Educate me on FLAC choices when streaming

[simoncn]

(24-02-2015 02:58)ted_b Wrote:  Simon,
I am currently using Minimserver/Minimstreamer for at least two renderers:
a) Sonore Signature Rendu (UPnP or OH, depending on Bubble Server)
b) Jplay JPlaystreamer (OH)

I have a mix of FLAC (all levels of compression over the eyars, from default 5-6 to uncompressed), WAV and DSF.

Question 1: For A I don't need to do flac:wav transcoding command in stream.transcode, for B I do. Why? Does the Rendu do it's own transcoding? Is there such a thing as not transcoding FLAC??

This seems like a bug or limitation of JPLAYstreamer. As you are able to play FLAC on the Rendu without MinimServer transcoding, the Rendu must contain a FLAC decoder (as would be normal for a UPnP renderer), even though I don't see this mentioned on the Sonore web page.

Quote:Question 2: due to some bugs in this early beta testing of the JPLAYstreamer (wav static blasts due to metadata, etc) I have begun thinking (again, thought about this months ago) that I may want to take my most played WAV albums and convert them to FLAC, since I transcode to WAV anyway, in Jplaystreamer. BUT....what about Rendu? Does it not transcode FLAC and therefore have a theoretical sonic advantage with wav??

If you do this, you might find that sound quality is worse unless you also enable flac:wav or flac:wav24 transcoding in MinimStreamer. (With my Linn renderer, it sounds better to me if the renderer is not doing the FLAC decoding.) I suggest you try encoding a single WAV album as FLAC and compare the different combinations for sound quality.

Quote:Question 3: if I go ahead and convert my wavs to FLAC (batch conversion with db poweramp) should I do uncompressed FLAC or does Minimserver care? I do little if any seeking so seek tables are not a real concern, but how Minimserver transcodes or even decodes, is important if it means choosing a certain compression level.

Thanks
Ted

The default compression level is fine. I suggest you include a seek table as this should make seeking faster and it takes very little space.