Oppo 203 Media Streaming Mutichannel SACD Music Files

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bluelightning

701 Club - QQ All-Star
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Joined
May 14, 2018
Messages
706
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Hello all,
I decided to join QQ, after lurking around for a long time :). I recently went through the exercise of copying/backing up all my SACDs, thanks to a cheap Sony player. Thus far my multichannel streaming has mostly been flac files, played either through one through either a media play or directly via a laptop through HDMI with unsatisfactory results for one or the other reason (mostly convenience type issues, not sonics). I recently bought both an Oppo 203 and a Sony X800 player to try and get multichannel streaming working through the uPNP DLNA interface, which is my preferred interface, since I can push media using either my phone/tablet or laptop computer. I have used foobar and its DLNA/Controller interface for many years with my receiver with great success, but haven't a whole lot of experience in streaming dsd type files or multichannel through this interface. I have a number of questions which I am hoping to get some opinions on.

1) Can anyone post their recommended foobar settings for the Oppo 203 as a renderer ? or attach their settings file ? I have figured out a group of settings that seem to work but wondering if there are better choices to be made.

2) Can I get the multichannel section of the SACD iso's to stream directly (i.e. on the fly conversion to dsf/dsd) over the interface rather than being converted to PCM or going through the process of converting all the iso's to uncompressed dsd/dsf files ? I find that when playing the converted files there is a significant reduction in sound levels (@8 dB from my measurements) compared to playing the same SACD in the player. Playing the DSD files would eliminate this difference.

3) Is there a uPNP Android app that can work as a controller (with multichannel) for the Oppo/Sony. I find the Oppo Media control app to be fairly buggy.

4) Are there other players I should consider that are more robust/stable than either the Oppo 203 or x800, with the stipulation that their be an HDMI output ?


I look forward to reading your opinions and advice. Thank you.

My current setup is :
Yamaha RX-A3000 receiver - everything is fed in through HDMI, receiver does room correction/Speaker/Subwoofer frequency and level adjustments.
Ubuntu Linux/ ZFS based file server
Variety of consumer type/media players/Xbox One X etc.
Oppo 83/203
 
Hello all,
I decided to join QQ, after lurking around for a long time :). I recently went through the exercise of copying/backing up all my SACDs, thanks to a cheap Sony player. Thus far my multichannel streaming has mostly been flac files, played either through one through either a media play or directly via a laptop through HDMI with unsatisfactory results for one or the other reason (mostly convenience type issues, not sonics). I recently bought both an Oppo 203 and a Sony X800 player to try and get multichannel streaming working through the uPNP DLNA interface, which is my preferred interface, since I can push media using either my phone/tablet or laptop computer. I have used foobar and its DLNA/Controller interface for many years with my receiver with great success, but haven't a whole lot of experience in streaming dsd type files or multichannel through this interface. I have a number of questions which I am hoping to get some opinions on.

1) Can anyone post their recommended foobar settings for the Oppo 203 as a renderer ? or attach their settings file ? I have figured out a group of settings that seem to work but wondering if there are better choices to be made.

2) Can I get the multichannel section of the SACD iso's to stream directly (i.e. on the fly conversion to dsf/dsd) over the interface rather than being converted to PCM or going through the process of converting all the iso's to uncompressed dsd/dsf files ? I find that when playing the converted files there is a significant reduction in sound levels (@8 dB from my measurements) compared to playing the same SACD in the player. Playing the DSD files would eliminate this difference.

3) Is there a uPNP Android app that can work as a controller (with multichannel) for the Oppo/Sony. I find the Oppo Media control app to be fairly buggy.

4) Are there other players I should consider that are more robust/stable than either the Oppo 203 or x800, with the stipulation that their be an HDMI output ?


I look forward to reading your opinions and advice. Thank you.

My current setup is :
Yamaha RX-A3000 receiver - everything is fed in through HDMI, receiver does room correction/Speaker/Subwoofer frequency and level adjustments.
Ubuntu Linux/ ZFS based file server
Variety of consumer type/media players/Xbox One X etc.
Oppo 83/203


Welcome to the forum:hi..glad you decided to become a member(y)
 
Thank you. I have enjoyed reading many a post from all you folks over the years.

I lurked on here for quite a while before becoming a member...if you become an active member you will discover a lot of benefits of membership...the only downside is that you will end up spending more money on this hobby:SG
 
Last edited:
1) Can anyone post their recommended foobar settings for the Oppo 203 as a renderer ? or attach their settings file ? I have figured out a group of settings that seem to work but wondering if there are better choices to be made.

