I am afraid I am not familiar enough with Innuos or your challenge to offer any advice in this regard. Hopefully, someone here with insight will chime it.
Cheers.
Not sure I understand the question/issue but dbpoweramp is easily configured to put each rip into a separate subdirectory. Further it allows metadata to be saved, as part of the files, in just about anyway imaginable. I have, approaching, 3000 rips and everything is as organized as I want.
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Not sure what your intent with this statement is, but PS Audio freely shares the I2S format, as they employ it, with anyone who wants to use it. Several other high-end manufacturers use it, though not always in exact conformance with PS Audio. I2S is not an industry standard in the same sense that SPDIF on an RCA jack is, but that is because the industry as a whole does not see the need for it. Of course, we here know better! 
No, I access my Jriver library over the mobile connection without copying anything. Jriver on the fly converts any format and sampling rate to the MP3 quality I wish. So I can access my complete home library from everywhere as long as there’s a mobile network connection available.
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The point is very simple. If you use proprietary formats, you can’t expect any other manufacturers to adopt them. If you want to use that format, it basically ties you to that manufacturer. That makes no sense to me.
Roon creates its own core file of your ripped files. You have a huge choice of options as to whether Roon uses data attached to the file or it’s own data. For example:
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But what’s the disadvantage offering a better standard for connection with own equipment and the usual ones for connection with all others?
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There are 25+ manufacturers that use the HDMI version of the I2S. They don’t all use the same pin assignments, but I believe PS Audio was the first to use the HDMI version and let everyone interested know what pin assignments they use. PS Audio did not invent I2S, that is an electronic thing used inside of devices. They were (I think) the first to use it to connect devices externally.
Can you use a PS Audio digital component like the DS DAC with other manufacturers? Absolutely! I2S is one of four (five is you count the Bridge) ways you can digitally connect the DS to any other digital source. You are not tied to PS Audio, period.
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I do not believe they were the first to connect I2S externally, but the first to use HDMI.
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Hi milorp, I use Plex to stream from my home NAS to my iPhone in Carplay using the Plexamp app when driving. So normally without downloading files to a phone. I bought my Plex Pass years ago. I think they are now $120 or $150 for a lifetime… as long as they do not go under. In the meantime, many many of my friends have enjoyed streaming music and video from my home-based NAS server. They cannot download the files outside of Plex… just watch or listen to them as borrowed… so it is legal. While traveling between Ontario Canada and NY US this 2021-2022 Christmas-New Years holiday, the younger of my progeny complained that the quality was not as good as a FLAC download. So we did some A-B-C testing while crossing the NY State Thruway. In the end, I had to agree with them, listening to common favourite music, Deftones’ White Pony, that playback from the FLAC download to the phone sounded better than live streaming from my NAS in Germany to my phone in NY State. But the streaming was not THAT much worse. Critical is to make sure that your vehicle system can handle hi-res music. I have a USB stick with The Doors’ Riders on the Storm in many formats from MP3-320 to 24-96K FLAC that I use for A-B testing with friends who have better car stereos than they have ears. It has been really affirming to hear them all vote for the 24-96 versions. I do not think the streaming version is that good. But I can download the hi-res version from my NAS in Germany to my phone in the US before heading off for a drive, if I REALLY must, just to stop the progeny from complaining. Regarding classical music, my spouse’s favourite Beethoven 3 Eroica must be on the system. But I have a different favourite. So it is there too. In my car, when I ask, “Alexa, please ask Plex to play Beethoven 3”, I am not surprised when I get back, part 3 of a violin concerto instead. Classical is complicated. But at least I usually enjoy it!
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I was replying to @Carousel who said: “I am not looking for PS Audio to solve all this though as it has already been four years waiting for an audiophile (not PC) device that will pass stereo DSD from my NAS to my PS Audio DAC via I2S HDMI.”
Of course you can use usb or other connections. I used usb when I had a PSA DAC. (The Mk2 DAC I had was actually marketed on the premise that the digital lens cleaned up usb). @Carousel wants to stream DSD files into an I2S input and obviously no one else makes a streamer that will do it.
As far as I am aware, PSA only needs I2S because Sony requires the digital output from a SACD transport to be sent over a proprietary link, so it cannot be copied. It is therefore not surprising that you can probably count the number of SACD transports being made globally on one hand.
Some people are happy to go along with the restrictions, personally I’m not. Since I started streaming in 2009, for all but 3 years I’ve used CAT6a for data, which presents no limitations for DSD and is galvanically isolated. In those 3 years I used PSA by usb using Auralic. Auralic have developed a reputation of implementing usb very well.
