[perryoops]

HI,

Interest in Flac file player capabilities in Dvico 6500 and 7000, and I want to buy external DAC to connect to it, Can I do that? Anyone try already?

Planning to make this Dvico as Music server, any advices??

Thanks

Perry

[Hi-Jack]

Yes you can do so... though as a music server I don't feel the TviX is really as good as it should be... Pretty basic music functions inside all video players...

[Grip77]

I have mine connected to a Benchmark DAC-1 D/A converter.
I works nicely, although I recently asked DViCO about what it actually outputed through the digital connections as I sense it's not always "unprocessed".

For example I have 24Bit 96Khz audio files that indeed play but since my Benchmark DAC-1 doesn't indicate what format it's beeing fed I do belive the tvix downsamples the audio somehow since it doesn'tquite sound "correct" to me.

Otherwise it works nicely, I don't need any fancier options for playing sound then the one's provided.

[lordvader82]

I too use the 6500 as a transport, and quite enjoy it.

Gapless playback would be nice though
And sometimes the pause between songs can be quite long (or even reboot ).

I mainly listen to FLAC files, dunno how it goes with other formats.

[guyisme]

I also use 6500A as transport and happy about it. Actually using two different dac, optical out to Yamaha DSP-A1 and coaxial to Benchmark DAC-1. From Yamaha I can see the sampling frequency of the signal.

Previously Tvix could not handle high resolution FLAC files. I have reported this issue to Dvico support last November. Although their response was somewhat slow, they finally located the problem and with the last alpha firmware now we can play 24-bit 96 kHz or even 192 kHz FLAC files. It's not perfect yet, half of the songs I tried to play had buffering problem, Tvix played randomly 2-3 seconds then jumped to next song. But also I could play successfully some other 96 kHz files without problem. I'm waiting the playback problems to be solved in next firmware. But so far happy about the progress.

I agree with lordvader82, gapless playback would be nice. When listening live recordings, the gap between the tracks spoil the moment.

Umit

[Grip77]

Thanks for the info guyisme,

I always convert my lossless files to wav, that avoids any buffering or clipping issues while decoding.
Space is'nt an issue either, I have a 5TB server in the closet

Guyisme, could you please try a 24/96 wav file and see what your Yamaha reports the output as ? (Via coax)

I'd appreciate it!

[guyisme]

Previously I've bought some PCM 96/24 files from itrax.com and Tvix could not play. But I'm not sure whether I tried with the latest alpha firmware, so I will check tonight with original PCM files and also try converting flac to wav by foobar2000.

Actually Yamaha supports upto 48 kHz, so I can see the signal sampling frequency in Yamaha's display like 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz. If the signal is 96 kHz, Yamaha simply cannot process and gives i/o error message on screen. In this way I'm sure Tvix outputs 96 kHz as I can play them with Benchmark DAC-1 but not Yamaha DSP-A1. So far I tried 24-bit 48 kHz, 88.2 kHz, 96 kHz and 192 kHz flac files and all of them works (leaving buffering problem aside).

[Grip77]

Thanks for checking that!

I got an answer regarding this from Dvico, that seems somehow not quite convincing:

Hi, Are there any limitations on the digital signal that my Tvix outputs through the optical/electrical digital output? The reason I ask is because I'm playing 24Bits 96kHz Stereo audio from the tvix connected to an external D/A Converter. (wav files recorded in 24bit) And I'm not sure about the sound quality. So are there any limitations or conversions done on the digital sound outputs from the Tvix 6500 ? Regards /Daniel Reply to your question is as below. Hello Daniel, Yes, I have couple sample files of 24bit 96Khz, and I can play without problem. However the output will be 48Khz. Regards, Eric

And then shortly thereafter I recieved this :

Hello Daniel, I am sorry I double checked and I found out through optical it is 96Khz. Regards, Eric

[/i]

[guyisme]

Well, after several tests, I can confirm that output through optical and coaxial both is 96 kHz. Tvix M-6500A certainly can play hi-resolution audio and big difference compared to CD quality can be heard for sure, but there are many bugs for playback as of now.

I have 30 studio master quality albums, 6 of them are wav format and balance flac. Out of six wav albums, two of them is DVD-Audio rip, Tvix had no problem to play them. Remaining four are direct hi-resolution downloads, Tvix reported unsupported format for one of the albums. Second album can be played but had buffering issues (Tvix plays first 5-15 seconds of the track and then skips to next one). The remaining two cannot be recognised (bitrate N/A, 0 kHz). However when I converted them to flac format, Tvix identified the bitrate & sampling frequency correct, but had issues with buffering this time.

As for 24 flac albums, Tvix plays 13 of them nicely, 3 albums can be played but I heard some artifacts like clicking noise, and the balance 8 has buffering issue.

It was getting late and I could not try converting flac to wav and play, I'll do it next time. But wav files do not support meta info, so you cannot see album name, year, etc. on your screen while playing.

At the end it is quite confusing, I do not have clue why Tvix plays some files and not the others, but I hope the problems to be solved in next firmware edition.

[Grip77]

Guyisme,

Thanks for the info!

It seems as if it's actually is capable of outputting 24bit 96khz audio through both outputs despite the info from dvico.

Indeed these files sound much better than 16bit 44khz files or the horrid mp3 crap