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Topic: Will not convert as lossless? (Read 5222 times) previous topic - next topic
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Will not convert as lossless?

     I have converted a lot of files from DSF to wav using Foobar. I recently updated the program, and now I get a message when I start converting. Here are the steps which lead to the message:
1. Click on "File" button to open drop down list.
2. Click "Open." A small window will appear.
3. From the left side of the window, choose "Music."
4. Highlight the desired file, and click "Open." The file will appear in the "Default List."
5. Right click on the desired file, and a drop down list will appear. Move mouse over list to highlight "Convert."
6. A small window appears to the right of the list. Click "Quick Convert."
7. A window appears with a list of various file types. Click on "WAV."
8. Drop to the blue shaded area of the window and click on the arrow at the "Output bit depth" section on the left side of the shaded area.
9. Click on the arrow. A drop down list appears. Choose "32-bit," then click the "Convert" button.
     Now, it's at this point that I'm encountering a problem. When I click the "Convert" button, a rectangular box appears which says: "foobar2000 does not support DSD pass-through; the conversion will NOT be lossless. Are you sure?" Underneath this statement is an optional "Do not ask again" check box, and "yes" and "No" buttons. When I click the yes button, it converts to a wav file, just as it always had. Do I need to be concerned about this? I thought wav was lossless. Is my converted file still a lossless file?
Nate
 

Re: Will not convert as lossless?

Reply #2 –
Thank you very much! I thought the same thing. Again, thank you so much, and take care.
Nate

Re: Will not convert as lossless?

Reply #3 –
The only current lossless conversion of DSD is to use wavpack.exe (or just wavpack on macOS/Linux/BSD) to convert the DFF files directly to WavPack files. The compression will be slightly worse than whatever DST compression may have been in use before, but the decoding speed of the compressed WavPack files will be significantly faster and lighter on resources than using the reference DST decoder to decode in real time.

(For example, foo_input_sacd uses the reference DST decoder, but parallelizes the block decoding, as blocks are completely independent from each other, so it can decode as many blocks at once as you have execution units in your CPUs. This parallelization is 100% necessary to achieve real time decoding performance with the reference decoder, and I don't know if it's even possible to optimize DST decoding to the point where it can be done in real time without massive parallelization.)

As a bonus, for any application which uses libwavpack, upgrading to the latest compatible version will net you free DSD WavPack decoding in that app. Assuming the app hasn't been updated to support libwavpack's native DSD output mode, the default output of conventional PCM decoding will be DSD downsampled to PCM. Your data is intact, however, and you can still use the accompanying wavpack command line decoder to decode DSD again, I would hope.

Re: Will not convert as lossless?

Reply #4 –
     I'm very sorry that I'm not as technically savvy as a lot of you here, because you go to the trouble of detailed explanations. I really must apologize for not understanding you. But, I did deduce from your closing statements that my files are o.k. Thank you very much for taking the time to explain it.
Nate