[SteveHulk]

Otoh, WAV has roughly twice the file size of FLAC , so will involve twice the disc or memory access, twice the bus activity, twice the data transfer …. why should those be inherently quiet and the trivial and intermittent computation to decode FLAC be noisy?

That is a good point.

EDIT I would like to observe, on further reflection, that I saw in an interview one of the founders of Roon stating that a principal plank of the Roon architecture was the need to get what he referred to as the "electrical firestorm" of the servers as far away from the renderers as possible. This is achieved in Roon by networking the various components that transfer data to each other. They are thus electrically isolated from each other.

They see electrical noise generated by normal computer activity as a serious issue for the audio components.

Having achieved this electrical separation and isolation wouldn't it then be worthwhile tackling other possibly unnecessary computation in the renderers such as that associated with decompression?

 

[MarkParity]

Otoh, WAV has roughly twice the file size of FLAC , so will involve twice the disc or memory access, twice the bus activity, twice the data transfer …. why should those be inherently quiet and the trivial and intermittent computation to decode FLAC be noisy?

No Idea, but with the 2Go->Hugo2 (other DAP's and sources may be different of course) I thought I could hear a slight "metallic" edge to the Flac playback vs Wav playback. As I implied above its probably my brain playing tricks because I knew which was which but everyone should try it themselves and make up their own minds if this is something that bothers them.

 

[edwardsean]

Statements made in previous posts such as the one above along the lines of ALAC sounding better than FLAC because ALAC does not involve noise associated with the digital process of unpacking the data are entirely plausible to me. I intend to make my own tests of these claims.

Wav, not ALAC. ALAC and FLAC are both lossless compression algorithms and require unpacking.

Otoh, WAV has roughly twice the file size of FLAC , so will involve twice the disc or memory access, twice the bus activity, twice the data transfer …. why should those be inherently quiet and the trivial and intermittent computation to decode FLAC be noisy?

So, this quote from Einstein (or Cameron) comes up at these times, “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”

We hear theories, some make sense and are true and some make sense and are dead wrong, some don’t make sense at all but are completely right, some sound crazy because they’re ignorant and some sound crazy because we’re ignorant.

You have to listen for yourself.

My “theory” is that the difference in bus activity between FLAC and wav does not present anything like the processing load as decompression. If you are running TurboTax, I would wager you are right, and that actually both are completely “trivial.” At the level of audio jitter/noise it may make a difference… or not. As I said, I’m not sure this is the main reason for the difference. I am sure I hear a difference.

As fun as it is to bat around theories, and it is fun, you have to try for yourself, and that’s fun too.

 

[earnmyturns]

Update on 2go WiFi vagaries: I have a DLNA server (minim) on the same machine as my Roon Core, seeing the same local SSD files. It may be random luck, but since I started experimenting with playing from DLNA, controlled by BubbleUPnP on my Pixel, zero glitches. Later: Unfortunately, first clicks, then stutters and skips showed up with DLNA too. Since the server works perfectly with multiple other devices, the odds are up that 2go WiFi is (still) the issue.

 

[manueljenkin]

Wav, not ALAC. ALAC and FLAC are both lossless compression algorithms and require unpacking.

So, this quote from Einstein (or Cameron) comes up at these times, “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”

We hear theories, some make sense and are true and some make sense and are dead wrong, some don’t make sense at all but are completely right, some sound crazy because they’re ignorant and some sound crazy because we’re ignorant.

You have to listen for yourself.

My “theory” is that the difference in bus activity between FLAC and wav does not present anything like the processing load as decompression. If you are running TurboTax, I would wager you are right, and that actually both are completely “trivial.” At the level of audio jitter/noise it may make a difference… or not. As I said, I’m not sure this is the main reason for the difference. I am sure I hear a difference.

As fun as it is to bat around theories, and it is fun, you have to try for yourself, and that’s fun too.

I am not sure if I understand your wordings right, but if it's about FLAC and wav (identical data) sounding different, yes I do agree.

 

[dcp10]

My “theory” is that the difference in bus activity between FLAC and wav does not present anything like the processing load as decompression. If you are running TurboTax, I would wager you are right, and that actually both are completely “trivial.” At the level of audio jitter/noise it may make a difference… or not. As I said, I’m not sure this is the main reason for the difference. I am sure I hear a difference.