2) Can I get the multichannel section of the SACD iso's to stream directly (i.e. on the fly conversion to dsf/dsd) over the interface rather than being converted to PCM or going through the process of converting all the iso's to uncompressed dsd/dsf files ? I find that when playing the converted files there is a significant reduction in sound levels (@8 dB from my measurements) compared to playing the same SACD in the player. Playing the DSD files would eliminate this difference.

3) Is there a uPNP Android app that can work as a controller (with multichannel) for the Oppo/Sony. I find the Oppo Media control app to be fairly buggy.
I apologize in advance because I'm not really directly answering your specific questions here but rather suggesting an alternative to your setup.

While I understand the appeal of something like UPNP/DLNA for library management, my experience says that the most reliable way to get excellent streaming to the 203 is:

1. Whole-album DSF files with (optional) accompanying cue sheets. DFF will also work, but I've found that trying to skip or go to specific tracks with DFF doesn't seem to work as well as with DSF. That may just be bad luck on my part, though: I absolutely agree with you about the Oppo Media Control app being buggy, and it's certainly possible that issues I'm blaming on DFF are really just app problems. Having said that, at least a DSF file will allow you to embed metadata.

2. Rather than any kind of dedicated music server, just use SMB/Samba file sharing. It's much, much simpler and has none of the fussy variables you're trying to figure out with Foobar2000.

I say this after having fooled around with this stuff for several years and only pretty recently finally figuring out that keeping it simple like this is the most reliable approach. It may also be the most universal, so if you wind up having to use different hardware down the road you won't have to change anything.
 
I apologize in advance because I'm not really directly answering your specific questions here but rather suggesting an alternative to your setup.

While I understand the appeal of something like UPNP/DLNA for library management, my experience says that the most reliable way to get excellent streaming to the 203 is:

1. Whole-album DSF files with (optional) accompanying cue sheets. DFF will also work, but I've found that trying to skip or go to specific tracks with DFF doesn't seem to work as well as with DSF. That may just be bad luck on my part, though: I absolutely agree with you about the Oppo Media Control app being buggy, and it's certainly possible that issues I'm blaming on DFF are really just app problems. Having said that, at least a DSF file will allow you to embed metadata.

2. Rather than any kind of dedicated music server, just use SMB/Samba file sharing. It's much, much simpler and has none of the fussy variables you're trying to figure out with Foobar2000.

I say this after having fooled around with this stuff for several years and only pretty recently finally figuring out that keeping it simple like this is the most reliable approach. It may also be the most universal, so if you wind up having to use different hardware down the road you won't have to change anything.




Thanks for your thoughts. Are you using the media control app or remote/tv approach to access files ?

I like your approach with dsf/cue files. I am trying to avoid another conversion step from ISO to DSF. The reasons why I like the uPNP method are 1) the versatility of foobar in handling a variety of file formats 2) The convenience/ability to easily browse the library while I am on my laptop and push whatever I want to the renderer.

I don't particularly care much for any of the upnp organizational tools. I have my libraries mostly organized the way I like and I simply browse folders either way. I have a Netgear NTV550 streaming device which I use to access my multichannel files/Blurays/DVDs through the network, but it is long in the tooth and far too buggy and limited.

I should also mention that my uPNP setup is somewhat unconventional in that I am running foobar on my Ubuntu server through Wine, which is a windows emulator. I remotely access the server and control everything from there. This allows me to maintain a wired connection throughout the playback chain.

As it also turns out, from what I read, uPNP will not operate gapless manner. I am not sure this is an issue with the Oppo or the standard itself.
 
Thanks for your thoughts. Are you using the media control app or remote/tv approach to access files ?

I use the app whenever possible. I came to this after using Logitech Media Server for several years to play and manage stereo (and AC-3 and DTS) playback, so my goal was to try to get the same no-TV playback with multichannel. Using Foobar2000 on a W*nd*ws computer actually worked really well as far as playback, but it required the TV to be on. I arrived at my suggested way of using the Oppo after years of searching and trying different approaches.

I like your approach with dsf/cue files. I am trying to avoid another conversion step from ISO to DSF.

I had initially ripped all my SACDs to individual DSF files for each song because I didn't fully understand what the Sonore software was capable of. It was a real trial and error process, that's for sure. Unless I've missed it, you still can't use it to rip directly to a large DSF, you have to initially create a DFF file and then convert it to DSF. Be sure to also disable DST compression, as the Oppo doesn't know what to do with those files. Clearly it will play them off SACD, but it just freezes up if you try to stream them.

