XXHighEnd

I have the CD 16/44 and ripped to Wave file.

When the version 24/44 appeared I recently downloaded(flac) from 7 Digital UK. Upon playback it only played 4 tracks then XXhighend stopped.
This was after conversion to Wave by Saracon. I repeated this process and no luck still stopped playing.

I downloaded from HD downloads the same version 24/44 in wave. Play back was perfect for the whole album in XXhighend.

Not only this, but on comparing all 3 versions "Amen" in attended, the HD download version was better in all aspects, leaving the 7Digital version in second place.

I will try to get someone to analyse these two downloads.

All I can say is all downloads(Hi Res especially) are not equal and can have issues. One could jump to the conclusion that playback software is to blame when in fact something odd is in the download files.

This on top off so called hires rip off's like albums just being upsampled and sold as hi res issues.

I have had problems with some HD downloads that will only playback fully after being run through Saracon from original wave download.

In my view the HiRes(24/44) Leonard Cohen "Old Ideas" is well worth getting from HD tracks and easily better than the ripped CD.

Robert

Hi Robert,

I'm afraid I can only give you some background data for your further analysis and investigation (but read : surely this has to be solved);

One can say that when a new download source comes about, something will be the matter with it. But with what ? the header data;
Quite some "information" is in there, like sampling rate, track length and more, and very often one or more of these elements is plain wrong, but most of the time can be made consistent again (by the playback software like XXHighEnd). Not always, and especially not if it is a new problem.
Anyway, you can see it happen when something else is going over it, like your mentioned Saracon. But be careful, because Saracon is destructive (not bit perfect for the purpose (!)) while something like FLAC is fine. So that too will recreate the header (hey, *if* it can cope with the issue).

When something is wrong with the header so the track won't play, well, it just doesn't play; if something is wrong with the header so the end of the track is denoted wrongly, then the NEXT track possibly won't play. When something is stored at the end of the file (like Coverart can be there) while it is not indicated in the header properly, then the track itself dies when it runs into it, or worse and happening more easily : static for a second or so.

That is your data ...
So if you can isolate a problem track and can consistently let it go wrong on its own, or with two always the same subsequently, then you can send it/them to me and I can try to solve it.
Please do not do so for one occasion (say a glitch of the rip or whatever) because that makes no sense (there won't be anything to solve in that case). So you must really see it go wrong many times in same/similar fashion for one source of the albums (like 7 Digital UK apparently is such a source).

Peter

PS: Be careful with HDTracks and your judgment of "wrong" because it is quite hard to imagine. You can be correct of course, but it exists for quite long now and more people use it then not. And I didn't hear of problems with it for maybe 2-3 years.

PPS: Be even more careful that it is not your own mis-interpretation of RAMDisks running full etc. - see your other topic.