All my CDs were ripped onto my QNAP NAS using DB Poweramp in FLAC lossless uncompressed.
I recently switched UPnP source to a Uniti Core. Dealer said I should get a slight quality uplift by ripping CD to the Core in its default .WAV format. So I ripped them all again as .WAVs.
But a dozen CDs won’t rip to the Core (I tried cleaning them, no joy), so I’m copying those ripped files from the QNAP to the Core in FLAC format.
Is it worth re-ripping those CDs to the QNAP as .WAVs for a quality uplift?. What do you think?
If I do that, which option do I pick on DB Poweramp? There is no .WAV in the menu! Presumably it’s the “wave” format?
Not quite sure why you need to re-rip them. If you have them in Flac format (which is just lossless compressed Wav files with metadata on top) then you should be able to just convert the flac files to Wav using the dBPoweramp Music Converter option, which you should already have.
I did an A to B years ago and felt could hear a slight difference in favour of Wav but I wouldn’t stress about it.
I don’t think it will spoil your listening. Far bigger variations between recording and mastering quality
All my files are Flac (smaller, better metadata) but I use Asset to ‘convert on the fly’ and play in Wav through my NDS however I don’t think you can do this on the Core?
I have a Unitiqute (kitchen) and a Lite (listening room) but this week swapped in a NAC N-272 for the Lite. The Core (recent acquisition 2 myths ago) may have helped, but the 272 is a game changer.
Two recalcitrant CDs are among my faves. I’ll re-rip them to the QNAP as .WAVs then over to the Core and do a BTB comparison.
You don’t need to re-rip them. I think this has already been said earlier in the thread, but you can use dBpoweramp to convert them from flac to Wav and then save the Wav files in the downloads folder in the UnitiCore. You just have one folder per album. You can nest folders by artist or composer or whatever, but you don’t need to do that.
Flac and Wav are both lossless formats. The only logical reason why some people may prefer Wav over Flac is where they are using a legacy streamer like UnitiQute or NAC N 272, where the act of unpacking the Flac file to play it can give rise to subtle sound quality changes on playback. This shouldn’t happen with the newer streamers because the processors are plenty powerful. But in any case a Wav rip should be entirely identical to a Flac file that has been converted to and saved as Wav.
I’m not sure whether or not you are aware, but if you were running Asset or MinimServer on your Qnap, you could set it to transcode files from flac to WAV on the fly, ie as they play. This will give you the advantage of WAV on the older streamers without the need to do anything.
There is no need to rip to uncompressed WAV with dbpoweramp, as the standard compression, level 5, sounds exactly the same.
I’m assuming that you will back up your Core rips to the Qnap for security. Bear in mind that due to the way the Core rips to WAV, you won’t be able to play the rips from the Qnap in future, should you need to.
I wonder if you detect any sound improvement between the Core rips and those from dbpoweramp, once transcoded to WAV, or even when left in flac?
The MQ folder is only for CD rips done by the Core. Messing with it could break the database, so the Downloads folder is provided for any other files. When tou browse the files in the app they are presented as a single library, so putting albums in different folders makes no difference, other than that you can’t use the Naim app to edit them.
If you don’t want to use Twonky on your NAS it can also run Asset or Minimserver.
When I started ripping my CD’s long ago, I ripped them to Apple Lossless, or ALAC . I did that because I used iTunes and Sonos. I started out using iTunes to rip. I’m still an Apple user but for the last 6-8 years I’ve been using XLD or DbPoweramp to rip to AIFF. AIFF is a non compressed lossless compression codec like Wav except I think it sounds a bit better
Thanks Chris et al. I thought there must be a reason not to mess with the MQ folder, so I haven’t!
It’s dead easy to edit the appearance of recordings with the Naim app, great to organise to make it all easy to find. I saw that the music files on the Core SSD remain unaltered.
A minor niggle is that you can’t edit files stored in the Core downloads in the same way. So I have, for example, 3 discs of a set of opera music in the MQ folder with artist renamed “classical” making them easier to find, but can’t rename the 4th disc to match (though succeeded, without apparently screwing anything up, in adding missing album artwork into downloads folders).
I’ve also loaded minmserver 2 on the Qnap, but only the freebie version so you can’t swap between wav & flac. Doh …
Now to compare the wavs that I’ve converted with flags playing via the 272
So I compared WAVs vs FLACs for various tracks from Duran Duran’s greatest hits and Donald Fagen’s Sunken Condos via NAC-N-272, NAP200, PMC Twenty-23. You won’t be surprised, very little difference between them. To my ears the WAVs might extract a tiny more detail, and slightly more rounded / sweeter, so I felt a little more drawn in. Totally subjective of course, and nothing wrong with the FLAC files, they sound great.
Thanks again for the advice, picked up some great tips, converted some FLACS to WAVs, installed a Minim server, know a bit more about Naim Core. You never stop learning …
When I had a 272 I found WAV sounded a little better than FLAC played directly, but indistinguishable from FLAC converted to WAV on the fly. For the small (in the context of a Naim system) extra cost I think the additional investment in a full version of Minim or in Asset UPnP is is money well spent.
