SACD conversion - dealing with pops between tracks

[ArmyOfQuad]

Not sure if I'm just behind everyone else, or if this has already been discussed somewhere. But it seems a rather prevalent problem whenever dealing with SACD material is the extraction softwares out there seem to struggle to deal with track changes. For the most part I've given up - but every now and then I want to make a backup DVD for the car or something like that, and I find myself manually muting track change points, which is a pain, and also doesn't deal with tracks that go from one to the other without silence.

Has anyone come up with a process to extract SACD iso to wav without the dreaded pops between tracks?

 

[windhoek]

I'm interested in hearing the solutions as I plan on converting all my SACD ISO files to FLAC as my gapless playback solution only works with FLAC; my solution is to play files via USB into my OPPO 103D.

 

[ArmyOfQuad]

It seems to come down to the foobar plug-in being woefully inadequate. It seems there's a bug that causes the pops, and I found a bunch of posts about it where they seem to have come up with a fix for playback - but that doesn't address file conversion, and foobar completes file conversions one track at a time, a series of standalone processes. So the fix of transitioning between tracks doesn't take place.

I thought a simple solution might be to deal with the album as a whole - but it seems nothing will let me do that.

It is possible to extract a single dff file of an album - but then when you bring that file into foobar, it still breaks it up into tracks in the tracklist, which then means converting to .wav, it will continue the practice of dealing with each individual track, and throwing a garbage pop at the end/start, due to the stupid bug that hasn't been adequately addressed!

For years I've been fighting this fight.....I don't get why no one has fixed this yet.

Searching for other options to convert dff has come up empty so far.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

I ran into the same thing. My solution was to convert the DSF/DFF to 24/88.2 FLAC

 

[ArmyOfQuad]

I ran into the same thing. My solution was to convert the DSF/DFF to 24/88.2 FLAC

How?

My problem isn't on the playback - it's on the conversion. Your reply implies that you were having the opposite - the playback was problematic, so you ran a conversion.

You're able to convert to flac without pops?

How?

That's what I'm trying to figure out.

Every conversion I do with foobar gives me pops on the transitions.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

How?

My problem isn't on the playback - it's on the conversion. Your reply implies that you were having the opposite - the playback was problematic, so you ran a conversion.

You're able to convert to flac without pops?

How?

That's what I'm trying to figure out.

Every conversion I do with foobar gives me pops on the transitions.

Yes I convert them all the time with no pops. I used to rip the files as DFF. There is a DFF decoder plug in for foobar. Convert in the usual way.

Since my original Pioneer ripper died I had to go to a Sony machine. The old Sonare ISOtoDSD software I was using was replaced by SACD extract. That rips to DSF. I had to get a DSF foobar plug in. I ripped the last batch of DV releases that way. No issues.

 

[ArmyOfQuad]

Foobar gives me pops every time - I'm still not sure how you're avoiding it.

 

[ArmyOfQuad]

Is there an older version perhaps that doesn't have pops between tracks? You said DFF decoder plug-in - is that different from the SACD one? I searched again - everything leads back to the same old SACD plug-in I've been using for foobar for years (updated along the way), I found the version I was on was from May, and the version I downloaded seems to be from June - so I tried again with this newer version. I still get the pops. Every time.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

Is there an older version perhaps that doesn't have pops between tracks? You said DFF decoder plug-in - is that different from the SACD one? I searched again - everything leads back to the same old SACD plug-in I've been using for foobar for years (updated along the way), I found the version I was on was from May, and the version I downloaded seems to be from June - so I tried again with this newer version. I still get the pops. Every time.

Ill have to dig out an old laptop to see what plugin version it was. IIRC the DSF and DFF plugins were 2 seperate installs.

 

[ArmyOfQuad]

Digging around I did find this text

• To play DSD files with Foobar, you'll need the dsdiff decoder component, this does no longer seem to be available at the foobar site, advice is to use the SACD plug-in from Sound Forge instead, which also supports DSDIFF:

Sounds like you had a working solution that has since been scrubbed clean of the internet (I"ve not tracked it down yet), and replaced with garbage. Ugh.

The search is on.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

OK foobar2000 version 1.6.5, under windows 8.1,

under installed components:
DSD processor, version:1.1.4, module:foo_dsd_processor
DSDIFdecoder version 1.4, module:foo_input_dsddiff
Super Audio CD decoder, version 1.3.4 Module: foo_input_sacd

does that help any? i can also find more detailed info on some of them

 

[ArmyOfQuad]

I have the sacd and dsd processor plug-ins. I don't have the dsddiff decoder.

Maybe that's the one that can convert without issue?

I'm not finding any trace of it online at this time. Do you still have the installer for it?

 

[ArmyOfQuad]

Ok, hold off - I may have found a cheat. Will report back soon.

 

[Marplot]

I use sox to convert to flac. I have noticed a pop on the last track only. I will try a different player and see if it is in the file or the playback.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

I have the sacd and dsd processor plug-ins. I don't have the dsddiff decoder.

Maybe that's the one that can convert without issue?

I'm not finding any trace of it online at this time. Do you still have the installer for it?

But like I said, I had to change from ripping DFF to DSF when the disc player changed. So it had to be using the other processors

 

[ArmyOfQuad]

Ok - here's the current workaround.

Use sacd extract gui to extract your iso to a single dff file
- Channels - export multi-channel tracks
- Format - output as Philips DSDIFF (Edit Master) file

Uninstall the SACD plug-in for foobar

Drag the diff file into the track list in foobar - it will load into the list as a single file. Without the SACD plug-in installed, it doesn't recognize the file as a series of tracks.

Reinstall the SACD plug-in - this will restart foobar, but it will hold onto the tracklist.

You now have your diff file in the tracklist of foobar with the SACD plugin installed - convert it, it will output a single .wav file. No pops!

 

[LuvMyQuad]

The process i use also takes the WAVs, splits the chapters, and converts to flac.

is there some reason you want a single WAV file?

 

[ArmyOfQuad]

The SACD plug-in creates pops between tracks when converting as separate tracks.

 

[HomerJAU]

I’ve only noticed a pop when there’s a silent channel. The pop is is in the silent channel.

I managed to find the developer of the decoder and asked him to fix. He replied with (paraphrase) “DSF is shite I’m not going to do anything”.

I wrote a fix in MMH to recreate a true silent channel that fixes the issue. The DSF ‘silent’ channels are not silent they have very low level noise (why the DR readings are incorrect for many MCH DSF conversions).

The MMH Channel Remix tool has a Refresh silent channel option that deletes silent channnels in DSF and replaces with a true silent channel with no pop. WARNING: Please confirm the DSF channel layout prior to using MMH as it only looks at number of channels so using the wrong option will remove/replace wrong channels and effectively destroy your DSF. Dont use the ‘overwrite’ source option

 

[HomerJAU]

I forgot to add: Please ensure you have latest SACD Decoder in Foobar. There were some fixes applied to more recent versions.