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Jappie

I spent this morning running MC32 on both my Mac Mini with it's Samsung 24" 1920x1080 Screen and MacBook Air with it's 13" Retina Screen switching between the ET Easy Grey Skin and ModernCards Dark Skin.

The attached link is for a set of Screenies from both Mac PC's mostly with Screen Size set at 100% but some are set to 150% and for 1 of them it was set to 200%.
But there is something you need to know about some of Apples Odd-Behaviour before you look at them.
Regardless of which app is being run there is always a Whitish (Apple) Header Bar at the top of the screen where the App's Menu is placed; however the Windows Control Buttons (Close/Min/Max) are always on the Apps own Header Bar
Apple's Retina system has a dislike for drawing anything (usually images) that is 1 pixel wide or high so if you look very carefully at any of the images where the Details List is visible you should spot the Vertical Gridlines between the Columns are "Absent".
The Apple OS also replaces the header bar on any small/secondary window; like the Tools > Options and DSP Studio Window with a whitish one that has rounded corners and the Apple System windows control buttons instead of the ones from the skin.
There is a small problem in respect of the Segoe UI Font - None of the Segoe font family are shipped with Mac PC's but they can be downloaded and installed. Unfortunately for the OS and MC to be able to use them the PC has to be rebooted.
Mac Pc's have always has had better graphics presentation than that thing IBM developed so there is less tendancy for small/light fonts being discoulered.

Images 1-12 are from the Mac Mini where I was using the Verdana Font some are with Size at 100% others are at 150% and 1 of them is at 200%
Images 3, 4, 8, 9 & 10 are for the ModernCards Dark and reveal a couple of the reasons why it should be sent to the rubbish dump.
Images 7 & 11 show that while the OS hijacks the MC Menu, which means the Drop Down Menus are located just below the Apple Header Bar they are still using the MC Skin and do get resized by the Skin Size Command.
Images 13-15 are from the MacBook Air, where I did install and use the Segeo  UI Font, and as long as the user is no more than 30" from the screen the lower line in the Display Panel is still readable.

So just as with the Win PC once again those images reveal that your skin was thought out, planed and constructed with a lot more thought than that Naff ModernCards Dark Skin; your Contrast Level is far better.

I wish I'd remembered to switch to the ModernCards skin on the MacBook and taken a screenie of it because that would have definitely revealed why I hate the thing.

Incidentally if you are wondering where the Dark Gey background ModernCards uses for the Currently Playing Track and the Selected Option in the DSP Window in images 2, 3, 4, 8, 9 or 10. It appears as 3 very short lines at the left hand side of the line in the images where the Track List is visible and at the right hand edge of the line in the DSP Window.

Link to Images on Pix01 - https://pix01.jriver.com/sM1%40m4ZV 

Might be related if the block size on file system partitions differ

Check the CRC32 and/or MD5 and/or SHA-256 and/or SHA-512 hashes of both files and see if they're the same. You can use apps like HashTab (this is what I personally use) in Windows or even from the command line/PowerShell get the hash of a file.

If the hashes match but both report different file sizes, this could be due to the file system used on the NAS and the file system used on the other drive being different from each other. If the files were just copied and pasted from the NAS to the other drive, it makes no sense bitrate would change. If they're converted/re-encoded, then it could explain it.

Thanks for your input, Frobozz.

The Audio CRC is identical. I think it would have to be, given that the wav files are identical after converting from FLAC to wav. I checked with the FC command in Command Prompt.

I do not think Windows Media Player Legacy has been involved here. At least, there is no change in the metadata for the file, the date/time for "last edited" is identical for both the original and the copy.

Here is an intereseting bit: All data in Analyze Audio is identical, with the exception of Bitrate. This is slightly higher for the bigger file (the copy). At first I thought this was because bitrate was calculated by file size divided by duration. However, after testing, I see this is not correct. Changing the embedded cover art to a bigger file makes the FLAC file bigger, but it does not change the bitrate in Analyze Audio.

Could extra padding somehow have been added?

Bob - Since I updated the Mac Mini from Sonoma 14.5 (beta) to the official release of 14.5 I'll cover that first.
Installing 14.5 has a couple of "scary" bits in it; ever since I've had the mac mini every update install has had 2 occasions where the small Apple Icon and Progress Bar has been replaced by larger versions. For some reason known only to Apple for 14.5 they have replaced those 2 larger image screens with very "scary" blank screens.
From the limited amount of testing I was able to do it thankfully Apple have not added any of those (usually) undocumented changes that end up breaking something in MC.


I'm not sure if it is something to do with this change; 17. Fixed: Maximizing some windows like Options could be a problem in the last builds on some displays.
But Maximising either the Tools >> Options or DSP Windows causes problems:-
The header bar goes missing so the only way to close the maximised window is by hitting the cancel, ok or done buttons.
If the user then reopens the window they maximised thankfully it opens with an intact header bar and the only way to get it to go back to it's original size is to do it manually by very carefully find the resize arrows and drag them.

 

DXD is just a made-up marketing name for 352 Hz PCM. I believe it was coined to compete with DSD when that first came out.

MC plays DXD fine and if your DAC wants a lower sample rate, then DSP Studio can downscale it to the appropriate sample rate.

Neumann or Genelec is a way to go. i prefer Neumann.

Good speakers at a different price point. At that level there are lots of options for bookshelf speakers, not just monitors. But most are pretty big for an actual desktop.

All four test files at the link above play fine for me in MC32 at their native bit-depths and sample rates. Here's a screenshot of the audio path when playing back the 32-bit/352.8 kHz WAV file in MC32...



If it works or not without the need for dithering and/or resampling is all going to depend on what the audio output devices supports and how it's connected, so your results may vary. However I can say that over USB using my iFi ZEN DAC 3 all four files play fine.

the latest version 11.2403.5.0 of Windows Media Player can successfully decode and directly play those 3 DXD audio files (*.WAV & *.FLAC) without external DAC.

Because it's resampling them. I opened the three PCM files in Windows Media Player 11.2403.5.0 and it's definitely, absolutely 100% resampling them. My DAC informs me what sample rate it's playing at, and it's not going above 48 kHz so it isn't playing back at native 352.8 kHz like MC32 can.

As I said before, Windows Media Player goes through the Windows system mixer, meaning it's going to dither and/or resample the audio without informing you so playback will always work. Windows Media Player isn't good for testing things like this nor is it a valid test as it'll always resample to whatever bit-depth/sample rate you have it set to in Windows' sound settings for the audio output.

You can achieve the same thing in MC32 by going into DSP Studio > Output Format and setting the output for 352,800 Hz to a lower sample rate like 48,000 Hz or 96,000 Hz or whatever the max sample rate your output supports. It'll play it like Windows Media Player does, but like Windows Media Player it won't be playing it back at the native 352.8 kHz.

Thanks much EnglishTiger!

Yes it is possible to change the color of the progress bar.

What you need to do is copy the skins folder to somewhere like your documents folder; then in explorer you need to rename the folder you have just put into your documents folder.
Next in explorer open that renamed folder locate the main.xml and open it in a proper like editor like notepad++ and change the name of the skin and save the modified main.xml.
Then locate the image named PlayerBar_SliderPosFront.png in that folder, open it in an image editor and change the color to a more acceptable one and save it.
Finally copy that folder back to the MC Skins/Standard View folder.

NOTE if you don't change the Skins Folder Name and the Skin Name in the main.xml file MC will replace your modified skin with the standard one if and when you install an MC Update.