Best Solution for Flac (Digital File formats)???

[Canada North]

A little background for the question...

I listen to classical Music for the most part. I used to have file boxes of CD’s in the basement (14 of them to be precise). Not including binders, two 200 CD Changers completely full and whatever was lying around the old stereo. This started a project to clean and organize all of this mess.... First I had to wait for computer tech to get up to that point where it was possible to store and organize such a large library of music in a lossless format.... It then took 5 years to pull and organize the digital library, custom tag, and index the life out of it...

And hell yah I am proud of my work!!!!... It spans two TB hard drives... I can now find a piece of music with just the most general description!!!...

My Problem...
It’s time to upgrade my receiver but I am left scratching my head.... No one is doing in depth reviews of how well receivers handle and process Flac (unless you’re a freaken IPod you don’t exist). I am willing to dump a good chunk of change on a A/V receiver but is it worth it if the Flac support sucks? What are my options to get Flac to my receiver if it doesn’t support it? Even Media Centre/Player have issues with a database this large.

Canada North

 

[JJMP50]

If you have a couple grand I would suggest Logitech's Transporter.

http://www.logitechsqueezebox.com/products/transporter.html#tab2

It's their top of the line unit. Frankly I think the Duet would do fine but the Transporter is their top of the line. It even gives you the choice of Balanced/Unbalanced ouputs in case you really want to go crazy.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Well, lucky now days FLAC hardware support is much more common and lots of different hardware vendors support it. For now I'll give few links with info.


http://flac.sourceforge.net/links.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Lossless_Audio_Codec#Hardware_support

These are audio players (including multi-room) with support for FLAC files stored remotely.

http://www.sonos.com/Default.aspx?rdr=true&LangType=1033
http://www.logitechsqueezebox.com/products/overview.html

 

[Johnny2Bad]

And hell yah I am proud of my work!!!!... It spans two TB hard drives... I can now find a piece of music with just the most general description!!!...Canada North

If you don't already, you need to figure out a backup strategy, and keep all that work safe.

My Problem...
It’s time to upgrade my receiver but I am left scratching my head.... No one is doing in depth reviews of how well receivers handle and process Flac (unless you’re a freaken IPod you don’t exist). I am willing to dump a good chunk of change on a A/V receiver but is it worth it if the Flac support sucks? What are my options to get Flac to my receiver if it doesn’t support it? Even Media Centre/Player have issues with a database this large.

Canada North

I'm a little confused about the question. The AV receiver doesn't really have much to do with dealing with the format; it will accept the decompressed FLAC audio just like it was the uncompressed CD. Your options are wide open there.

You can continue to use the computer to send out the audio in a variety of ways (digital via Sony/Phillips Digital Interface [S/PDIF; Coax] or Toslink [Optical]) to the receiver's D/A converter, or employ a good USB DAC, like the Benchmark.

You can also simply use the D/A converter in the computer, although many sound cards are not that great, and this often brings up issues with hum in particular, and noise, there are good sound cards out there. There is an obvious cost advantage to using what you already have.

Also, the solutions already mentioned in the other posts are worth exploring. I think your next step should be to focus on how you want to store, access and move the music to the receiver.

 

[Knucklehead90]

The cheapest AVR that can access your computer files and play flac files (that I know of) is the Onkyo SR807/RC180. There are other network capable AVRs in other brands but I don't know if they have this capability. You'll need Windows 7 for those Onkyo AVRs to work properly - but I have read on AVS a few who made it work with Windows XP.

 

[sholling]

I don't know that I would trust a receiver's claim of playing flacs. My Onkyo TX-NR906 supposedly will but it doesn't. To the best of my knowledge the Vista version of Windows Media Player's media server does not serve flacs natively. If memory serves there was a way to make it work but it was pretty sucky. That may have changed in Windows 7 but I have yet to see it referenced anywhere.

I've been ripping CDs and playing back flacs for years and have tried several solutions. I started out with a PC dedicated to music playback. I would do the rip on my main PC which has 3TB of RAID5 storage and then use GoodSync Pro to copy the music across my wireless N network to the dedicated PC in my music rack. The advantage to this is I have a backup of my rips in another room.

Pro: Excellent quality, music always backed up, and I could queue up hundreds of songs in Winamp.
Con: It was bulky and really required a keyboard wireless keyboard.

The solution that I now use is a Western Digital TV Live. It has a much nicer menu system than my receiver and digital outputs to the receiver. The remote is simple to use and it can be controlled from a Logitech Harmony remote. Again I rip from my PC and use GoodSync to copy to an external hardrive on the WDTV Live. BTW I also use this to store and play rips of my favorite concert DVDs.

Pros: Small size, digital output, excellent user interface, tiny remote, Harmony compatible, accepts external drives, networkable. In the event of a fire I can grab the external drive as I run out the door.
Cons: Slow network transfers, requires you to create playlists to queue more than one album at a time.

