with that for about 20 mins and couldnt get any results. Either there was a (BIG) gap or the end of the last song was chopped off, destroying the experience and point of it all. SO. Hmm.

Cheers,

pasty2k2

[ChristinaS]

Re: WMA Lossless 24/96 ripping from a CD, but not gapless? hmm...

That buffer is most likley for streaming audio, for a progressive download.

Using Notepad set up a meta file for wma - check out the meta file thread in FAQ.

That would be a .wax or .asx text file.

Simply add in your files in that manner and save the file with the extension .wax or .asx . Then, instead of playing the individual wma files, play this .asx or .wax file . Windows Media Pplayer will play it with no extra settings being required generally, I don't know about other players. Maybe this way you won't experience the gap.

In dBpowerAMP you can play your music collection gapless. Try the Mulitiplayer option and play with those settings. I don't know how truly gapless it will turn out.

[LtData]

Re: WMA Lossless 24/96 ripping from a CD, but not gapless? hmm...

I think the problem is that decoding the 24-bit WMA lossless files requires quite a bit of processing power and there is a pause as each file is loaded into memory and decoded. Note your CPU usage while your playing the file and then note it again when you pause the file. If its high, like above 60% or so, that would definately explain the pauses. It could also be attributed to your HDD not sending the song quick enough, or you multi-tasking while the song is playing.

[ChristinaS]

Re: WMA Lossless 24/96 ripping from a CD, but not gapless? hmm...

Might need extra ram. Or a faster processor or both.

[gameplaya15143]

Re: WMA Lossless 24/96 ripping from a CD, but not gapless? hmm...

I need to use the powerful WMA Lossless 24bit/96khz Lossless codec.

CD audio = 44.1khz 16bit stereo, what is the point of wasting more space with converstion to 96khz 24bit?
-I tested wma lossless at this setting, the resulting file was 35.6MB, the original was 31.1MB. You aren't doing yourself any favor by using a lossless codec at a higher bit depth and sample rate, it defeats the whole purpose of lossless audio compression. If you want to use wma lossless for CD audio, use 44.1khz 16bit stereo.
- wma IS gapless, the wma codec might have a resample problem which is causing the gap.

[ChristinaS]

Re: WMA Lossless 24/96 ripping from a CD, but not gapless? hmm...

So it's not an actual gap, it's a delay in processing, right?

I didn't question the choice of bits and frequency because of this:

which I know is WRONG, but still it does sound better when ripped

[Spoon]

Re: WMA Lossless 24/96 ripping from a CD, but not gapless? hmm...

For gapless playback you need a gapless player, I don't think WMP can play gapless (try it playing just the wave files).

[pasty2k2]

Re: WMA Lossless 24/96 ripping from a CD, but not gapless? hmm...

Sorry it took me so long to respond guys - been on night shifts at work recently and its been difficult to get on sites...

In response to everything:

I think the problem is that decoding the 24-bit WMA lossless files requires quite a bit of processing power

- exactly what I think.

Might need extra ram. Or a faster processor or both

- I have 2 x 512MB DDR2700 sticks... should be fine. CPU is a beast - AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 90nm. NOTHING wrong with that! I still do think it needs a lot of power nonetheless. Maybe I'll get a DualCore soon and itll sort. Still...

CD audio = 44.1khz 16bit stereo, what is the point of wasting more space with converstion to 96khz 24bit?

- Ask Creative. They state that their new card (SB X-FI) which is what I have, upmixes the tracks to 24bit audio so they play back sweeter on that sound card. Thats why I bought it. Got "crystalizer technology". And I am not being funny but it does sound better - and thats not just me thinking up that so I spent my money wisely! It honestly does. Had a test - put loads of the same file in a playlist, half 16/44 half 24/96 and turned on shuffle and hit play while not looking, and 90% of the tests showed that I was correct in thinking that the 24/96 files sounded better. I know I am comparing that to my own hearing, but its still a fair test. SO. Hmm.

wma IS gapless, the wma codec might have a resample problem which is causing the gap

- I thought this briefly, but why would it only affect 24 bit files if MS state that the entire codec is gapless - which it is? I know there is no real way of testing this - as if I could test it and proove it, the problem would be solved!

For gapless playback you need a gapless player, I don't think WMP can play gapless

- It can, and its one of the only players that can play back gaplessly. All my previously created files played back gapless unless I turned crossfader on above 0.0 seconds (just for info - gapless playback can be achieved with crossfader off, and crossfader on and set to 0.0 seconds. Either way though, the gap is the same for 24/96 files...).

It could also be attributed to your HDD not sending the song quick enough, or you multi-tasking while the song is playing.

