I’ve seen a lot of FUD about SACD ISOs vs other DSD delivery systems.
I encourage people to experiment and report on their experiences but here are mine:
People that convert ISOs to DFF (or DSF) may have some resultant issues. Foobar2000 and JRiver (among others I presume) can play ISOs gaplessly. After breaking ISOs into separate files there may be resultant clicks/pop/gaps depending on your player’s configuration.
I found that I actually prefer ISOs over 10 or 20 DFF tracks. ISOs all have the CD Text track metadata that all SACD have. Theoretically when I get a multichannel playback system I’ll already have the MC versions of my ripped SACDs. But more importantly foobar2000 just let’s me set the stereo section as preferred so I never see the MC sections till I’m ready. In both foobar2000 and JRiver you can just drop a ISO in a playlist and you’ll see the individual tracks split out just as if they were individual files. If your player is set up to put ISOs into your library then the individual tracks are what you see thruout the player. Foobar2000 can save any meta data editing you might do into a sidecar .xml file (JRiver doesn’t to my knowledge do that yet.) Foobar2000 also can either save the .xmls right next to the ISOs or in the foobar2000 configuration folder sacd_metabase. I keep a checksum of the .iso right next to the ISO so I can check for bitrot. If I stored the edited metadata in the .DFF or .DSF I’d invalidate any such checksum any time I edited the metadata. Tho .flac’s have a better implementation with a separate checksum for the music, checksumming the ISOs is close in ease of use.
Pentatone is selling .ISO versions of many of their SACDs. They have always done a great job of recording and mastering so I’m quite happy to buy .iso’s from them instead of .dff tracks of unknown providence elsewhere.
tony22 said
Ted, if I leave the SACD in an ISO format will I be able to select and play an individual track?
As AL said. The player (both foobar2000 and JRiver MC) treat the ISO as individual tracks: no different from a CD: play them together or not. In fact in JRiver it adds the size of the ISO to your library size statistic once for each track
tony22 said
Thanks al and Ted. To think all this time I've been converting my ISOs to DSF!
That’s just why I started this thread - I see the pain people are causing each other by recommending conversions and I wanted people to at least try the raw ISOs. There may be some downside to straight ISOs for some people, but I don’t what it could be.
tony22 said
Thanks al and Ted. To think all this time I've been converting my ISOs to DSF!
That’s just why I started this thread - I see the pain people are causing each other by recommending conversions and I wanted people to at least try the raw ISOs. There may be some downside to straight ISOs for some people, but I don’t what it could be.
Makes it harder to brag about how many GB of music you have!
If up us is a nas it works fine. If it’s a streamer it does not for me but my present dac does not support an ISO directly only USB with a player like jriver .
My krell connect will not show me files in ISO or dsd format .
Ted Smith said
... After breaking ISOs into separate files there may be resultant clicks/pop/gaps depending on your player's configuration....
…In both foobar2000 and JRiver you can just drop a ISO in a playlist and you’ll see the individual tracks split out just as if they were individual files. …
-Ted
Hi Ted,
How do you configure JRiver (Windows8 version) to reach such user friendly level of ISO integration? In my case, I’ve found a tutorial on JRiver website (it was mainly for Video ISO purpose) and with lot of tuned parameters I can play 1 ISO file bought on Pentatone. But once done, I’ve never been able to play another ISO file. I added one more in the playlist but the file was not scattered into several tracks.
So I used Sonore tool ISO2DSD. It’s ok for one file but unfortunately, it sounds there’s no batch process.
However, all DSF files run flawlessly without any issue (clicks/pops…). The only clicks I have are those produced by the resolution change on my PWD, but it is another story…
Sure, I would be happy to avoid the conversion and use ISO files as you described it:-)
Ted Smith said
... After breaking ISOs into separate files there may be resultant clicks/pop/gaps depending on your player's configuration....
…In both foobar2000 and JRiver you can just drop a ISO in a playlist and you’ll see the individual tracks split out just as if they were individual files. …
-Ted
Hi Ted,
How do you configure JRiver (Windows8 version) to reach such user friendly level of ISO integration? In my case, I’ve found a tutorial on JRiver website (it was mainly for Video ISO purpose) and with lot of tuned parameters I can play 1 ISO file bought on Pentatone. But once done, I’ve never been able to play another ISO file. I added one more in the playlist but the file was not scattered into several tracks.
So I used Sonore tool ISO2DSD. It’s ok for one file but unfortunately, it sounds there’s no batch process.
However, all DSF files run flawlessly without any issue (clicks/pops…). The only clicks I have are those produced by the resolution change on my PWD, but it is another story…
Sure, I would be happy to avoid the conversion and use ISO files as you described it:-)
Many thanks!
