I am creating a new thread in this section because I discovered something important and I did not want it buried in another thread with a different topic.

I remember when I first tried a USB stick in the new RDX with 5.1 files I was not convinced that it was true 5.1. It just didn't sound right. When I went back with a different stick, it sounded great. Forum Member Stew posted in the forum that some 5.1 files sounded great, yet other sounded like crap. Well I finally figured out what the deal was.

I copied a bunch of 5.1 songs to a USB stick and was listening to them in the car and sure enough, some sounded spectacular and some sounded odd. Then I got to a song that I know starts out for the first two minutes in the rears with nothing in the fronts. Nothing. However, I was hearing what was supposed to be in the rears in the fronts, and nothing from the rears. I was totally puzzled.

When I got home I pulled the stick and checked it out in an audio editor and it was clearly 5.1 with no audio in the fronts at the start of the song. Then I noticed that it was 24/96.

24/96 5.1 files will play, but they are not just downsampled by the system, they are converted to stereo!!! Unreal.

That's why Stew4HD heard crap when he played "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" because I will bet that it was copied to a 5.1 24/96 file, and that's why I did not think the system was true 5.1 when I first tried it at the dealers because I had 24/96 files

For those that don't care about this stuff, sorry to bother you. For those that do, check it out for yourself.

:-jon

 

Many of the DVD-A files I have been working with are native 24/96 and I have been setting DVD-Audio Extractor to downmix it to 24/48. I need to spend more time testing things because some of those 24/48's play fine while others will not play at all. I hope to do more on this this weekend. I will use 2 different thumb drives with the same music on each with different settings and see what I get.

Some members here think we are nuts for caring how the music sounds.. just stream they tell us.. MP3 is fine

 

So you are saying that all output of music needs to be at 24/48? That's crazy

 

Here is a set of test files so you guys can try it and see for yourself. I clipped a section of a demo DVD-A where the dude identifies each channel by speaking the channel name. It's very pin-point.

I then took that audio and made a 24-48 .wav file and a 24-96 .wav file and played it in the car. The 24-48 comes through perfectly, clear as a bell, right where each voice should be.

Then I played the 24-96 file. While the 3 front channels sound almost the same as the 24-48 file, the two rear channels are clearing coming from the front speakers, and nothing is coming out of the rears.

I can live with this as long as I know about it. Now I just wish they would get the .flac files to work so I can tag these files. It would look so much better on the display.

Here is a link to the testfile zip file. Unzip and you will have the two 5.1 .wav files. Right Click and 'Save Link As'

 

Just 5.1. Stereo should be fine (I think - I really haven't messed with stereo yet)