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[sharok]

A company called "goldeneardigital" rips SACD and ship it back to the customers.

What is the best format or extension to rip SACDs, so JRiver can play them?

Thanks

[Hendrik]

You can either use a full SACD ISO, or get the tracks split into DSF files, both work fine.

[sharok]

Many thanks.

[Fitzcaraldo215]

A company called "goldeneardigital" rips SACD and ship it back to the customers.

What is the best format or extension to rip SACDs, so JRiver can play them?

Thanks

Short answer: best choice for JRiver is .dsf format, not .dff or .iso.  The reason is .dsf is taggable, and those tags can be written into the .dsf media file itself in addition to the JR Library. 

Longer answer:

- .iso is the actual rip format of the SACD and contains all 3 "layers" on the hybrid SACD: CD, DSD stereo and DSD Mch. So, each album track from the SACD will have 2-3 versions in the JRiver library after import.  That gets complicated to manage.  Tag edits, custom fields, etc. cannot be written back to the .iso, which is a compressed format.

- .dff is a decompressed DSD format extracted from the .iso, but it is either the stereo or Mch program from the SACD based on run time options chosen during the extract.  Tag edits cannot be written back to the .dff.  There is no rational reason to prefer .dff over .dsf.

- .dsf is just like .dff, except .dsf media files will accept any tag edits, custom fields, etc. from JRiver.  It is the preferred and most widely used format by SACD rippers, in spite of needing the additional extract step from the .iso.

- there are no sonic playback differences between the formats, though .iso adds a little bit of resource requirement to decompress during playback.

[blgentry]

I thought DSFs had the "pop at the end on some tracks" problem? 

Brian.

[Fitzcaraldo215]

I thought DSFs had the "pop at the end on some tracks" problem? 

Brian.

No longer true to the extent possible, from all reports about current extraction software releases.  And, having been at this for quite awhile, I can say that even when it was true, it was grossly exaggerated, IMHO. I have many SACDs extracted to .dsf over several years.  There is a slight "tick" on the older extracts, as there was from my old Oppo player playing the SACD itself.  But, honestly, unless I am focused on just that, meaning not focused on the music, ho hum....

Test it. Try it.  You can do the extracts to .dff and .dsf yourself via freeware.

I think you are also letting old news affect your opinion.  Unfortunately, stuff does not die on the Internet, even if it is no longer true in any way, shape or form.  It is right along side any new news, that is actually correct right now.  Old news often equals fake news.

[blgentry]

I don't really care.  I have a teeny tiny DSD collection and I plan to buy no more ever.  I was just trying to clarify the situation for the OP.

Are you saying there are absolutely NO audio defects with DSF and JRiver today?  I don't know, because I don't use DSF.  This is an honest question.

If so, maybe that's the way to go. But if the answer is more like "it's pretty small and most people don't notice" then that's a different story.

Brian.

[DJLegba]

Brian, I have many dsf files. I have heard very slight ticks or pops at the end of a track, but I can't remember the last time I noticed it. Most of my listening is "active" (not background music). I can say that if I were bothered by these tiny pops you could easily accuse me of listening to the equipment instead of the music. Some people do, so it may be worth pointing out, but I agree with the previous poster and would definitely recommend dsf files.

[kr4]

I don't really care.  I have a teeny tiny DSD collection and I plan to buy no more ever.  I was just trying to clarify the situation for the OP.

Are you saying there are absolutely NO audio defects with DSF and JRiver today?  I don't know, because I don't use DSF.  This is an honest question.

If so, maybe that's the way to go. But if the answer is more like "it's pretty small and most people don't notice" then that's a different story.

Brian.

If they were ripped a while back, it is possible they have ticks but "it's pretty small and most people don't notice" with JRiver.  If they were ripped with more recent apps, there are no ticks. 

[blgentry]

Having no experience with this, it's hard to understand the level of the "slight pops".  Again, I have no practical reason for wanting to know.  But I *DO* have practical experience with other playback problems with other media types.

What I've learned from prior experience is that, if I know there might be a playback issue, my brain can't stop "waiting for it to happen", which ruins my enjoyment of the experience. It's not a matter of me "listening to the equipment", or being overly critical of the sound quality.  It's that my mind knows there are probably defects waiting and that part of my mind is concentrated on hearing them.

