How to Losslessly Compress DSD without converting to FLAC and why you should do it.

[Mr. Afternoon]

I've seen a lot of users here not store their DSD the way I do, so here we go. The files produced will be compatible with foobar2000, AIMP, Kodi, and Musicbee (latter three work straight out of the box with no extra plugins needed) and will have a filesize comparable to 24/96 FLAC or DST compression.

Why should you keep DSD in the first place? Bceause DSD to FLAC is lossy. It's science.

All right, here we go.

GUIDE START!

First thing you wanna do, is to have DSF files. There are plenty of guides out there on extracting and stuff, so I won't discuss it here.

(I have some multichannel DSF files handy here, I wonder which album it's from...)

Once you have that done, download BatchEncoder and start the program up.

Switch over to the Wavepack encoder profile. I like to put mine at max compression, but it will take longer. Simply drag your DSF files into the window, set the output directory, and start encoding. You will be left with some WV files, that actually hold DSD inside.

(It takes roughly 3 minutes for a multichannel album if you have a good CPU at maximum space savings. For a large amount of albums, let it sit overnight.)

(Wow! The Golden Bonana is now 57% smaller!)

You're pretty much done. Tag the music with MP3Tag or similar to make it look pretty in your media player, and enjoy the space savings!

(Tagged and batch-renamed with MP3Tag. Data pulled from Musicbrainz grabber. Looks fancy!)

(Embedded album art working nicely!)

Notes: It is recommended you use Musicbee with these files. Yes, Musicbee can output DSD over HDMI. It also looks very nice, much nicer than Foobar. If you want to listen to WV DSD on the go, use AIMP or find one of those new Sony Walkmans. We still need a nice universal solution for spatial formats. And software decoders. Bonana, bonana, bonana. Let me know if this works on any devices aside from a PC. Musicbee can play these WV DSD files with seamless playback. It can also preload files into memory which is cool. What else do I want to put here? DSD is the worst invention known to man but I still like it.​

 

[par4ken]

I've seen a lot of users here not store their DSD the way I do, so here we go. The files produced will be compatible with foobar2000 (with plugins), AIMP, and Musicbee (latter two work straight out of the box) and will have a filesize comparable to 24/96 FLAC or DST compression.

Why should you keep DSD in the first place? Bceause DSD to FLAC is lossy. It's science.

All right, here we go. (I will add links and images soon.)

First thing you wanna do, is to have DSF files. There are plenty of guides out there on extracting and stuff, so I won't discuss it here.

Once you have that done, download BatchEncoder and start the program up.

Switch over to the Wavepack encoder profile. I like to put mine at max compression, but it will take longer. Simply drag your DSF files into the window, set the output directory, and start encoding. You will be left with some WV files, that actually hold DSD inside.

You're pretty much done. Tag the music with MP3Tag or similar to make it look pretty in your media player, and enjoy the space savings!

WavePack looks interesting. Since I purchased an Oppo BDP103 I've been playing my SACD's in their native DSD mode, and extracting files to DSF. The only downside is you can't edit the files like you can with PCM.
I agree that the conversion of DSD to PCM (FLAC) is lossy, it has to be as they are like apples and oranges. A number of people here don't believe that and insist that they can't possibly sound any different. Well the difference is very audible. And again I have to reiterate that DSD is not superior to PCM (it might even be inferior) but the conversion process from DSD to PCM is not perfect.

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

I should add that WavePack has the bonus of having a lot more tagging capabilities than DSF, and can even have embedded art like FLAC.

 

[Sonik Wiz]

WavePack looks interesting. Since I purchased an Oppo BDP103 I've been playing my SACD's in their native DSD mode, and extracting files to DSD. The only downside is you can't edit the files like you can with PCM.
I agree that the conversion of DSD to PCM (FLAC) is lossy, it has to be as they are like apples and oranges. A number of people here don't believe that and insist that they can't possibly sound any different. Well the difference is very audible. And again I have to reiterate that DSD is not superior to PCM (it might even be inferior) but the conversion process from DSD to PCM is not perfect.

Will your Oppo play the WV files?

 

[par4ken]

Will your Oppo play the WV files?

Don't know, I haven't tried it yet.

 

[jimfisheye]

My understanding was the 32:1 transcode between DSD and 32 bit floating point 88.2k PCM was an exact thing. The program in 32 fp is within a bit of full 24 bit (ie + or - 6db from 0). Normalize that to 24 bit fixed.

The handful of albums that have had the same master released in both DSD and PCM that I've looked at nearly null. Meaning you hear silence and only see some meter wiggle 100 or more db down.

For all the things that are technically lossy, this one seems pretty virtually lossless if file handling is on point.

