I get cd or better downloads from pro studio masters, 7digital.ca, bandcamp. With vpn and paypal I use all the other stores. I use dbpoweramp to convert aiff files to lossless flac.
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CX, EX, K, S, Oladra, Antipodes, Owners Unite
- Thread starter Clive101
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kennyb123
1000+ Head-Fier
ProStudioMasters is in Canada so they are a great option for Canadian purchasers. I’ve purchased a few items from them by HDTracks has been my main source. Lately I’ve started purchasing from the Qobuz download store as well as the version they sell matches what they stream (though not everything they stream is available for download).
I’m surprised to hear that Apple Lossless is no longer compatible with Roon. Are you sure about that?
Hey Kenny... Have you dropped the mscaler from your chain? I don’t see in your sig.
kennyb123
1000+ Head-Fier
Yup...it's listed for sale on Audiophile Style's classified section. I use HQPlayer for scaling anything that's not been processed with PGGB. PGGB is described here and it's really something special.
Triode User
Member of the Trade: WAVE High Fidelity
I am also playing with PGGB but unlike Kenny I do not rate HQP for scaling and so my main listening is still with the Mscaler.
Whazzzup
Headphoneus Supremus
I’m not sure about what happens after big sur iOS update but my apple Music according to roon settings skipped files is no longer compatible, roon support helped to identify, antipodes also drilled down to compatibility and trying to adjust permissions, the only avenue I haven’t tried, is appple support. But looking for alternate sources. If anyone here uses Apple I tunes downloads and could help…… sure but I may move on?
I am definitely going to give this a try. Right now I am enjoying HQPlayer Desktop to DSD256, ext2, 7ec. For no upsampling I use the EX with HQPlayer Embedded pcm, none,none,none to bypass the roon engine. This is where I will play the PGGB files.
Whazzzup
Headphoneus Supremus
pro studio works great thx, about 4 bucks per album more than iTunes but the sound is better. on the negative can't play on my apple TV now these new downloads, but roon is on my network so my portable hugo is fine and of course my desktop. Oh ya my wife apple iPhone won't get these tunes but she won't mind. she has 120 gigs
My first PGGB conversion went well and the sound is definitely a step up from my HQPlayer scaling. I will need to try a few more conversions before I would get a license.
PGGB looks interesting. Looks like you need quite a high end computer to run it.
It is probably not for me since I mostly listen to Tidal now. I suppose in a few short years the computing power will be sufficient to do the same standard of processing on the fly.
It is probably not for me since I mostly listen to Tidal now. I suppose in a few short years the computing power will be sufficient to do the same standard of processing on the fly.
It’s seems memory is the important thing. I have only 16gb on a 2018 MacbookPro. I tried to convert a 22 min prog masterpiece (Close To The Edge) and it quit at 12:40. That 12:40 was pretty impressive. As I mostly stream these days I will be sticking to HQPlayer. With my setup I am able to do quick A/B compares and sinc-L, lns15 was very very close, lacking in a bit of body and air around the vocals.
kennyb123
1000+ Head-Fier
Yeah memory is needed for sure. You can try to reduce the max taps setting to if it'll get through that entire song. Not sure what the default is when you have only 16 GB.
I just checked the number of taps it chose for the two versions of Close to Edge that I processed. It was 821 million taps for the Steve Wilson remix. The DSD version on the AudioFidelity SACD came in at 2048 million taps (wow!). DSD processing takes a very long time and requires a lot of memory, but the processed files are much improved.
Triode User
Member of the Trade: WAVE High Fidelity
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It might have been heat. I had that issue at first with an iMac and used a third party free utility to manually set the cooling fans to max and then it was happy to do long tracks. The automatic heat sensing for the fans did not react fast enough and that was why PGGB was falling over.
The first try was the whole album of 3 tracks. It also quit at 12:40 and went on to the next track finishing the album. Interesting...
Triode User
Member of the Trade: WAVE High Fidelity
For long tracks that would exceed the 3GB limit for WAV files iPGGB splits the track into segments, each less than the 3GB limit. I wonder if it is anything to do with that. I will also have a go processing and see where the split is made.
if interested you could contact the developer and perhaps send him the log file.
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