Hi @frenchrooster,
What kind of hard drive (to backup your Melco ) are you using? Is it with dedicated external power supplier or not ?
Cheers,
Kacper
I see! Thanks and have a good wekend/ miłego weekendu!
Cheers,
Kacper
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You can ask @BertBird, he had problems with storage capacity on his Melco. Having more than 16k albums.
Don’t know if he uses the E100, powered or not by external ps.
I just know that E100 can be powered by a 12v ps.
I know that a majority follow Wav Naim recommendations, but I advise you to try Flac uncompressed, to see . Personally it sounds a bit airier for me, and takes less space.
Melco advised to use self powered drives therefore my question.
Most of my albums are in AIFF (uncompressed) format and to be honest I don’t think I will ever reach more then 80 procent (almost 6TB) capacity
Hi interesting, I just found that I preferred wav to aiff on my NUC/Rock (Roon) and reported in another tread (Maximizing sound quality with Roon?). Am a bit of a novice on FLAC (and a lot other in computer audio) what is the definition of uncompressed FLAC, my app (xld) have a ten step scale none…normal…high, none I believe result in same file size as eg aiff or wav?
FLAC is a lossless codec & designed to be compressed, there is not really any point in it if its not compressed as by compressing it packs the data into a smaller space thereby saving HDD/SSD space.
It can be compressed at a number of levels between 0 to 8, normal/most programs rip to or supply FLAC at default level 5.
When its played its unpacked & is played uncompressed & lossless.
After that, depending & on your media server software, you can play it as FLAC or choose to transcode (play FLAC as … ) & send data stream to the player as WAV or anther codec.
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Thanks, so most likely XLDs normal is equal to “5”, as there are three step to high (8) from normal. But none is then equal to “-1“ as there is one more step in the XLD-scale (assume just to confuse me🙂). Still curious on @frenchrooster definition of uncompressed though.
The cable of choice appears to be
Belden 1303E CATSNAKE Cat6a Ethernet Network Cable. Does anyone know if this is available in white as I can only find this in a black coloured cable.
Thanks
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I’d add to Mike’s description that, referring to libFLAC manual, uncompressing FLAC files takes roughly the same processing time whatever the compression level is.
Which is nice if you wish to save some storage space, considering it makes no difference in terms of sound whether your FLACs are compressed to level 5 or 8.
As for using WAV versus FLAC, considering you’re using a Roon Server it makes no difference for your streamer.
Whatever your file format is (AIFF, FLAC, WAV, ALAC, etc.) your Roon Server will always send LPCM to your streamer.
I have these cables and have never seen them in white. I suggest you send an e-mail enquiry to designacable and ask. These cables are all made to order with some degree of customisation available. If they can make them in white, they will.
BTW, mine are with the floating shield and the consensus on here seems to be these offer the best SQ. Remember to specify if you want the shield floating or not when you order on line.
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The Catsnake 6a gives my system a touch of flabby, bloated bass.
Note: that was adding a 1m(ish) Catsnake to the final switch-272 link.
I use Blue Jeans 6a ethernet cables throughout.
They are both iirc Belden cables - but have different cable construction.
The BJC are sent from the US so have about £15 added for courier at the checkout stage if you live elsewhere.
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However, WAV have displaying metadata (music track information and artwork(s)) issues at some players. Because WAV have no standard meta tag implementation and use custom data block with ID3 format.
FLAC have standard meta tag implementation and must be supported any player, that comparible with the format.
Both of these alternative formats have partitial compatibility of meta data. Though some issues due implementation may happen.
WAV vs FLAC format (uncompressed)
| FLAC uncompressed | WAV | |
|---|---|---|
| Sound quality | Same to WAV (binary identical sound content) | Same to FLAC (binary identical sound content) |
| Size | Depend on metadata and frame size and about packed PCM sound data | Depend on metadata and about packed PCM sound data |
| Metadata | Standard FLAC’s implementation like | id3 or LIST chunks (data blocks). May have compatibility and display issues with some software and firmware |
Joppe, even on Dbpoweramp, that term of uncompressed Flac is used. Maybe it’s an technical error, don’t know.
But have you compared Flac vs Wav? On my past Unitserve, I preferred a bit Wav and AIFF vs Flac. But now, with Melco, I prefer a bit Flac. Have made comparisons during some hours and different days. Logic should give Wav better sound, but I prefer Flac.
Blue Jeans 6a available in white. Great cable, some prefer to Catsnake some vice versa. I have all BJC in the network now (where I don’t have fiber), from the coax into the modem, to the Airport and back, last leg to UQ in the office etc. I do have a Catsnake in-between my double fiber bridge, but it’s the Ghent JSSG version with Metz connectors. As always, YMMV.
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Thanks for the replies charlesphotos, Nigel and jimdog.
So it’s wrong?
I did a short comparison before I transcoded from aiff to wav, and wav and flac (normal compression) came out on top over aiff and Alac. I chose to transcode Library to wav based on a feeling that the wav files had a slightly richer tone but flac possibly sounding a bit more open.
I have now transcoded two other albums to flac (no compression) and will compare more thoroughly. Will report in the “maximizing sound quality with Roon thread” not to bloat this, with file format discussions.
Did you use a specific compression level or just went with normal/5?
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No. You can use compressed Flac. In theory when it is uncompressed it should be identical to the file before compression and storage. However the decompression takes a fair bit of computing power which can generate noise so some can hear a slight difference.
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The level 1 I think, the more resolved. As it goes from 1 to 8.