Just a couple of tips, I use dbPoweramp Reference to do my ripping. It's inexpensive and not only does a great job of ripping but it also automatically tags the rips and files your rips away on the drive according to your specifications. My next suggestion is even more important. I've been a computer tech for 20 years and I've seen way too many drives die. I store my rips on my PC, and on a dedicated home server, and on the external drive hanging from my WDTV Live. That way if any two die at the same time I don't have to spend a year ripping CDs again. Now that they have 1TB 2-1/2" external drives I'll also start keeping a copy in a safe deposit box.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Sholling's Onkyo TX-NR906 should play flacs and it will in properly configured environment and a right software.

I'd rather replace my DLNA server software, then fiddling around with WMP
Checkout these DLNA server
http://tversity.com/ - Free and Pro
http://www.twonkyvision.de/ - Inexpensive and very versatile

 

[Canada North]

If you don't already, you need to figure out a backup strategy, and keep all that work safe.



I'm a little confused about the question. The AV receiver doesn't really have much to do with dealing with the format; it will accept the decompressed FLAC audio just like it was the uncompressed CD. Your options are wide open there.

You can continue to use the computer to send out the audio in a variety of ways (digital via Sony/Phillips Digital Interface [S/PDIF; Coax] or Toslink [Optical]) to the receiver's D/A converter, or employ a good USB DAC, like the Benchmark.

You can also simply use the D/A converter in the computer, although many sound cards are not that great, and this often brings up issues with hum in particular, and noise, there are good sound cards out there. There is an obvious cost advantage to using what you already have.

Also, the solutions already mentioned in the other posts are worth exploring. I think your next step should be to focus on how you want to store, access and move the music to the receiver.

I have the back ups in place already... I have a Back up on network drives in my home and a second back up at work locked in a desk drawer in the niftiest removable hard drive case. The third back up is encripted on a server in Europe that I can access over the internet if all else fails.

What I really was wishing for was a simple solution that would tie directly into a AV Reciever. A simple interface that would come up on the television screen. The AV Reciever could pull the data directly off of my hard drives.

I like the Logitech's Transporter idea but it's seem pricey for what it actually does? For that price I can build a spectacular computer and hook it into the receiver and get an amazing pro-sound card.

 

[Canada North]

I don't know that I would trust a receiver's claim of playing flacs. My Onkyo TX-NR906 supposedly will but it doesn't. To the best of my knowledge the Vista version of Windows Media Player's media server does not serve flacs natively. If memory serves there was a way to make it work but it was pretty sucky. That may have changed in Windows 7 but I have yet to see it referenced anywhere.

Just a couple of tips, I use dbPoweramp Reference to do my ripping. It's inexpensive and not only does a great job of ripping but it also automatically tags the rips and files your rips away on the drive according to your specifications. My next suggestion is even more important. I've been a computer tech for 20 years and I've seen way too many drives die. I store my rips on my PC, and on a dedicated home server, and on the external drive hanging from my WDTV Live. That way if any two die at the same time I don't have to spend a year ripping CDs again. Now that they have 1TB 2-1/2" external drives I'll also start keeping a copy in a safe deposit box.

This is what I am talking about... A bunch of receivers on the market in the $1500 - $3000 range all say that they will handle flac files... but no one ever tests or reviews this function. I talked to one manufacture and all I got was should... might.... if you file is configured correctly???? DOES YOUR EQUIPMENT SUPPORT FLAC OR NOT? The answer always seems to be sometimes?

Windows Vista and 7 will work with flac if you install the correct third party plug ins. It is a challenge but you can get them to work.

 

[Knucklehead90]

Foobar2000 and VLC Media Player both play flac files without needing to download additional codex's - and both work on Windows 7 and Vista. I use both on Windows XP 64 Pro - and both are free. VLC MP can play virtually any video file - and can temporarily repair a video file and play it.

 

[rbtrucking]

I play flac files all the time all I have is winamp and an optical audio out on my computer which is hooked up to a Yamaha rv 345 AV receiver. You dont need any special equipment for this..

 

[sholling]

I play flac files all the time all I have is winamp and an optical audio out on my computer which is hooked up to a Yamaha rv 345 AV receiver. You dont need any special equipment for this..

So do I and it works great but that's not what the OP was looking for. He wants to play them from his main stereo system.

 

[sholling]

This is what I am talking about... A bunch of receivers on the market in the $1500 - $3000 range all say that they will handle flac files... but no one ever tests or reviews this function. I talked to one manufacture and all I got was should... might.... if you file is configured correctly???? DOES YOUR EQUIPMENT SUPPORT FLAC OR NOT? The answer always seems to be sometimes?