- True on both of these - although my system Hard Drive is a 120GB 7200RPM Maxtor DiamondMax9 (8MB cache). I know thats not the fastest but its pretty quick. The files I am playing are on my data drive, which is a 250GB SATA Maxtor DiamondMax10 (I think its got 16MB cache...) - So I am pretty confident there. You could still be right though. About multi-tasking, yes I do multitask as everyone does, but nothing immensely powerful. Only usually WMP + a few IEXPLOREs + MSNMSGS. Of course antivirus in the background but I am not doing anything intense so I dont think its that. If I were playing a game or encoding something, then yes I am just being stupid and greedy but thankfully not the case.

So I am still stuck guys... 16/44 files still sound miles better on this card than my previous (SB Audigy2 ZS) though. Would like 24/96 as promised however - gapless!

Thanks for your help so far.

Cheers, Paul.

[Deano]

Re: WMA Lossless 24/96 ripping from a CD, but not gapless? hmm...

Well, I started reading this thread (meanwhile never actually signing up to the board before now, but read it plenty of times) I had to join in. I read a lot of misinformation in the thread so had to add my 2 cents.

First things first, CDs have no perceivable gaps. There are only gaps on a CD if :
a) the way it's mastered leaves a few seconds of gap between tracks
b) the player of your CD is not particularly good and doesn't do any caching

In theory, you'd think that .mp3's et al would also be able to be gapless, but this entirely depends on your player. I personally use Foobar2000 and FLACs (ripped with my lovely registered version of dbPowerAMP no less, cheers guys) and never have any perceivable gaps on tracks that are meant to be seamless. On my Zen Sleek though, my .mp3 files do not fare the same, and have small gaps due to processing time between tracks. In fact, I don't know many DAPs that do true gapless playback.

I would think the 24/96 .wma's you are using are obviously adding to WMPs overhead. If it plays 16/44.1 WMA Lossless files gaplessly, then it obviously the overhead caused by these bigger files. You are, however, gaining no benefit "upsampling" your WMAs to this sample and bitrate. There can be no extra data being created, because it's not there in the first place.

The only thing I can think of that would attribute the "quality" difference you mention is that Creative's upsampling on your X-Fi card is dodgy at best. So it better understands the "native" 24/96 than the 16/44.1. This did happen on the previous Audigy cards where it had to internally upsample everything to 48khz and made a bad job of it. (Namely why I used Foobar2000 to nicely upsample for me, instead of my Audigy 2 ZS doing it).

You should probably do some realworld ABX testing to see if you can *really* tell the difference or if it's merely placebo. To me, it makes no sense that your 24/96 files magically sound better when the WMA can have no more data in it than anything else.

Creative's crystalliser software does not fill me with confidence either though, so this could be attributed to the difference maybe.

[pasty2k2]

Re: WMA Lossless 24/96 ripping from a CD, but not gapless? hmm...

Deano,

All of what you have stated is indeed correct - sorry if I was incorrect in some of my facts.

The upmixing of 16bit to 24bit does indeed seem daft and so on, as you can't magically make something sound better than the source. I have known that all along, but this Crystalizer thing is quite remarkable. I know it sounds like I am just a victim of propaganda from Creative and so on, but it really does make a noticeable difference to the sound quality. Don't know how or why, but I can't really show you unless you have the exact same room, speakers, PC and sound card as me. My guess is you don't...

I was just wondering after all I have learned here if there was any way to increase a buffer/cache for allowing gapless playback of these WMAs, or if there was a player available that can specifically handle it?

By the way, MP3 files do not natively support gapless playback. They are made of of frames, and if the audio suddenly ends, the frame is filled with silence to make up for it. By using LAME, there is a header within the tag that states where the audio ends, so gapless playback is possible. Just thought i would mention that (Am I correct there?).

Cheers for input so far everyone.

pasty2k2

[Deano]

Re: WMA Lossless 24/96 ripping from a CD, but not gapless? hmm...

Technically mp3 files are not gapless, I admit my information was slightly off. It all depends on how your player interprets LAME tags, or just the audio itself as some players try to determine where they should cut off the audio, because of mp3's inherent frame issues.

Guess I wasn't quite clear on the subject there.

As for the 24bit thing, then no I don't have the same audio setup as you. I have a meagre Audigy 2 ZS soundcard, which doesn't get close to the X-Fi in quality I imagine. I just find it hard to believe that the audio technology has got that much better I guess. I apologise for being cynical, but if your ears like it then there's not much else I can say on the subject.

As for getting the WMA to playback gaplessly, have you tried turning off all the audio effects in your soundcard? Have you checked all of WMP's option settings to make sure it's outputting in the correct way? Also, maybe try using WaveOut rather than DirectSound and see if this helps clearing up any issue. Otherwise, I am not entirely sure what to suggest.