I have a Netgear NTV550 streaming device which I use to access my multichannel files/Blurays/DVDs through the network, but it is long in the tooth and far too buggy and limited.

I had high hopes for that thing, but I don't think it ever made it through a complete album without crashing. Utterly horrible.

I should also mention that my uPNP setup is somewhat unconventional in that I am running foobar on my Ubuntu server through Wine, which is a windows emulator. I remotely access the server and control everything from there. This allows me to maintain a wired connection throughout the playback chain.

The good news is that since you're running Ubuntu, you're probably comfortable with the command-line tool I'm using to convert DFF to DSF, amongst other things. The bad news is that I've just spent several minutes trying to find the web page where I initially obtained it and I can't. It's a port of SoX that supports DSD.

As it also turns out, from what I read, uPNP will not operate gapless manner. I am not sure this is an issue with the Oppo or the standard itself.

It's both. The Oppo won't play DSD tracks (any format) gaplessly via any method. Additionally, while uPNP has some kind of gapless capability under the hood, Intel has deprecated the functionality for reasons I can't remember. As a result, I know of no server or client that implements it.
 
The good news is that since you're running Ubuntu, you're probably comfortable with the command-line tool I'm using to convert DFF to DSF, amongst other things. The bad news is that I've just spent several minutes trying to find the web page where I initially obtained it and I can't. It's a port of SoX that supports DSD.

Ah, here it is: http://www.audiofaidate.org/sw/sox-dsd/README.html
 
I lurked on here for quite a while before becoming a member...if you become an active member you will discover a lot of benefits of membership...the only downside is that you will end up spending more money on this hobby:SG


I am not sure I am looking forward to spending more money on this. I already spend a fair amount. Having eclectic tastes doesn't exactly help in this regard:LOL:
 
I use the app whenever possible. I came to this after using Logitech Media Server for several years to play and manage stereo (and AC-3 and DTS) playback, so my goal was to try to get the same no-TV playback with multichannel. Using Foobar2000 on a W*nd*ws computer actually worked really well as far as playback, but it required the TV to be on. I arrived at my suggested way of using the Oppo after years of searching and trying different approaches.

I am hoping not to spend years of searching, actually spending the weekend messing with this was enough to convince me to not reinvent the wheel on this :LOL:. I would much rather spend my time actually enjoying the music, but nevertheless there is some sort of fixation/affliction to getting this right.:eek:

I had initially ripped all my SACDs to individual DSF files for each song because I didn't fully understand what the Sonore software was capable of. It was a real trial and error process, that's for sure. Unless I've missed it, you still can't use it to rip directly to a large DSF, you have to initially create a DFF file and then convert it to DSF. Be sure to also disable DST compression, as the Oppo doesn't know what to do with those files. Clearly it will play them off SACD, but it just freezes up if you try to stream them..

I think this is where I was seeing a lot of instability. That coupled with my initial attempts at operating the player wirelessly till I could free up a wired connection. I tried using the ISO2DSD tool to convert the files without realizing at first the difference between DST and DSD/DSF files. Every time I tried to play one of these DFF files (created without converting to DST) the player would freeze or start behaving in a strange manner. I kept thinking to myself that the player is supposed to handle all these files and wondering what I was doing wrong.


I had high hopes for that thing, but I don't think it ever made it through a complete album without crashing. Utterly horrible.
Thankfully it hasn't been that bad for me. It is however the most buggy device I have ever encountered. It does have certain virtues that made it necessary for a while. It does handle DVD/Bluray ISO & directory structures with full menus. This is how I prefer watching music concerts and movies. It also does gapless playback. It is a shame that they abandoned this device.
I now use a different device for DVD/Bluray functions - Egreat A5- It is an android based Chinese media player. Not perfect but does a great job with video media and is a heck of lot more stable. I have never had to pull the plug on it, if that is any consolation.


The good news is that since you're running Ubuntu, you're probably comfortable with the command-line tool I'm using to convert DFF to DSF, amongst other things. The bad news is that I've just spent several minutes trying to find the web page where I initially obtained it and I can't. It's a port of SoX that supports DSD .

I am quite ok with command line interfaces. I will try it out. Are you using this in Windows or Linux ? I hope I do not have to go this route. I do not look forward to doing this.
 
there is some sort of fixation/affliction to getting this right.:eek:

Everything went right the first time when I did my stereo stuff for LMS, so I got spoiled. Still, what keeps me going with the DVD-A/SACD stuff is the certainty that once I finally get it right, it'll be useful forever. Now that I know what I need to do, I just have to do it.