That's the same response I kept getting before I gought my 906. I've tried it with two different NAS boxes, and DLink with DLNA and an Intel/Fujitsu/Siemans E4200 running EMC software with EMC's DLNA implementation. No joy. The 906 sees them but won't play them. Honestly I'd use the WDTV Live even if the 906 worked. The Onkyo's interface is plain text while the WD has a pretty GUI and gives you a choice of accessing the flacs via DLNA or as a shared folder. There are other gizmos that will do the same thing like the Asus O Play but it comes with a crud GUI. What the WDTV Live won't do is play Blu-Ray rips across the network, only from local drives. On the other hand it plays my concert DVD rips off the server just fine.

Windows Vista and 7 will work with flac if you install the correct third party plug ins. It is a challenge but you can get them to work.

I haven't even tried WMP since I loaded up Windows 7. I'm a WinAmp guy. It works.

 

[Sheik_Yerbutay]

I'm guessing the biggest problem is finding a server app that will stream FLAC's natively. I am trying to accomplish the same thing with my Onk 807 and have been looking at these two in particular...

www.conceiva.com/products/mezzmo/default.asp
www.simplifymedia.com

 

[Canada North]

I'm guessing the biggest problem is finding a server app that will stream FLAC's natively. I am trying to accomplish the same thing with my Onk 807 and have been looking at these two in particular...

www.conceiva.com/products/mezzmo/default.asp
www.simplifymedia.com

This is one of the things that bothers me. If you support streaming flac, then we should not have to go through all of this to get it to work. The manufacturer should at least give you a clue as to how to get it to work. How does the manufacturer actually test flac? Or is it theoretically it should support flac.

Has anyone tried the Squeezebox Duet by Logitech? That looks like a interesting product.

The Transporter would be interesting if it wasn't so expensive... and they have made some wierd design decisions. IE: lets make the product look really complicated with analog gizmos... Lets not give the $2000 machine a colour screen on the remove when the $400 product has one. Has anyone used either of these products?

 

[Sheik_Yerbutay]

This is one of the things that bothers me. If you support streaming flac, then we should not have to go through all of this to get it to work. The manufacturer should at least give you a clue as to how to get it to work. How does the manufacturer actually test flac? Or is it theoretically it should support flac.

I agree with you to an extent. Between manufacturers racing to bridge the gap between a/v and home media and then selecting a format that is just in its infancy of being "mainstream", it seems that not much forethought was given in the implementation. It would be nice to have a short list of products that have been tested and known to wrk with this feature.

I will say that this forum, and a few others, have enlightened me enough to where I am finally assured that I can get this to work (ha!)

 

[Sheik_Yerbutay]

UPDATE:

So I installed the Mezzmo media server and thought I had everything working with the Onk 807. It would "see" the flac files but when selected I would get the "Cannot Play" message and it would skip to the next track. I contacted Mezzmo and Dennis promptly contacted me via email and worked several hours (late late into Sunday morning) on the Onkyo profile.

After much trial and error we got the Onk to play the flac files without a hitch. One caveat though, Mezzmo has to transcode the flac file to PCM format for it to work because the Onk doesnt play flac natively. I called Onkyo and told them about what was done to get it to work. After many questions and suggestions (tried and failed) the tech told me he would escalate the "unkown issue" to the advanced tech support team. I dont know if it will ever come to anything but thought I would share.

Thanks again to Dennis at Mezzmo for sticking with me!

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

What about using a free software to convert the FLAC to WAV or another file that is compatible with your system?

 

[Sheik_Yerbutay]

What about using a free software to convert the FLAC to WAV or another file that is compatible with your system?

Well for me personally , that would not be an option I would undertake. I have close to 3TB of music in flac format and converting everything to WAV would require much more space than 3TB, not to mention the time to do so. Besides, one of the reasons I went with the Onk was its claim to be able to handle flac formats natively.

 

[sholling]

UPDATE:

So I installed the Mezzmo media server and thought I had everything working with the Onk 807. It would "see" the flac files but when selected I would get the "Cannot Play" message and it would skip to the next track. I contacted Mezzmo and Dennis promptly contacted me via email and worked several hours (late late into Sunday morning) on the Onkyo profile.

After much trial and error we got the Onk to play the flac files without a hitch. One caveat though, Mezzmo has to transcode the flac file to PCM format for it to work because the Onk doesnt play flac natively. I called Onkyo and told them about what was done to get it to work. After many questions and suggestions (tried and failed) the tech told me he would escalate the "unkown issue" to the advanced tech support team. I dont know if it will ever come to anything but thought I would share.

Thanks again to Dennis at Mezzmo for sticking with me!

This is one of the things that ticks me off about Onkyo's support. The real issue is that their receivers don't really support FLAC very well (USB only). They like to blame every music server on the planet's method of serving up FLAC files when they problem is in their own firmware. But fixing a bazillion receivers is too expensive so it's everybody else's fault.