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[JeffBDVS]

New user/Trial version.

TL;DR -- I would like to know the procedure to create a DoP FLAC file from a .dff or .dsf DSD file, and what that file should look like in Audio Path when it's playing back.

The Why? of it:
I have a portable Oppo HA-2 DAC/Amp for playing DSD and hi-rez PCM audio from my iPhone and my PC. The Onkyo HF Player app handles the iPhone stuff and MC21 will handle the PC stuff. On the PC, I currently use foobar2000 and it's SACD plugin but it's temperamental. I'm looking for something more reliable. MC21 also looks promising for letting me ditch my many DLNA and audio file conversion tools and do everything I need from one place.

Some of my SACD rips have to be parsed into .dff files. (Normally I use .dsf because of its superior metadata handling.) But although the .dff files will play properly on my phone through the Oppo DAC, I get no album or artist or artwork information for them.  To fix that, I convert the .dff files to DoP .flac using dBpoweramp.  But I'm concerned that this may be part of foobar's flakiness with DSD, as well as some iPhone playback anomalies.

I figure since JRiver is one of the co-founders and developers of the DoP format, MC21 might do a better job of creating the DoP files than dBpoweramp. And it certainly does a better job than foobar of playing them back.

The MC Wiki does a great job of describing how to play DoP files back using MC21, but I can't find a discussion on how to create the darn things by converting DSD files.  What is the procedure to create them, please?  And how best to tell if I did the conversion correctly -- how would they appear in Audio Path when playing back? Or how would, say, Adobe Audition or MediaInfo see them?

I have a fair amount of SACDs to process, so this effort will go on long after the MC21 trial expires, and will necessitate a license purchase if MC21 can do the job.

Thanks in advance for any help,
Jeff

[JeffBDVS]

More info:

My attempts so far to create  DoP FLAC files were done as shown in the two attachments.  The resulting files can play under certain circumstances, but they behave differently in different players on different devices, and differently than the DoP FLACs from dBpoweramp.

::confused::

Cheers,
Jeff

[dtc]

Are you sure the output file actually contains DoP? I believe it may just be a normal PCM file. If you play your file on a DSD capable DAC does it show that it is playing a DSD file?

[JeffBDVS]

Are you sure the output file actually contains DoP? I believe it may just be a normal PCM file. If you play your file on a DSD capable DAC does it show that it is playing a DSD file?

That's exactly what I'm *not* sure of.  Unfortunately, my DAC has no external indication that it is playing a DSD file.  That's why I want to know how a properly-created DoP file from MC21 would appear in various analysis tools like MC's Audio Path dialog or MediaInfo or Audition or foobar2000.

NB: The files created as I described above in MC21 have a 352.8 kHz sampling rate, which is too high for my PC's audio hardware.  The DoP .flac files from dBpoweramp are 176.4 and can be played by VLC and foobar (but only as static, since they have no real PCM audio inside of the FLAC container).  If I could create a 176.4 DoP file in MC21, then I could test it in VLC and foobar.

Cheers,
Jeff

[Hendrik]

MC cannot create DoP FLACs, and there are no plans to allow that. And even if it could, any audio conversions in MC go through a PCM stage, which would defeat the point of using DSD, you might as well just use high samplerate PCM then.

In general, DoP in FLAC is a giant hack of a format, and I would never advocate using it.
DoP is a transmission format, not a storage format.

[JeffBDVS]

Thank you for that info, and for your opinion, Hendrick.

I guess I don't need to buy a copy of MediaCenter.  This whole project is more about taking good audio mobile, and less about creating an entertainment center in my home.  I was hoping to streamline things with MediaCenter, but it looks like MediaCenter is the wrong tool for the job.  I'll just continue using my current "hacks" to get my music to play and display the way I want. 

Uninstalling the trial now.  Thanks for saving me 70 bucks.

Jeff

[dtc]

I believe Vinyl Studio converts dff to DoP files. You might try that. It also has a free trial. You can ask on their forum before trying the software. Paul is usually very responsive.

[JeffBDVS]

Thanks, dtc!  I will give Vinyl Studio a try.  I haven't come across it in any of my multiple Google searches, so I really appreciate you bringing it to my attention.

Cheers,
Jeff

[dtc]

I checked on the Vinyl Studio forum and it does convert dsf and dff to DoP in flac without any PCM conversion. It also inputs DoP files and converts them to dsf or dff.

It also converts dff to dsd directly, which may solve your issues directly, without going through DoP. I just converted a 2x DSD dff file to dsf and it worked fine. You can import multiple dff  files as an album (rather than recording), enter track tags and then write out the tracks as dsd.

Vinyl Studio is a very versatile program and well worth the $29.

[JeffBDVS]

You are 100% correct: being able to convert .dff files to .dsf files solves my problem completely, including playback issues in foobar and on my iPhone.  I just converted several .dff files to .dsf using VS and it worked perfectly.  Job done.

Thanks again,
Jeff

[dtc]

Glad to hear it worked. There is a free trial period, but if it works for you, please consider purchasing. It is great software and the $29 is a small price to pay to support it. Note, I have no relationship to VS other than being a big fan.

[JeffBDVS]

if it works for you, please consider purchasing.

Always! 

[dtc]