I think this is where I was seeing a lot of instability. That coupled with my initial attempts at operating the player wirelessly till I could free up a wired connection. I tried using the ISO2DSD tool to convert the files without realizing at first the difference between DST and DSD/DSF files. Every time I tried to play one of these DFF files (created without converting to DST) the player would freeze or start behaving in a strange manner. I kept thinking to myself that the player is supposed to handle all these files and wondering what I was doing wrong.

Just to be clear, the DST compression seems to exist by default when you rip an entire disc to DFF. So you need to make sure you set Sonore to convert DST to uncompressed....or whatever they call it. What I've found helpful--and this works with both Linux and W*nd*ws--is to create script or batch files for each task I'm trying to accomplish. That prevents me from ticking a box I shouldn't or forgetting to tick a box I should have. I think I posted my sample command lines here a while ago.

Are you using this in Windows or Linux ?

I'm using it on Linux, which I prefer whenever possible.

It it helps, this is the routine I've settled on with SACDs:

1. Use Sonore to rip the entire disc to DFF without DST compression and create a cue sheet.

2. Use the SoX fork to convert the DFF file to DSF:
Code:
#!/bin/bash

#This script converts DFF to DSF and changes the file extension in the related cue sheet.
#You will need to provide the base file name when you execute it on the command line.

# Make this work when file names contain embedded blanks
IFS=$(echo -en "\n\b")

# Convert single DFF to single DSF, point cue sheet to new DSF
TheFile="$1"
eval "sox-dsd-linux-gnu-amd64 --no-clobber \"$TheFile\".dff \"$TheFile\".dsf && rm \"$TheFile\".dff && sed -i -- 's/.dff/.dsf/' *.cue"

3. Use a text editor to modify the cue sheet file reference so it points to the DSF file created in step 2 rather than the original DFF.

4. Delete the DFF.

5. Use MP3Tag to add minimal information (artist, album title, year, cover art) to the DSF file.

It is entirely possible that every step after the first one is unnecessary.
 
I should also point out that if you've already got individual per-track DSF files but want to create a single whole-disc file, you can do that without re-ripping. This script assumes your existing files are sequentially named for natural sorting.

Code:
#!/bin/bash

# Make this work when file names contain embedded blanks
IFS=$(echo -en "\n\b")

#Argument $1 will be the base name of the new combined file

NewName="$1"

# Multiple files
FileList=$(find *.dsf -printf "\"%p\" " | sort) 
printf "$FileList\n"
eval "sox-dsd-linux-gnu-amd64 --no-clobber $FileList \"$NewName\".dsf"

You won't have a cue sheet, but you can use Sonore at the command line to read the disc just enough to create one:

Code:
sacd_extract --export-cue --mch-tracks --input 192.168.1.148:2002

Or, worst case, you can load the individual DSF files into Foobar2000 (assuming you have the SACD plugin) and:

1. Select all the files

2. Right click and select "Convert"

3. Select the parameters to create a single FLAC file - Foobar2000 will embed a cue sheet with the appropriate track points

4. Open the created FLAC file in Foobar2000, then select Utilities -> Edit cue sheet

5. Copy and paste the cue sheet data into a text file, edit as appropriate and save with your new whole-disc DSF file

6. Delete the FLAC (unless you have some reason to keep it.
 
I should also point out that if you've already got individual per-track DSF files but want to create a single whole-disc file, you can do that without re-ripping. This script assumes your existing files are sequentially named for natural sorting.

Code:
#!/bin/bash

# Make this work when file names contain embedded blanks
IFS=$(echo -en "\n\b")

#Argument $1 will be the base name of the new combined file

NewName="$1"

# Multiple files
FileList=$(find *.dsf -printf "\"%p\" " | sort)
printf "$FileList\n"
eval "sox-dsd-linux-gnu-amd64 --no-clobber $FileList \"$NewName\".dsf"

You won't have a cue sheet, but you can use Sonore at the command line to read the disc just enough to create one:

Code:
sacd_extract --export-cue --mch-tracks --input 192.168.1.148:2002

Or, worst case, you can load the individual DSF files into Foobar2000 (assuming you have the SACD plugin) and:

1. Select all the files

2. Right click and select "Convert"

3. Select the parameters to create a single FLAC file - Foobar2000 will embed a cue sheet with the appropriate track points

4. Open the created FLAC file in Foobar2000, then select Utilities -> Edit cue sheet

5. Copy and paste the cue sheet data into a text file, edit as appropriate and save with your new whole-disc DSF file

6. Delete the FLAC (unless you have some reason to keep it.

Thanks for your advice and the script. As of now I only have the ISO files. I do not intend on deleting the ISO files. I don't know why I have waited so long to convert them. I discovered after wasting a bunch of time that they all appear to be compressed (DST) and don't work in the Oppo. I tried generating a single DFF file converted to DSD/DSF with the cue sheet and it seemed to work in the Oppo, with the ability of selecting individual tracks. I will try converting a few more files to see how it behaves before deciding.

