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In Reply to: RE: Is SACD dead? posted by Ozzie on July 05, 2024 at 20:09:07
I've definitely purchased more high res multichannel album files for download than SACDs over the last year. I wish there was a simple way to play them back though.Am missing the convenience of popping a disc into the player.
Last week, I just found out about another company, audite, that is making available high res multichannel downloads available on their website. Most were originally SACD releases, but there are clearly a few that are not. Wish there was an easy way on their website to search for those.
I plan on trying out a few of the Berlin Philharmonic downloads next. They too have albums with a variety of different resolutions, some stereo and some multichannel, but lately 96/24 MC fortunately.
These will supplement nativedsd, pentatone, chandos, and eclassical.com bis, which I have used for some time. Seattle symphony and San Francisco Symphony used to market multichannel downloads, but they seem to be exclusively streaming now, sadly. Wish there were more orchestras or companies that sold downloads.
Despite Chris' advocacy of Apple Atmos, I am going to continue to want to retain the data on my hard drive. Old School:) I am also curious about how engineers set up their microphones to derive Atmos recordings of an orchestra, but that is whole different conversation.
Follow Ups:
. . . but I can't play either one (yet!). I can play Dolby Atmos using Dolby Atmos blu-rays in my blu-ray player and streaming via my Apple TV 4K device. But for Dolby Atmos downloads, there doesn't seem to be any straightforward, simple, cheap (!) way to play them right now. I have a big discussion going on right now on the Computer Style site, and I couldn't believe all the "gotchas" involved in playing back what I thought was a straightforward 24/48 album in Dolby Atmos I'd downloaded from the Audite site. For one thing, I would need to add an Nvidia Shield (a little hardware box, similar to the Apple TV 4K device) to my system (no problem - an extra $200). And for another thing, the format of the Atmos files downloaded from the Audite site is different from that of the Atmos files downloaded from the 2L or other sites.
And here's where things get even more complicated: the download from Audite unzipped to a bunch of WAV files (for the different tracks) - but it seems that they're special WAV files which won't play back like other WAV files (because they have all this Atmos meta information in them) and need to be passed through "Dolby Renderer" software ($300) and possibly another piece of software (? - I think it's software) from Dolby Labs, the Dolby Encoder ($400/year). And it seems that I don't want .wav files. I'm told what I REALLY need is .mkv files. I think the process will need to be WAY simplified if Dolby Atmos downloads are going to take off, even at a niche audiophile level.
Kal - if you're still on this thread, what do you think?
They are 13channel, 24/48 WAV files and Jriver plays them just fine.
When I check the file info for each of the unzipped WAV files, the (Apple) system indicates 12 channels (which I assume is the equivalent of 7.1.4), and I'm wondering what the 13th channel would be used for?EDIT: BTW, I appreciate your info about being able to play Dolby Atmos downloads from the Audite site with Jriver. So no additional processing or conversion of the files was necessary - you just played the unzipped .wav files directly with Jriver? BTW, I checked the Jriver site a couple of hours ago, and there's a great discussion about Dolby Atmos there on one of the forums. Can you also play Auro 3D files (like those on the 2L site) directly in Jriver? TIA.
Edits: 07/08/24
Well, the one I chanced to open was 13 but others were 12 channels. No idea why. (FWIW, I have a 40 channel one from SFSO
Also, the files we are discussing are WAVs (zipped or not) and, though they may be derived from or the basis of Atmos or Auro3d, are not encoded and do not require anything special to play them. For real Auro3d, there is a VST plugin decoder that runs in Jriver.
You say "I've definitely purchased more high res multichannel album files for download than SACDs over the last year. I wish there was a simple way to play them back though.Am missing the convenience of popping a disc into the player."
Can I ask how you play them back? Why is it not "simple" for you?
...on my main computer's data-SSD and transfer them to USB sticks.. I tie a label/tag to the stick, but that's where the convenience ends, as I now have a pile of tagged USB sticks to look thru.. Turns out this is way-less convenient than retrieving SACDs.. Playing the stick is easy using my OPPO '205 DP.
Am considering some kind of fileserver and software but haven't gotten further than my fantasies.. (I do not and WILL NOT stream files.) I'm currently assembing a multichannel PS Audio-based system using a Memory Player*, a PerfectWave DirectStream DAC, and two Stellar GainCell DACs, all feeding a BelCanto 6-channel, all-analog preamp which will drive the poweramps.. I considered an Octo chip-based DAC but decided I wanted the sonic benefits of PS Audio's software DAC.. But every time (of about 3 attempts), something (such as a BelCanto remotecontrol with a broken battery lead) interrupts the process.. The player has a USB input, so this should work with served files, too.. Maybe by the end of this summer...
Meanwhile, I have much surplus audio equipment to sell!
.
* The only PSA SACD player that outputs multichannel, raw-DSD signals
I sold my Oppo 203 a number of years back, which I regret doing. I can play my USB drive of sad and pcm files through the USB port of my Panasonic blu-ray player, which currently is my best option. I also got a Dune media player, but I'm having a number of issues with playback of files through it, the Dune has slots for an internal hard drive, so I might to try that out.
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