monkenstick Posted May 8, 2005 Report Share Posted May 8, 2005 I just downloaded sonic stage to check it out prior to the arrival of my rh910 player in the maili've noticed a problem - sonicstage 3.1 doesn't recognise vbr mp3s properlyit says that they're 128kbs, and even worse - playback is riddled with artifactshas anyone else noted this? or is it some bug with my codecs?its going to be very annoying if I can't find a fix Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jadeclaw Posted May 8, 2005 Report Share Posted May 8, 2005 SonicStage does have problems with VBR-files, especially when you had used Lame with the less common options.Solution: Use Lame to decompress to wave, then import the resulting Wave files or use dbPowerAmpComverter to convert into WMALossless, so your ID3-tags stay alive, then import into SonicStage. Since WMALossless is lossless as the name implies, you still only converting from one lossy codec into another one.dbpowerampConverter is here:http://www.dbpoweramp.com/However, before mass converting now, wait for the actual recorder to arrive and check, how the decoder in the RH910 handles your files, it might sound differently to SonicStage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zerodB Posted May 8, 2005 Report Share Posted May 8, 2005 Read the SonicStage help file and, IIRC, you'll find it doesn't support VBR MP3s Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monkenstick Posted May 8, 2005 Author Report Share Posted May 8, 2005 so although the player specs themselves state that it supports variable bit rates - the software you have to use to transfer the files doesn't?hopefully its just the software playback, and when I transfer them they'll play fine on the hardwareI hope so Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bug80 Posted May 8, 2005 Report Share Posted May 8, 2005 (edited) SS should have no problem with VBR MP3's, I think the problem lies with some encoders that don't write the metadata accordingly (things like average bitrate and playing time). You can try to fix the headers with a little tool called VBRfix, or the "Fix MP3 header" function in Foobar2000.EDIT: I just did a test, importing a VBR MP3 file that I've ripped using EAC and LAME --alt-preset standard. The original file played back well and conversions to LP2 and LP4 gave no problems. The bitrate of the MP3 file displayed was wrong, however (128 kbs where it should've been an average of 211 kbs). Edited May 8, 2005 by bug80 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MusicBringer Posted May 8, 2005 Report Share Posted May 8, 2005 SS should have no problem with VBR MP3's,EDIT: I just did a test, importing a VBR MP3 file that I've ripped using EAC and LAME --alt-preset standard. ← Hello bug80, I also use EAC+LAME aps to make my VBR MP3s, and they seem to go through SS 3.1 no problem and play ok on my NH900 at LP2 or HiSP.In fact I've just made a ES 74 min minidisc full of wonderful Blues tracks. I managed to get 60+ tracks on the disc at LP2. They are playing sweetly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bug80 Posted May 10, 2005 Report Share Posted May 10, 2005 Hello bug80, I also use EAC+LAME aps to make my VBR MP3s, and they seem to go through SS 3.1 no problem and play ok on my NH900 at LP2 or HiSP.In fact I've just made a ES 74 min minidisc full of wonderful Blues tracks. I managed to get 60+ tracks on the disc at LP2. They are playing sweetly ←In my opinion, EAC + LAME is a winning team! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rubadubdub Posted May 10, 2005 Report Share Posted May 10, 2005 (edited) Sorry, I posted the same problem in the HiMD forum and it was moved here so I'll comment in this thread.My VBRs are all encoded using LAME and apparently it doesn't, or at least didn't used to, write the VBR header information correctly. Described here LAME VBR header problems Thanks bug80 for the info. Edited May 10, 2005 by rubadubdub Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bug80 Posted May 10, 2005 Report Share Posted May 10, 2005 Sorry, I posted the same problem in the HiMD forum and it was moved here so I'll comment in this thread.My VBRs are all encoded using LAME and apparently it doesn't, or at least didn't used to, write the VBR header information correctly. Described here LAME VBR header problems Thanks bug80 for the info.←Did you use an external (windows) program which calls lame.exe, or did you do it manually (i.e. running lame.exe from a DOS box)?I guess it depends on what frontend you use. For instance, when I use WinLAME as a frontend for LAME, the headers aren't written correctly. However if I use foobar2000 or EAC, this doesn't happen. I think most of the time, headers written by lame.exe (or lame.dll) are overwritten by the frontend program you use. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rubadubdub Posted May 11, 2005 Report Share Posted May 11, 2005 (edited) I pretty much always use CDEX with LAME. Tried VBRFIX but it didn't help. Tested VBR MP3s and they will convert and transfer if I specify an ATRAC less than 132kbps but are just transferred if set to 132kbps or higher (my VBR MP3s are all listed as 128kbps in Sonicstage). I don't want to use anything less than ATRAC 132kbps.Anyway to force SonicStage to recognise these VBR files as higher than 128kbps? I really don't want to reencode them. Edited May 11, 2005 by rubadubdub Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monkenstick Posted May 12, 2005 Author Report Share Posted May 12, 2005 just thought i'd say that vbr playback is fine on my newly arrived rh910 - so its just a problem with sonicstages playback Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silvadragon Posted May 12, 2005 Report Share Posted May 12, 2005 (edited) EH? my SS 3.1 doesnt read VBR full stop, they're econded at 192K VBR...strange...FLAC and Ogg RULEMp4 kicks ass Edited May 12, 2005 by Silvadragon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bug80 Posted May 12, 2005 Report Share Posted May 12, 2005 EH? my SS 3.1 doesnt read VBR full stop, they're econded at 192K VBR...strange...←What encoder did you use (and frontend, if any)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
star-trooper Posted May 22, 2005 Report Share Posted May 22, 2005 it's a shame thought VBRFIX will do the workbut nope no help here...it seems that a few VBR files I have do get converted to ATRAC 132...don't know how they were encoded though... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeffy Posted May 25, 2005 Report Share Posted May 25, 2005 (edited) Hi,Along the same lines, I have noticed that my SS 3.1 has a pb with WAV files encoded using TotalRecorder 5.1 Standard Version (I have not tried any other encoders though).Baiscally, everything "looks" fine until SS reaches 99% of data conversion, at which point iSS seems to enter an endless loop (remains stuck at 99%, the weird thing is that SS still consumes all the CPU at that point in time). The only remaining option is to abort the conversion process.Has anybody experienced the same pb ? The weird thing is that SS 3.1 is perfectly able to play the very same WAV files with no artifacts, etc., which makes me think that TotalRecorder is off the hook for that pb.Just adding to a long list of complaints on SS 3.1...NB: does anyboy know why TotalRecorder does not offer higher than 56kbps quality when recording in MP3 ? This is the reason why I initially wanted to record in WAV, to have higher resolution. Edited May 25, 2005 by Jeffy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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