Is anyone here familiar with how movie studios used to visually mark movies to try to prevent piracy?  For a while, movie studios put dot patterns in first run movies, at the movie theater, in an effort to track down which theaters were leaking movies to illegal sources.  So, you'd pay to see a movie, sit down in the theater and watch.  Then, at some point, you'd see a very large dot pattern flash on the screen.  Sometimes 3 or 4 times in a two hour movie.  These flashes only lasted half a second or so. But they were REALLY obvious in many cases.  This ruined watching movies in theaters for me for a while.  I'd sit there with my subconcious brain waiting to see the flashes of dot patterns destroying the movie.

I think this is a fairly common thing for human beings to experience.  We are very, very good at identifying things that happen over and over again.  Our brains are keyed to this type of thing.  It's part of our very nature.

So, if I know there are going to be pops in my songs, it might ruin listening to those songs for me.

I know this was long.  I'm just trying to show how human behavior and expectations play into this particular discussion.

Thanks for reading.

Brian.

[kr4]

So, if I know there are going to be pops in my songs, it might ruin listening to those songs for me.

I know this was long.  I'm just trying to show how human behavior and expectations play into this particular discussion.

Thanks for reading.

Certainly.  Note that the ticks I have heard (and which never disturbed me) occur between the tracks.

[Paul S.A. Renaud]

Short answer: best choice for JRiver is .dsf format, not .dff or .iso.  The reason is .dsf is taggable, and those tags can be written into the .dsf media file itself in addition to the JR Library. 

Longer answer:

- .iso is the actual rip format of the SACD and contains all 3 "layers" on the hybrid SACD: CD, DSD stereo and DSD Mch. So, each album track from the SACD will have 2-3 versions in the JRiver library after import.  That gets complicated to manage.  Tag edits, custom fields, etc. cannot be written back to the .iso, which is a compressed format.

- .dff is a decompressed DSD format extracted from the .iso, but it is either the stereo or Mch program from the SACD based on run time options chosen during the extract.  Tag edits cannot be written back to the .dff.  There is no rational reason to prefer .dff over .dsf.

- .dsf is just like .dff, except .dsf media files will accept any tag edits, custom fields, etc. from JRiver.  It is the preferred and most widely used format by SACD rippers, in spite of needing the additional extract step from the .iso.

- there are no sonic playback differences between the formats, though .iso adds a little bit of resource requirement to decompress during playback.

In my experience (including with Sonore software), the iso only contains the DSD versions of the albums (two-channel / Multi-channel). You can rip the CD layer with normal ripping software. I am not aware of ripping software which simultaneously rip DSD and CD into one iso

[TheShoe]

interestingly when i play back dsf with Kodi, the pop/click/crackle is always present at the very end of a track

with JRiver it is not.  i have a substantially large collection of SACDs and it's not been a problem with JRiver for me, multi-channel or otherwise

[Fitzcaraldo215]

In my experience (including with Sonore software), the iso only contains the DSD versions of the albums (two-channel / Multi-channel). You can rip the CD layer with normal ripping software. I am not aware of ripping software which simultaneously rip DSD and CD into one iso

I think that is right.  It has been awhile since I have played with .isos. 

[kr4]

Yup.  The SACD rippers only rip the DSD layer, not the RedBook layer.

[sharok]

Using DSF, is there a setting in JRiver that I need to use in order to get the best sound quality to my processor (Emotiva XMC-1)?

I'd like my processor to do all the bass management and crossover. Is there anything in JRiver that I need to disable / enable in order to let my processor do the crossover?

[dtc]

MC makes no changes to a DSF file that it is sending out, unless you have MC convert it to PCM. As long as you are bitstreaming a DSF file (the only way to send an actual DSF file to your receiver), then MC will make no changes to the file.

One limitation of DSD files is that applying any DSP to them is pretty much impossible with current technology. If your Emotiva is applying DSPs to a DSF file, it is doing so after converting the DSF file to some other form. Changes can be made in the analog domain or on a PCM format, but not on the DSD format directly.

You can check to be sure that MC is sending the DSF file without change by looking at Audio Path while playing the  file. To look at audio path, click on the little box with 3 vertical bars at the top right of the display, next to the shuffle box. It will tell you if any changes are being made to the DSF file.