You can use whatever folder structure you like if it helps you to organise your music, but when browsing a music collection it’s normally by tag, not folder, so it would be of no relevance there.
The usual practice seems to be to nest albums beneath artist, which is what David suggested as an option. There are two reasons for doing this: firstly it helps to to find albums if you need to deduct their metadata, and secondly if you choose to search via folder when using upnp. When you have thousands of albums, you need some sort of organisation.
i use artist folders and in these folders i have a folder per album. I think that David suggests against this and just use a folder per album in the root folder.
I didn’t at all mean to suggest against nesting folders. In fact I also use artist folders and then album folders within artist folders. But if someone just has a few albums to copy across, then putting each one into a folder and just putting them in the downloads folder is the simplest thing to get them going (as an alternative to re-ripping those CDs).
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Thanks folks.
This all makes sense.
I have about 2 dozen CDs in this category. They originally ripped fine to my QNAP NAS (up to 10 years ago) with DB poweramp, in FLAC format but refuse to rip onto the Core. I tried cleaning them multiple times, this worked with one CD, the rest stubbornly refuse to play ball. So I transferred them all from the NAS onto a pen drive, then onto the Core, into the downloads folder, where the are all sitting in Artist folders. As none have more than one album in it, no need for subfolders. I’ve been able to find these albums easily with the Naim app.
FLAC is fine - most of these albums are occasional. But after using music converter to convert a few to WAV for a comparative test (WAV slightly better) I converted my favourites from these to WAV. All that remains is to delete the FLAC copies from the downloads to free some space.
I suspect that the recalcitrant albums could be ripped to the NAS - the setup and CD drive seems more forgiving. So a final question - is it worth trying to rip my favourites in wave format - would this bring any uplift in quality versus the WAV files that were converted from FLAC?
In a word, no.
As HH says. As Wav and Flac are both lossless formats, when you convert from one to the other, the resulting file will be identical (bit perfect) to a file ripped directly to that format.
Go for uncompressed WAV , Flac is compressed and needs to be decoded.
@Igel We have a lot of processing power on PCs and NUCs now, and to be honest, I hear very little difference between a flac and wav rip.
I rip a single CD to DSD format; it can take over 1 GB of disk space, and sounds better than any FLAC or WAV rip.
However, DSD DACs are not that common; most convert the DSD stream to PCM, as is the case with the NDX2.
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I see , but if there is a difference why not use the best.
That’s very interesting
with DSD,thank you.
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If you are using Roon, Roon will convert DSD to PCM if needed, and vice versa. However, if you rip to the highest quality, then it won’t use as processing power.
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If you are ripping to FLAC -uncompressed (-level 0) you should not hear any diff. The reasoning behind using FLAC uncompressed is to reduce processor-noise (reducing electrical noise) like in a WAV-file but avoiding the metadata confusion you may have moving .WAV-files between servers/systems.
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Compression level 0 is not uncompressed, it’s just the least compressed level. There is also an Uncompressed level which I believe is a rarity outside of DBpoweramp.
As for differences in sound quality, the additional workload occurs in compression, not decompression, so I don’t think anyone is going to hear a difference (even though you can be sure that someone out there in cyberspace will claim to!) I suspect any SQ differences would be attributed to the difference in processing workload between FLAC and WAV, especially Naim WAV which tries to minimise this by keeping the metadata out of the audio file. The 1st gen Naim streamers were quite sensitive to this, but things have moved on.
For Roon users all this processing is done in the Roon Core, so unless you put this very close to your HiFi or use it over USB straight into a DAC it’s a non-issue.
I too do hear a difference between wav and FLAC, but maybe this is to some extent also based on the ripping equipment?
I read somewhere that the level with the maximum compression (9?) is supposedly the beset for SQ, which is totally the opposite. I’ve always used level 5 and been more than happy with it.
I’m still transcoding to WAV using Asset, a hangover from my time with a 272. Maybe it’s time to fully embrace flac!
As I understand it .….
WAV, FLAC, ALAC or AIFF are containers for raw PCM that enable metadata & album art to be attached.
No matter what format the audio file is sent to the streamer, & no matter what the streamer, the data stream is decoded back into the original uncompressed PCM.
So if any streamers do have SQ variations, I suspect its most likely the software used to process the PCM extraction & the associated metadata & art.
WAV is an uncompressed lossless audio file container with its metadata & art attached as a LIST-INFO chunk. Some streamers (software) may not be able to process INFO chunks or are designed to handle it differently.
FLAC is a lossless audio file container & is a non-proprietary open source format designed to be played on any application.
Metadata tags & cover art are embedded in the file itself.
The compression feature used with FLAC is a storage space saving system. The compressed file is decompressed & played as normal lossless PCM.
Virtually all my CD rips are Unitiserve rips, and Naim don’t tell you what level is used, or give you the option to change it. I’m pretty sure it’s level 5, but I suspect Naim decided that there was no sensible reason to offer alternatives.
My US is also set to transcode to WAV on the fly, but to be honest I no longer hear any difference between FLAC and WAV. Perhals that’s not surprising given that I haven’t had a 1st gen streamer for some time, and that I use a separate DAC in my main system. I suppose using FLAC would reduce the amount of data on your home network, which can only be a good thing.
@Mike-B I like the way you omit an explanation for DSD, I will use the What HiFi explanation
"So how high resolution is a DSD recording? There’s no exact way of striking equivalence between PCM and DSD but it’s around the same as 24-bit/88.2kHz PCM.
In terms of dynamic range, DSD is claimed to be around 120dB in the audible frequency range. In comparison, CD measures around 96dB, and 24-bit/192kHz recordings have a theoretical maximum of around 144dB.
Although the bigger numbers are more impressive, even the range of CD is considered more than enough to cope with any recording."
However, that is for single rate DSD, or DSD64 (1 bit 64 times CD sample rate) , the same way that SACD’s use as a music container.
DSD128 (double rate) is supported by some Naim equipment, there are also DSD256 (1 bit 256 times CD sample rate), DSD512, and even DSD1024 available.
The answer is in the listening. I prefer my CD’s ripped in DSD256, using dBpoweramp, as opposed to the 16bit 44.1Khz rip. The PCM is ripped to DSD, the DSD is probably best said it is the signal before it goes through the ADC process, as near to analogue that a digital signal could be.
DSD also contains metadata.
You so this with standard (Red Book) CDs?
As I understand, the value of DSD is in following analogue wavelines with a very high frequency. Once the music is transformed to PCM-stream on CD, you can only loose information by transcoding it to DSD, in my view. From a technical point, I don’t see any value in doing so.
But if it sounds fine for you, you have found something which works for you.
And deliberatly so, my post was simply explaing the difference between WAV & FLAC in relation to the previous few posts.
I’ve found DSD & its various software replay applications plus the analysis of claimed dB numbers & it’s >20kHz noise bit of a quagmire. But that said I like DSD in specific genre types & do buy DSD but only from specialist recording houses.