I have purchased a number of hi-defintion audio FLACs from HDTracks.com I use XLD to convert them to ALAC (Apple Lossless files) using the same 24/96 or 24/88 quality for playing on my M1000. Obviously, the M1000 won't play these.
I then tried converting the files to 44.1 khz ALAC files, again, no love.

Is there a way to get iTunes to transcode the files for the Soundbridge to play?

I just purchased a used M2000 but have not yet set it up. I assume there is no difference in file capabilities between the two?

ALAC files ripped from CD's play fine on the Soundbridge.

Will a FLAC plugin for iTunes solve my issues?

Thanks. For fuller info, the Soundbridge outputs via co-ax digital out to a Beresford Caiman DAC. The Caiman is compatible with 24/96 files.

dufferdan wrote:

I have purchased a number of hi-defintion audio FLACs from HDTracks.com I use XLD to convert them to ALAC (Apple Lossless files) using the same 24/96 or 24/88 quality for playing on my M1000. Obviously, the M1000 won't play these.
I then tried converting the files to 44.1 khz ALAC files, again, no love.

You need to convert to a 16 bit format. 16 bit Apple Lossless at 44.1khz sample rate will be fine (which is why your CD conversions work). You are right that the M2000 is the same as the M1000 in this respect. The M1000 and M2000 will also play 48kHz material so you can play the 24/96 files by converting them to 16/48.

S80_UK wrote:

dufferdan wrote:

I have purchased a number of hi-defintion audio FLACs from HDTracks.com I use XLD to convert them to ALAC (Apple Lossless files) using the same 24/96 or 24/88 quality for playing on my M1000. Obviously, the M1000 won't play these.
I then tried converting the files to 44.1 khz ALAC files, again, no love.

You need to convert to a 16 bit format. 16 bit Apple Lossless at 44.1khz sample rate will be fine (which is why your CD conversions work). You are right that the M2000 is the same as the M1000 in this respect. The M1000 and M2000 will also play 48kHz material so you can play the 24/96 files by converting them to 16/48.

I have XLD, will that do? Or do I convert to AIFF/WaAV and then import into iTunes?

dufferdan wrote:

I have XLD, will that do? Or do I convert to AIFF/WaAV and then import into iTunes?

I have no idea... I am not a Mac user - I use dbPoweramp under Windows and that will support 24 to 16 bit conversions at the same time as sample rate conversion. Equally, I have no clue which format variants are favoured by iTunes (hardly use that either since it's such a resource hog as a server compared to the alternatives). I don't see why you shouldn't be able to convert FLAC to Apple Lossless and change bit depth and sample rate in one hop, if XLD supports it. (I could not find that level of detail in the descriptions that I looked at.) Going via WAV or AIFF will just be extra steps, although both would be equally lossless of course.

S80_UK wrote:

dufferdan wrote:

I have XLD, will that do? Or do I convert to AIFF/WaAV and then import into iTunes?

I have no idea... I am not a Mac user - I use dbPoweramp under Windows and that will support 24 to 16 bit conversions at the same time as sample rate conversion. Equally, I have no clue which format variants are favoured by iTunes (hardly use that either since it's such a resource hog as a server compared to the alternatives). I don't see why you shouldn't be able to convert FLAC to Apple Lossless and change bit depth and sample rate in one hop, if XLD supports it. (I could not find that level of detail in the descriptions that I looked at.) Going via WAV or AIFF will just be extra steps, although both would be equally lossless of course.

Agreed. Thanks, at least there is software out ther that can do the bit cnversion, thanks

I also have 24/96 sources, and wanted to convert that to lower resolution for the Soundbrigde (M200, latest firmware).
I encoded in m4a (alac) in 48KHz, 16 bits (From a 48/16 FLAC using Max 0.9.1, generated from the 96/24 FLAC by foobar2000).
iTunes reports 48KHz 16bits, but when playing on the soundbridge, the digital out is 44.1/16 and hence way slower than what it should, ouch!

Do someone have the same issue ? (or encoutered it and solved it ? ).
Cheers,

Hello Yves,

I can only repeaat my recommendation above to try dBpoweramp. In addition to the codecs, use the DSP plugins, and when converting from FLAC to Apple Lossless specify the sample rate at 48000 and the bit depth at 16 bits. You will probably also need to run the m4a optimiser with dBpoweramp (in the m4a utilites codec pack) before you can stream the files to the SoundBridge. However, I find that once done this works perfectly. I have just converted some 24/96 FLAC to 16/48 ALAC and I can confim that tempo and pitch are identical (FLAC player and ALAC on the SoundBridge keep perfectly in step with no pitch differences).

Regards,

Les.

i just find a step by step guide on How to Convert FLAC Files to Apple Lossless ALAC at http://www.bigasoft.com/articles/how-to-convert-flac-to-apple-lossless-audio.html
it really works for me
hope it also helps for you

it really works for me, but not totally free

No, not with the SoundBridge - you're limited to 44.1 and 48k and 16 bits. You either need to re-encode your library (with a tool such as dBpoweramp) or use a server application that will transcode on the fly (AssetUPnP can do this I believe, but may require some tweaks in the setup).