With that said, I think that leads to converting depending on what DA converters you bought into. If you have native DSD converters, you'll want to keep the files that way. If you listen with PCM converters, now those flac files are looking inviting.

Just some comments from the peanut gallery.
How much smaller is the .wv file than the .dsf file?

 

[HomerJAU]

WavePack support was removed from ffmpeg a while back. Not sure why, since it supports just about every codec.

 

[dadregga]

The only thing that's stopping me from doing this is that Roon doesn't support WV-encoded DSD. I really really want to though, it would massively reduce the amount of space my music folder takes up.

 

[dadregga]

WavePack support was removed from ffmpeg a while back. Not sure why, since it supports just about every codec.

FFMPEG still supports wavpack, they just removed libwavpack in favor of their own implementation of the WavPack library (because its easier to test, is faster, and supports more samplerates).

 

[jimfisheye]

WavePack support was removed from ffmpeg a while back. Not sure why, since it supports just about every codec.

That's weird. Wavepack is the more "official" format and supports more channels than flac too (so would work decoded for 3D formats). Flac just came along first and also became a release format.

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

How much smaller is the .wv file than the .dsf file?

Same as if converting to FLAC. 50-70%. Also should mention you can play these files on a phone or Walkman.

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

Updated with images!

 

[Sonik Wiz]

Updated with images!

Thanks for the info! I don't RIP my SACD's but WavePack is certainly something I will experiment with. Rather than DSF, using more conventional WAV files is there any advantage to WavePack instead of FLAC? And may I ask what media player your using in the above pic?

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

Thanks for the info! I don't RIP my SACD's but WavePack is certainly something I will experiment with. Rather than DSF, using more conventional WAV files is there any advantage to WavePack instead of FLAC? And may I ask what media player your using in the above pic?

That media player in the pic is Foobar2000 with a theme. I don't normally use it, I use Musicbee.
Wavepack can compress more channels than 8 and can have higher sampling rates/bit-depth than FLAC for regular PCM.

 

[CINERAMAX]

WavePack looks interesting. Since I purchased an Oppo BDP103 I've been playing my SACD's in their native DSD mode, and extracting files to DSF. The only downside is you can't edit the files like you can with PCM.
I agree that the conversion of DSD to PCM (FLAC) is lossy, it has to be as they are like apples and oranges. A number of people here don't believe that and insist that they can't possibly sound any different. Well the difference is very audible. And again I have to reiterate that DSD is not superior to PCM (it might even be inferior) but the conversion process from DSD to PCM is not perfect.

After converting my mch. dsf to flac, and tagging them using Tagscanner, a process that has taken me about 7 months, yesterday I revisited the Jeff Beck Blow by Blow 7" Japan version and you are correct THERE IS AN AUDIBLE DIFFERENCE.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

After converting my mch. dsf to flac, and tagging them using Tagscanner, a process that has taken me about 7 months, yesterday I revisited the Jeff Beck Blow by Blow 7" Japan version and you are correct THERE IS AN AUDIBLE DIFFERENCE.

Do you use any DSP or room correction during playback?

 

[mandrix]

That media player in the pic is Foobar2000 with a theme. I don't normally use it, I use Musicbee.
Wavepack can compress more channels than 8 and can have higher sampling rates/bit-depth than FLAC for regular PCM.

I don't wanna derail your thread, but I spent a while looking around the Musicbee site. They don't seem to show what file types it will play. In fact it seems to take a while to find out much of anything. Anyway not your problem.
Can you say what file types are supported? e.g. DVDA .iso/DSF/FLAC/etc? Rather not bother with it if I don't know going in.
Thanks.

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

I don't wanna derail your thread, but I spent a while looking around the Musicbee site. They don't seem to show what file types it will play. In fact it seems to take a while to find out much of anything. Anyway not your problem.
Can you say what file types are supported? e.g. DVDA .iso/DSF/FLAC/etc? Rather not bother with it if I don't know going in.
Thanks.

AFAIK it supports everything except ISOs. It relies on the BASS audio libraries so search that up for a full list.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

I use Kodi for everyday playback, but I like the Musicbee interface a lot and do use it from time to time. My problem with Musicbee is there is no provision for video playback, its strictly audio. Unless they have updated it recently.

 

[dadregga]

After converting my mch. dsf to flac, and tagging them using Tagscanner, a process that has taken me about 7 months, yesterday I revisited the Jeff Beck Blow by Blow 7" Japan version and you are correct THERE IS AN AUDIBLE DIFFERENCE.

If

* you're converting them to PCM with a samplerate that's a factor of 2.8Mhz and

* you're accounting for the 6db level drop that DSD inherently has during the conversion

Then there isn't an audible difference, unless you can hear over 30khz (you can't) or your DAC's DSD vs PCM pathways aren't correctly implemented.