24-bit flac album won't play

Ok so i got an album that was ripped in 24-bit flac , its size is 550mb. It doesn’t play them at all. The album only appears in the folder menu and not in the others so i assume the sansa didn’t include it in its database. I have a program for converting flacs, the program wont convert it because its too big i assume.

It only supports 18-bit FLAC files. As far as I know, there aren’t any portable players that support 24-bit Audio.

The only portable 24-bit unit I know of is the upcoming Sony professional recorder.  Incidentally, it also has a professional price to go with the package.

Bob  :wink:

Just got the Beatles USB but it comes in 24 bit Flac.   Is there a program or something that can be use to change it to 18 bit so that it can be played on the Clip+.

Would it be worth doing that considering that the albums are also provided in mp3 format?


DBpoweramp Music Converter

Foobar player does that also. You will lose some quality, but i doubt you will hear the difference on any portable player. Because 16bit is perfect for any human ear ;-)

Message Edited by icsterm on 12-15-2009 03:18 PM

@acastillo wrote:

Just got the Beatles USB but it comes in 24 bit Flac.   Is there a program or something that can be use to change it to 18 bit so that it can be played on the Clip+.

 

Would it be worth doing that considering that the albums are also provided in mp3 format?

The question for you is, how good a job do you want the conversion process to be?  Most inexpensive or free programs (Foobar, dbpoweramp) do a pretty crappy job of resampling.  Sure, they will do the job, but at great expense to the original audio files.  Most of these programs use no dithering or a very basic dithering techinque to process the file (s) in question.

Depending on program material, there are 3 different methods of employing proper dithering techiques: 1)Flat Specrum 2)Noise Shape or 3)Triangular High Pass

If you want to preserve the files in highest standard possible, yet reducing the resolution so your portable can play the file, I can really only recommend Diamond Cut Restoration Tools, found HERE

why bother about 24bit flac in the first way? 

CD quality is the HIGHEST you can get. Yet CDs are digital already, and encoded in 16 bit 44,1 Khz. For me there is no use in increasing the bit value. 

@thorshammer wrote:

 

why bother about 24bit flac in the first way? 

CD quality is the HIGHEST you can get. Yet CDs are digital already, and encoded in 16 bit 44,1 Khz. For me there is no use in increasing the bit value. 

That’s not a true statement.  Sure, it would be pointless to increase the bit value from a CD; but there are many instances where 24bit is used.  And that is what I believe the question is…not how to increase the bit value of a recording, but how to decrease the resolution of a set of files that were originally encoded in 24bit, so the device can play these files.

@yelped wrote:
It only supports 18-bit FLAC files. As far as I know, there aren’t any portable players that support 24-bit Audio.

18 bits is the DAC.  Its not related to FLAC.  It sounds like they just don’t support 24 bit flac, probably a bug.

@fuze_owner_gb wrote:

The question for you is, how good a job do you want the conversion process to be?  Most inexpensive or free programs (Foobar, dbpoweramp) do a pretty crappy job of resampling.  Sure, they will do the job, but at great expense to the original audio files.  Most of these programs use no dithering or a very basic dithering techinque to process the file (s) in question. 

If you’re dropping from 24-bit to 16-bit, isn’t it just a matter of dropping the last 8 bits? I don’t quite see how that could be at great expense to the sound quality…

@turnstyle wrote:


@fuze_owner_gb wrote:

The question for you is, how good a job do you want the conversion process to be?  Most inexpensive or free programs (Foobar, dbpoweramp) do a pretty crappy job of resampling.  Sure, they will do the job, but at great expense to the original audio files.  Most of these programs use no dithering or a very basic dithering techinque to process the file (s) in question. 


 

If you’re dropping from 24-bit to 16-bit, isn’t it just a matter of dropping the last 8 bits? I don’t quite see how that could be at great expense to the sound quality…

No.  See this article for a brief explanation.