If I decide to go down this path of conversion, I will use your script in Linux. It will make it much easier setting the whole job off. At least for now, I have the on the fly conversion to multichannel flac working through foobar with the gain cranked up 6 dB. I will do some more testing later this weekend.
 
Thanks for your advice and the script. As of now I only have the ISO files. I do not intend on deleting the ISO files. I don't know why I have waited so long to convert them. I discovered after wasting a bunch of time that they all appear to be compressed (DST) and don't work in the Oppo. I tried generating a single DFF file converted to DSD/DSF with the cue sheet and it seemed to work in the Oppo, with the ability of selecting individual tracks. I will try converting a few more files to see how it behaves before deciding.

If I decide to go down this path of conversion, I will use your script in Linux. It will make it much easier setting the whole job off. At least for now, I have the on the fly conversion to multichannel flac working through foobar with the gain cranked up 6 dB. I will do some more testing later this weekend.

You're welcome! The good news is that if you do decide to convert, it will be a lot faster and a lot more convenient to work from ISOs than discs.

There's probably a way to script the entire process so it finds all the ISOs and does all the processing. The potential hangup is that the extracted files won't have predictable names, but that can't be a showstopper. You'd need to:

1. Find all ISOs
2. Extract whole-disc DFFs + cue sheets
3. Programmatically identify the file names
4. Convert DFF to DSF
5. Modify the cue sheet

If you could get a script to do all that, you could just kick it off and walk away.
 
You're welcome! The good news is that if you do decide to convert, it will be a lot faster and a lot more convenient to work from ISOs than discs.

There's probably a way to script the entire process so it finds all the ISOs and does all the processing. The potential hangup is that the extracted files won't have predictable names, but that can't be a showstopper. You'd need to:

1. Find all ISOs
2. Extract whole-disc DFFs + cue sheets
3. Programmatically identify the file names
4. Convert DFF to DSF
5. Modify the cue sheet

If you could get a script to do all that, you could just kick it off and walk away.


So here is a script based on yours to do Step 1 and convert all the iso's to dff masters with cue files. It could be easily modified to do the remainder as well using a modification of the line you already have. I am finding that the uncompressed master dff files with cue sheet seem to work fine with the 203 (with the 3 files I tried mind you). They show the cover page when there is a folder.jpg file in the directory.

Put the script in the same directory as the sacd_extract or whatever executables (this can be changed also). The only argument is the directory path where all the iso files are stored.

Here is the code in case you want to use it, mind you it mostly a copy of what you already had, just added the all file search :


#!/bin/bash


#You will need to provide the base directory name/path when you execute it on the command line.
# $1 is the path to the directory housing all files
for iso_filename in $1/*.iso
do
echo "Converting $iso_filename"
# Make this work when file names contain embedded blanks
#IFS=$(echo -en "\n\b")


#Converting ISO to multichannel dsdiff master file (single file) converted to DSD (uncompressed)
#notice the single quote mark on iso_filename
eval "./sacd_extract --mch-tracks --convert-dst --export-cue --output-dsdiff-em --print --input '$iso_filename' "
# Add any further stuff here
# Convert single DFF to single DSF, point cue sheet to new DSF
#TheFile="$1"
#eval "sox-dsd-linux-gnu-amd64 --no-clobber \"$TheFile\".dff \"$TheFile\".dsf && rm \"$TheFile\".dff && sed -i -- 's/.dff/.dsf/' *.cue"

done
echo "Finished the Job"
 
I may just go ahead and convert my iso files to uncompressed dff files. It seems like such a waste of space and time to have to do this. I am still hoping somebody has /comes up with a way of directly streaming the iso's to dsd directly. Foobar is able to stream the converted dff files in DSD over upnp just fine. Just need to find a way to have the sacd decoder or some other plugin convert from iso(dst) to dsd over upnp.
 
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