I2S is an old signalling protocol designed to transfer audio data short distances between chip-scale components inside a single piece of equipment. After standalone DACs became a thing, people started experimenting with I2S over external connectors as an alternative to SPDIF and its relatives, so as to sidestep the jitter challenges that a bi-phase-mark scheme with embedded clock presented on the DAC side. My first real awakening to “bits aren’t everything” was hearing the difference between a bit-perfect AirPort Express with Toslink output versus a triple-BNC I2S connection from a CD transport to the same DAC. There are good reasons to use external I2S that are unrelated to DSD.
That said, you’re right that Sony does require a copy protection mechanism be implemented in any SACD transport and therefore in any DAC the transport might be connected to if the intent is to send the raw DSD bitstream. The requirement is specifically for SACD readers though, not for DACs or DSD-formatted data in general. I’m not aware of exactly how PS Audio implemented that handshake between their transport and DACs, but I suspect it requires two-way communications and that would rule out every common coax/BNC/XLR/optical SPDIF transmitter or receiver as being part of the solution. I2S is typically a one-way street too, but if you choose a connector and cabling standard that could both carry I2S (whether PCM or DSD) as well as have extra conductors usable for two-way control of some kind… an I2S audio interface on a HDMI connector seems like a good choice.
Note that the Sony copy protection scheme we’re talking about here is NOT the same thing as HDCP protections that come into play when using devices that implement the HDMI signalling protocol. HDCP has absolutely no influence over the implementation of raw I2S on a HDMI cable and connector.
The USB input on the current DirectStream DAC has drawbacks that no upstream component can mitigate. There’s a small amount of noise and jitter generated locally by the USB receiver. That’s why so many people have enjoyed the improvements brought by switching to external USB-to-I2S converters such as the Matrix or the Denafrips products. Both HDMI (cabling) and CAT6a (cabling) have benefits in terms of shielding and low-noise high-speed signalling capability that is amenable to I2S, and either option sidesteps the inherent challenges of USB at both ends.
For the AirLens with a DirectStream DAC Sr or Jr, I2S over HDMI is likely to be the most consistently high-performing input. I’m also very keen to discover how good the new USB implementation is on the DS DAC MK II – it will have an advantage in terms of jitter that no other interface will be able to match, and as long as the electrical noise factor is sufficiently mitigated it could possibly outperform the I2S option. But if AirLens doesn’t have a USB output, HDMI it is.
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@dvorak Thank you very much for the technical info. I definitely look forward to AirLens with I2S over HDMI cable replacing my present methods of sending music files (S/PDIF cable for FLAC via a Bluesound Node2 accessing my NAS) and (USB for DSD via a Surface PC running Foobar and accessing my NAS) to my DAC. Assuming the AirLens will indeed do this!
@MikeK My level of file back-up paranoia is probably at the psychosis level… four offline backups stored on two continents. But I do not use any of the back-up features of RAID at all. A RAID itself can fail such that no number of replacement drives can fix it. I use high-speed no-safety RAID0 on my NAS drive for movies. I have a 4TB SSD in the NAS for my music. If it fails, no worries. I have offline backups.
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Please note I moved the discussion on backing up files to its own topic. @Carousel 's post remains as I did not want to move the first paragraph of his post as it is on-topic.
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@brian.fitterman Yup, in hindsight, when I sold the Antipodes DX… which did all that @milorp seeks… I should have gotten a Sonore Rendu. Instead I played around with Bluesound for FLAC and multiroom sound while waiting for the PS Audio AirLens. Years later now, I actually am still mainly using SqueezeLite for multiroom sound about the house, not Bluesound. So I could have been using SqueezeLite with a Sonore Rendu for both FLAC and DSD playback to my PS Audio DAC the whole time! But that AirLens was always just around the corner… PS: The Matrix SPDIF2 you mention looks pretty nice too!
I have the Signature Rendu SE with the matrix and they work great the DAC. Highly recommend that trio
Paul did state they were building the AirLens to be compatible with third-party DAC’s. I imagine USB is the interface that most DAC user’s implement.
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My evolving concept for how to incorporate an AirLens into my system while facilitating ripping my CD collection:
- Buy a 4 TB Innuos Zen mini mk III for $1800, resist any temptation to upgrade in the Innuos pathway with power supplies and USB reclockers……
- Airlens with its half-size (width hopefully) chassis moves in next to the half-width ZENMini, connected by USB or RJ45 (is it possible to do that directly?)
- Airlens feeds the DS mkII DAC via I2S (probs better than Innuos USB options without their Phoenix reclocker)
- ZENMini then gets demoted to act as an NAS for tunes, if desired as a Roon core, and for future ripping.
- If I live long enough, and PSA facilitates economically, maybe I swap the AirLens for an Octave Server if that makes sense, and relegate the Innuos mini to some other venue.
The Innuos OS and Roon are proven and established, vs.novel PSA Octave software. I think I’m getting too faint-hearted to tackle newly developed software, to add networking complexity and computer/CD Rom drive/metadata fetching/bit perfection to this enterprise.