While I only have one album in this format, the DS DAC will not play 320 kbs, 48 KHz files I discovered last night. The play fine on my Benchmark DAC. Can this capability be easily added to the firmware?
willcycle said While I only have one album in this format, the DS DAC will not play 320 kbs, 48 KHz files I discovered last night. The play fine on my Benchmark DAC. Can this capability be easily added to the firmware?At 48k, 320 kbs indicates a lossy format. The DS only plays PCM at 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4, 192, 352.8k and DSD64 (single rate DSD) and DSD128 (double rate DSD). Decoding lossy formats into PCM is usually done by the player software (or sometimes by the bridge). In particular the DS doesn't decode MP3's, etc. As Dennis mentions if we know what file format you have we will probably be able to help you set up your player to play it.
Could be worth a permanent “how to” since many are streaming 320 mp3 music services.
gordon said Could be worth a permanent "how to" since many are streaming 320 mp3 music services.I agree in principle. I stream music all of the time from all sorts of sources, it just works in foobar2000 and JRiver MC and for that matter in browsers, and various custom players that use DirectSound, WASAPI, etc. in Windows (and I presume on the MAC, but I don't have direct experience.) We still need to know what kind of file the fellow has and what program he's trying to use to help figure out how it's misconfigured.
Indeed.
since he has only one album in that format, perhaps a conversion is the simplest solution.
One idea is to look at on-the-fly transcoding on the server side (e.g. using ffmpeg).
There are several uPnP servers with this function embedded, e.g. Minimserver (and eLyric for that matter).
Minimserver can transcode to wav and do padding to 24bit.
I would suppose many players could do this, uPnP compatible or not.
IMHO - unless the album is rare and only found in 320k MP3, I think it’s time to just get the album in Redbook or some HD format.
Besides, that I agree with above - get the software setup to transcode on the fly and enjoy your lossy, low res album. 
The problem appears to be a player issue and not a DS DAC issue.
Dennis
I forgot to state that the file is MP3. Dennis, I just emailed you one of the tunes. My playback system consists of a Logitech Touch running Logitech Media Server.
I just played it using Foobar from my PC to a DS. The problem is with your playback system not the DS.
Dennis
I wonder why it works on his Benchmark DAC then? There must be some setup differences because I am sure the Benchmark doesn’t decode MP3 either.
Its not a big deal. I just converted the files to flac.
Paul & Ted and everyone,
It’s no prob to convert the few MP3 files I have in my server to FLAC, but does anyone know if it’s possible to set up J River to transcode radio streams on the fly so that the Directstream will play them? Have tried a few things but so far I don’t seem to be able to get it to work. TIA!
(PS, talking about via USB - I haven’t tried this via the Bridge yet.)
I haven’t any experience with JRiver and radio stations unfortunately. Perhaps someone else reading might.
Paul, thanks, I know that this is really a J River issue. Seems to me that it ought to be do-able though. When i figure something out I will post it here.
The problem is the stream/files are at sample rate the DS cannot currently play, such as 22.05k or 32k or lower. There is a fix for the DS in the works to play 22.05k and 32k. Anything below 44.1k willl not play now. The PWD should play 22.05k and 32k with the latest code, as long as you are not using Native or NativeX. I will be testing the new DS code when I get back from vacation next week.
As for playing it via JRiver it just needs to be upsampled to 44.1k, not converted to flac. As a converted flac file will not play either unless it is upsampled.
Dennis
Dennis, thanks. This is certainly not an urgent issue. Enjoy your vacation!
I hope that helps. Offhand I don’t know how to do sample rate conversion in JRiver.
Dennis
I did try sample rate conversion and in my current configuration it did not work… I will wait for new firmware, etc. Also have posted a message with J River just in case I missed something, setup-wise.