Pat
Boy I never had to do anything for .iso’s to work out of the box. On the other hand I never do any video so I’m wondering if there might be some conflicting options there.
Do your iso’s show up as file type SACD? If not what?
Are the isos, other than the one from Pentatone, good? If you want you could dropbox me (say give me a link in a private message) and I could see if I have any trouble with them.
Tho I have played .iso on MC 18, I haven’t used MC 18 for a while. Just on general principles you might want to be using a fairly recent stable version of MC 19.
A random guess: Under Audio Options don’t use “Play files from memory instead of disk”
Frode2 said
It would really be nice to have all your library in ISO, especially when you rip and burn copies.
How does ISO work with uPnP?
If it doesn’t, then it is not a viable option for me, at least.
I didn’t see any problems with iso’s in JRiver going to the bridge - I don’t think I had to set any particular configuration options beyond what it takes to play, say, .dffs.
Ok, It’s my fault, I’m sorry. You are right, just drag and drop. But I didn’t take care to drop ISO file exactly at the right place on “Audio” label in the tree of the left pane (must not be dropped on “Playing now”).
I’m using MC19, the last version.
Howether, with my initial method with lot of parameters to tune, in my idea, this method had an advantage because I believe the idea was just to drop the file in a folder scanned by MC19 and automatically imported in your library. No need to “Drag n Drop”. Interesting if like me the PC is an “headless” Windows PC, I’m using only when needed “Teamviewer” from my iMac to control it. ISO detection no longer works for an unknown reason…
Thank you to have open this thread, I’ll feed JRMC with ISO files from now.
Ted you said: A random guess: Under Audio Options don’t use “Play files from memory instead of disk”
Actually, for another reason I had to deactivate this option in the past. I suspected it cause at some occasions a freeze of the JRMC UI and no sound during few seconds…
Ted Smith said
... After breaking ISOs into separate files there may be resultant clicks/pop/gaps depending on your player's configuration....
…In both foobar2000 and JRiver you can just drop a ISO in a playlist and you’ll see the individual tracks split out just as if they were individual files. …
-Ted
Hi Ted,
How do you configure JRiver (Windows8 version) to reach such user friendly level of ISO integration? In my case, I’ve found a tutorial on JRiver website (it was mainly for Video ISO purpose) and with lot of tuned parameters I can play 1 ISO file bought on Pentatone. But once done, I’ve never been able to play another ISO file. I added one more in the playlist but the file was not scattered into several tracks.
So I used Sonore tool ISO2DSD. It’s ok for one file but unfortunately, it sounds there’s no batch process.
However, all DSF files run flawlessly without any issue (clicks/pops…). The only clicks I have are those produced by the resolution change on my PWD, but it is another story…
Sure, I would be happy to avoid the conversion and use ISO files as you described it:-)
Many thanks!
Pat
Pat, you can run a batch process with the Sonore ISO2DSD application, but you have to place all the .iso in the same folder and then select them together.
patrick said
Howether, with my initial method with lot of parameters to tune, in my idea, had an advantage because I believe the idea was just to drop the file in a folder scanned by MC19 and automatically imported in your library. No need to "Drag n Drop". Interesting if like me the PC is an "headless" Windows PC, I'm using only when needed "Teamviewer" from my iMac to control it. It no longer work for an unknown reason....
I'm not quite sure if I read that paragraph correctly, but I don't in general, use drag and drop. I put all of my isos alongside my music in folders that MC19 automatically imports. (BTW importing takes quite a bit of time if you are doing replay gain scanning, etc. on ISOs)
Ted Smith said
I'm not quite sure if I read that paragraph correctly, but I don't in general, use drag and drop. I put all of my isos alongside my music in folders that MC19 automatically imports. (BTW importing takes quite a bit of time if you are doing replay gain scanning, etc. on ISOs)
Ok, I'll redo a try. May be all tuning made on a specific Music folder have actually a wrong effect avoiding JRMC to work correctly. Probably if I add the ISO in another music folder it will works fine.
tony22 said
Thanks al and Ted. To think all this time I've been converting my ISOs to DSF!
That’s just why I started this thread - I see the pain people are causing each other by recommending conversions and I wanted people to at least try the raw ISOs. There may be some downside to straight ISOs for some people, but I don’t what it could be.
Ted, there may be one thing worth looking into. I’m not sure that JRiver actually alters the metadata of the .iso files except for it’s own use. As such, if you import the files to another audio application’s library you may lose any changes to the metadata. Also, I’m not aware of a UPNP server for a NAS that supports .iso files.
FYI MP3TAG-v2.59a now supports editing the metadata of .dsf files on a PC. I made a Mac version of MP3TAG-v2.59a and it’s available on my site is anyone is interested.
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