Advice on 24/96 with SB3 Please.

[pieronip]

Hi

Apologies (and let me know) if this is the wrong area for this question.

I understand the the SB3 does not really handle 24/96 properly but just drops every second sample at the SB3 to get a somewhat butchered 48 KHz stream.

I also understand (I think) that for better fidelity one can do proper downsampling on the server PC, prior to streaming the music, by making changes to 'convert.conf'.

Is there a definitive guide or can someone give me step-by-step instruction about how to do this?

Much obliged!

[bigfool1956]

Given that disc space is cheap, I would opt for keeping the hi-res files outside your main music library, and using Foobar to perform a once only downsample as a copy of the original file which you put in your music library. That way you keep the load on the server to a minimum, with no on-the-fly conversion to be done.

[pieronip]

Ha! What an excellent bit of lateral thinking! Why didn't I think of that?

Many thanks.

[Phil Leigh]

I have yet to hear of anyone who can aurally distinguish between the "discard every other sample" method used by the SB and using (say) Audacity to downsample with a "proper" algorithm.
Anyone disagree?

[slimkid]

I have yet to hear of anyone who can aurally distinguish between the "discard every other sample" method used by the SB and using (say) Audacity to downsample with a "proper" algorithm.
Anyone disagree?

Well, I ... kind of.

When I was playing with 24/96, it happened that sometimes SB would play 96 fine and sometimes it would have loud clicks and cracks (similar to what you hear from CD player when CD is damaged or from up sampling DAC when fed with the sample rate that is not supported). I could not establish a pattern. It happened on a couple of tracks (one of them being Stravinsky's 'Solder's Story'), download links published at this site a while ago.

K

[Phil Leigh]

Well, I ... kind of.

When I was playing with 24/96, it happened that sometimes SB would play 96 fine and sometimes it would have loud clicks and cracks (similar to what you hear from CD player when CD is damaged or from up sampling DAC when fed with the sample rate that is not supported). I could not establish a pattern. It happened on a couple of tracks (one of them being Stravinsky's 'Solder's Story'), download links published at this site a while ago.

K

Not sure what was going on there!
But the other tracks - how did they sound to you?

[mvalera]

I've never tried it, but I believe in a conversation I had with Sean he said there was audible garbage due to the downsampling.

The downsampling is only there so you can hear... something. Officially 24/96 is NOT supported by the Squeezebox line.

Mike

[adamslim]

audible garbage due to the downsampling.

I think the phrase you're looking for is aliasing artefacts

[mvalera]

Ya that.

[Anne]

In the bug report I submitted, after discovering SqueezeCenter had clicks on 24/96, while the old SlimServer didnt have this problem it was concluded that the "compression" chosen when doing the flac rip was the cause of it.
Keeping this at 5 should avoid the problem, but you can look up the bug report to see exactly what happened.