Transcoding combinations UPnP and Internet Radio

[simoncn]

(14-03-2015 18:34)Pastim Wrote:  My flacs, and any aac or mp3s I might have get the best treatment my renderers can handle, streams of unknown codec ditto, aac and mp3 streams can be received both by UPnP and Internet Radio.

Have you compared the sound of playing mp3 directly into the renderer with the sound of transcoding mp3 to L16 or wav24 in MinimStreamer? I did this and I was surprised that direct mp3 sounded slightly better on my Linn DS. For FLAC and AAC, the transcoded wav24 stream sounded better.

[Pastim]

(14-03-2015 22:56)simoncn Wrote:  

(14-03-2015 18:34)Pastim Wrote:  My flacs, and any aac or mp3s I might have get the best treatment my renderers can handle, streams of unknown codec ditto, aac and mp3 streams can be received both by UPnP and Internet Radio.

Have you compared the sound of playing mp3 directly into the renderer with the sound of transcoding mp3 to L16 or wav24 in MinimStreamer? I did this and I was surprised that direct mp3 sounded slightly better on my Linn DS. For FLAC and AAC, the transcoded wav24 stream sounded better.

No, I haven't. An interesting find. I have very few mp3s, mainly for testing, and all low quality originals. Almost all my music is flacs, plus BBC radio aac, and they are what I have tested the sound on. It's probably all a bit marginal, and I'd need something special, like good piano recordings, to check it thoroughly for myself. Right now I'm just very relieved to have achieved a stable and consistent system, at least until the BBC changes things again without any public announcement (as of March 9th they effectively killed Listen Again on any Internet Radios except from Pure, although there are now temporary solutions for other hardware).

[Tell]

(14-03-2015 23:06)Pastim Wrote:  

(14-03-2015 22:56)simoncn Wrote:  

(14-03-2015 18:34)Pastim Wrote:  My flacs, and any aac or mp3s I might have get the best treatment my renderers can handle, streams of unknown codec ditto, aac and mp3 streams can be received both by UPnP and Internet Radio.

Have you compared the sound of playing mp3 directly into the renderer with the sound of transcoding mp3 to L16 or wav24 in MinimStreamer? I did this and I was surprised that direct mp3 sounded slightly better on my Linn DS. For FLAC and AAC, the transcoded wav24 stream sounded better.

No, I haven't. An interesting find. I have very few mp3s, mainly for testing, and all low quality originals. Almost all my music is flacs, plus BBC radio aac, and they are what I have tested the sound on. It's probably all a bit marginal, and I'd need something special, like good piano recordings, to check it thoroughly for myself. Right now I'm just very relieved to have achieved a stable and consistent system, at least until the BBC changes things again without any public announcement (as of March 9th they effectively killed Listen Again on any Internet Radios except from Pure, although there are now temporary solutions for other hardware).

If it sounds better it may be due to say the Linn mp3 decoder operating in 16 bit say or not as good as the FFMPEG software which may have more aural mapping. I can see I need to see what streams my Sony AV amp handles if I'm going to use a separate route in. Thanks.

[simoncn]

(17-03-2015 18:46)Tell Wrote:  If it sounds better it may be due to say the Linn mp3 decoder operating in 16 bit say or not as good as the FFMPEG software which may have more aural mapping. I can see I need to see what streams my Sony AV amp handles if I'm going to use a separate route in. Thanks.

I have configured the FFmpeg decoder to run in 24-bit floating-point mode for both MP3 and AAC but it might be that this isn't working as well for MP3 as AAC. I'd be interested to hear if others can confirm my impressions of this.

A few months ago, someone suggested that Linn might have tweaked their embedded MP3 decoder to match the device playback characteristics. This could be a plausible explanation.