Message Edited by fuze_owner-GB on 12-15-2009 02:48 PM

fuze_owner-GB wrote: 

No.  See this article for a brief explanation.

Thanks – I’d be interested to hear the difference between a truncated 24-bit-to-16-bit file vs. a dither-truncated 24-bit-to-16-bit file – instinct tells me it wouldn’t be very noticeable (ie, it’s not like clipping) – so it would be fun to hear an example that demonstrates otherwise!

I also have to credit that page with one of the weirdest audio analogies I’ve yet encountered:

“Imagine that you have a bathtub full of bubble bath. The bubbles represent the upper 16-bits of your 24-bit audio information and tower above the underlying water which represents the lower 8-bits of your signal. However, in the lower water portion there resides some audio information. You agitate that water which causes that audio information to form into bubbles which raise up into the same level as the upper 16-bits. The new bubbles bring with them some of the water that was in the lower portion but join the upper echelon nonetheless. The agitation is analogous to adding dither noise.”

 :smileyvery-happy:

I can tell a difference in the differing methods of dithering and also if no dithering was used; but since I often have to resample audio files to a lower resolution when I’m restoring a recording…I’m probably more sensitive to this process than the normal person.

Neat, what sort of audio do you restore?

@turnstyle wrote:
Neat, what sort of audio do you restore?

Basically any audio that my client wants restored, be it old phonograph records, audio tapes, home recordings, etc.

@fuze_owner_gb wrote:


@turnstyle wrote:


@fuze_owner_gb wrote:

The question for you is, how good a job do you want the conversion process to be?  Most inexpensive or free programs (Foobar, dbpoweramp) do a pretty crappy job of resampling.  Sure, they will do the job, but at great expense to the original audio files.  Most of these programs use no dithering or a very basic dithering techinque to process the file (s) in question. 


 

If you’re dropping from 24-bit to 16-bit, isn’t it just a matter of dropping the last 8 bits? I don’t quite see how that could be at great expense to the sound quality…


No.  See this article for a brief explanation.

Message Edited by fuze_owner-GB on 12-15-2009 02:48 PM

That article really isn’t very good.  Its just “dithering is good” repeated a few times and some silly analogies without any real info or results. 

Not that I disagree, but its one thing to say ‘dithering is a good idea’ and another to say ‘24 bit will sound crappy truncated to 16 bit’, which is absolute nonsense.  Dithering makes a huge differences at 8 bits, but becomes less important as you increase the bit depth.  Particularly for portable devices, which at 16 bits have negligible quantization error compared to other noise sources.  Its really not getting you anything at all on a Clip since quantization error is negligible to begin with. 

Also, I disagree with you calling foobar crappy at “resampling”.  It has a top notch resampler (PPHS) and is fully capable of dithering audio.  IMO dithering 24 bit audio to 16 bit loses you nothing at all unless its simply not mastered well to begin with, and even simple truncation is unlikely to sound different then full 24 bit in all but the most demanding tests.

That’s what makes the world go 'round…differing opinions…:smiley:

Years ago, I had the pleasure of working with some serious digital to analog converters.  I could experiment with the conversion, varying the dither mode, as well as some very cool options in signal processing.

The noise floor makes a significant difference.  As GB mentioned, the mastering makes a huge difference as well.

You should get a pleasant result converting to 16-bit.

I really liked the dbx sigma-delta machines with a phenomenal sample rate.  Thiose beasties were ahead of their time.

Bob  :stuck_out_tongue:

I don’t claim to be an engineer, but I just know what my and my client’s ears tell me.  I almost always am working with pre-1950 material; then run it through usually numerous noise removal processes to get a pleasing sound, post-restoration.  I work in the 24 bit domain because the filtering algorithms work best with this format.  Consistently I can hear artifacts when sampling down to red book standard audio format if no dithering is used.  So, maybe it’s a case where my sound restoration software is playing a role.  If I had a pristine original in 24 bit; maybe dithering might not be necessary.  But due to the nature of my work, I almost get no opportunity to work with pristine files.