The Naim Audio people I've spoken to are adamant that "WAV sounds better than FLAC". I'm not sure my ears are sufficiently "golden" to be able to tell the difference myself, and as others have noted, WAV isn't quite as flexible w.r.t. metadata - and it takes up twice the space...

By way of compromise, I was recommended to set up my NAS drive such that FLAC is transcoded to WAV "on the fly" (via the Minim streamer software). As this all happens on the NAS drive, it supposedly shifts the processing/noise away from the transport (streamer) stage.

How does this sound in practise? My two systems are:-

A. Synology NAS drive running Minim Server -> local ethernet network -> Naim ND5 XS Streamer -> digital out (SPDIF coax) ->Hugo 2 -> Focal Utopia

vs.

B. SD card in 2Go -> Hugo 2 -> Focal Utopia

Now, a straight A-B test is difficult to achieve because my Hugo 2 gets confused if I switch back and forth between the USB - 2Go - and Coax inputs: resulting in massive levels of white noise. However, on longer listening, I am fairly confident that system "A" wins: I seem to experience a more "authoritative" sound. Perhaps this is due to the reduced signal processing at the DAC end, and/or the superiority of the Naim system as a streaming platform? Other Naim/Chord users seem to agree - but perhaps this is "group think".

Part of the reason for me purchasing the 2Go was the belief that this would simplify the system and improve the sound; but I'm beginning to think that a my more "distanced" Naim system offers the better sound. (Another reason to consider trading in the Hugo + 2Go for a TT2!)

 

[AndrewOld]

The Naim Audio people I've spoken to are adamant that "WAV sounds better than FLAC".

I read that as “Naim Audio admit they cannot replay FLAC properly”. Maybe they have a hardware problem, or have used the wrong CODEC, who knows. They were certainly late to the streaming game and tried to lock people into their own WAV based servers with non-standard metadata handling, so since they couldn’t actually handle FLAC it was very convenient for them to say it sounded worse. There is certainly no good reason why FLAC should sound any different to WAV, and I would certainly think twice about buying equipment from a manufacturer that can’t do an equal job with both formats.

 

[AndrewOld]

The Naim Audio people I've spoken to are adamant that "WAV sounds better than FLAC".

I read that as “Naim Audio cannot replay FLAC properly”. Maybe they have a hardware problem, or have used the wrong CODEC, who knows. They were certainly late to the streaming game and tried to lock people into their own WAV based servers with non-standard metadata handling. There is certainly no good reason why FLAC should sound any different to WAV, and I would certainly think twice about buying equipment from a manufacturer that can’t do an equal job with both formats

 

[jarnopp]

The Naim Audio people I've spoken to are adamant that "WAV sounds better than FLAC". I'm not sure my ears are sufficiently "golden" to be able to tell the difference myself, and as others have noted, WAV isn't quite as flexible w.r.t. metadata - and it takes up twice the space...

By way of compromise, I was recommended to set up my NAS drive such that FLAC is transcoded to WAV "on the fly" (via the Minim streamer software). As this all happens on the NAS drive, it supposedly shifts the processing/noise away from the transport (streamer) stage.

How does this sound in practise? My two systems are:-

A. Synology NAS drive running Minim Server -> local ethernet network -> Naim ND5 XS Streamer -> digital out (SPDIF coax) ->Hugo 2 -> Focal Utopia

vs.

B. SD card in 2Go -> Hugo 2 -> Focal Utopia

Now, a straight A-B test is difficult to achieve because my Hugo 2 gets confused if I switch back and forth between the USB - 2Go - and Coax inputs: resulting in massive levels of white noise. However, on longer listening, I am fairly confident that system "A" wins: I seem to experience a more "authoritative" sound. Perhaps this is due to the reduced signal processing at the DAC end, and/or the superiority of the Naim system as a streaming platform? Other Naim/Chord users seem to agree - but perhaps this is "group think".

Part of the reason for me purchasing the 2Go was the belief that this would simplify the system and improve the sound; but I'm beginning to think that a my more "distanced" Naim system offers the better sound. (Another reason to consider trading in the Hugo + 2Go for a TT2!)

I don’t see it stated, but I’m assuming the SD card has FLAC files? How about putting WAV files on the SD card?

 

[jonnyt]

So I recently was forced to upgrade the app and firmware to latest versions and after a few hours of faffing about, i am now back online with Roon and I have two, reformatted SD cards full of music that the 2go can read and Rigelian is able to control.

I am about to go on my first holiday in 18 months and want to use the 2go as a portable player On the train and in the hotel. Could one of you helpful folk point me to the best place to see my options here? I would love to not have to hotspot my phone wifi for hours at a time. Is there a way that I can connect via bluetooth and use an app to tell the Hugo2go to play an album without needing Hifi?

Also what is the best way to get hold of one of the leather travel cases, I can’t seem to find any in stock anywhere.

 

[Daniel Johnston]

So I recently was forced to upgrade the app and firmware to latest versions and after a few hours of faffing about, i am now back online with Roon and I have two, reformatted SD cards full of music that the 2go can read and Rigelian is able to control.

I am about to go on my first holiday in 18 months and want to use the 2go as a portable player On the train and in the hotel. Could one of you helpful folk point me to the best place to see my options here? I would love to not have to hotspot my phone wifi for hours at a time. Is there a way that I can connect via bluetooth and use an app to tell the Hugo2go to play an album without needing Hifi?

Also what is the best way to get hold of one of the leather travel cases, I can’t seem to find any in stock anywhere.

Try this Link.

He makes good cases. If you pick one in stock, they come pretty quick.

DJ

 

[PANURUS]

So I recently was forced to upgrade the app and firmware to latest versions and after a few hours of faffing about, i am now back online with Roon and I have two, reformatted SD cards full of music that the 2go can read and Rigelian is able to control.

I am about to go on my first holiday in 18 months and want to use the 2go as a portable player On the train and in the hotel. Could one of you helpful folk point me to the best place to see my options here? I would love to not have to hotspot my phone wifi for hours at a time. Is there a way that I can connect via bluetooth and use an app to tell the Hugo2go to play an album without needing Hifi?

Also what is the best way to get hold of one of the leather travel cases, I can’t seem to find any in stock anywhere.

The new version of Gofigure creates, on each SD card, a playlist by directory containing an album. If Gofigure is started in Bluetooth, you just need to choose from the recorded playlists.

 

[PANURUS]

The Naim Audio people I've spoken to are adamant that "WAV sounds better than FLAC". I'm not sure my ears are sufficiently "golden" to be able to tell the difference myself, and as others have noted, WAV isn't quite as flexible w.r.t. metadata - and it takes up twice the space...

By way of compromise, I was recommended to set up my NAS drive such that FLAC is transcoded to WAV "on the fly" (via the Minim streamer software). As this all happens on the NAS drive, it supposedly shifts the processing/noise away from the transport (streamer) stage.

How does this sound in practise? My two systems are:-

A. Synology NAS drive running Minim Server -> local ethernet network -> Naim ND5 XS Streamer -> digital out (SPDIF coax) ->Hugo 2 -> Focal Utopia

vs.

B. SD card in 2Go -> Hugo 2 -> Focal Utopia

Now, a straight A-B test is difficult to achieve because my Hugo 2 gets confused if I switch back and forth between the USB - 2Go - and Coax inputs: resulting in massive levels of white noise. However, on longer listening, I am fairly confident that system "A" wins: I seem to experience a more "authoritative" sound. Perhaps this is due to the reduced signal processing at the DAC end, and/or the superiority of the Naim system as a streaming platform? Other Naim/Chord users seem to agree - but perhaps this is "group think".

Part of the reason for me purchasing the 2Go was the belief that this would simplify the system and improve the sound; but I'm beginning to think that a my more "distanced" Naim system offers the better sound. (Another reason to consider trading in the Hugo + 2Go for a TT2!)

With wifi, the 2GO2YU used with an optical fiber and Hugo2 are perfect if both are used with battery.
Qobuz, wav and flac on the SD card sound exactly the same.
The RJ45 generaly sends a lot of noise in the streamer.
I suggest you to experience your Hugo2 with this setup before thinking about a TT2.

I thought I had totally optimized my Aurender N100H equipped with a USB / optical converter whose network connection was made by Wifi and battery. Well no, there is still noise coming out of the N100H and enters my Dave by taking the way from 220 V.

The 2GO2YU is my sixth streamer and I am finally satisfied.

 

[dcp10]

I don’t see it stated, but I’m assuming the SD card has FLAC files? How about putting WAV files on the SD card?

It’s obvious: double the storage requirement!

 

[dcp10]

I read that as “Naim Audio cannot replay FLAC properly”

Thing is, others on this forum have said the same about the 2Go - that uncompressed (WAV) files sound better than FLAC (lossless but compressed)…