To retrofit either of these options to the DCS player would be non trivial since they are fundamental parts of player management and may not even be possible if there are memory constraints. IMO a better design is to have a buffer that is larger for higher sample rates so that the buffer time remains constant and better still to do all metadata processing for the next track in advance so that there is very little to do on track transition. With a high sample rate Flac file with an abnormally large metadata block it probably simply runs out of time to process the metadata before the buffer empties leaving silence until the flow of data resumes. It uses a buffer to facilitate this but that buffer appears to be a fixed size. To expand upon this a bit further, and this is speculation on my part based on James’ explanation of the problem, the Bartok manual and my own development of a software player over the last 17 years: I think the issue is that the DCS player does not look at the next track to play in advance but waits until it is due to play to read the metadata and deal with it. While neither of these tasks should be a challenge for any modern processor it appears that DCS may have dug themselves into a bit of a hole with their player software design when dealing with 192/24 files. The workaround that James proposed should work in all cases as it does two things to alleviate the problem: removes any large Flac metadata blocks and removes the need for the player unpack the Flac data. The metaflac command line utility can show the metadata blocks in Flac files and can be used to remove large empty album art blocks. One would think that removing the album art would remove the metadata block containing it but it doesn’t and player software has to read through the whole block to see if there is anything there. I have seen huge metadata blocks in Flac files (downloaded from HDTracks), much larger than actually required to contain the album art. I think AIF files use ID3 tags to store metadata whereas Flac files use Vorbis comments. No conversion issues then talhough the size of the download may create problems in itself. BTW, as I mentioned before you likely can go back to the vendor of your 24/192 FLAC file and download it again as AIFF without having to buy it again. Of course next time you download any 24/192 file you should do this as AIFF and not FLAC. I believe that the International Federation of the Phonographic Industy ( IFPI, the international trade body of the record companies) has made a statement to this effect but I do not know the music publishers’ official stance. The private making of single copies for technical reasons from a copy legitimately purchased by the copyist is unlikely to attract the rights owner’s attention. The rights owners ( record companies and music publishers) would not find it economically justifiable to pursue a claim against you in this respect and, I suspect, would have no desire to do so as it would likely cost them more in legal fees then they could recoup from any damages awarded. However you should regard this as a technical infringement only. So from a strict point of view you most likely are infringing copyrights in both sound recording and musical work. However the EU harmonisation of copyright law ensured that all Member State’s legislation provides similar protection in this respect ( I am overlooking Poland’s current impasse over the primacy of EU law). I do not know if I am not breaking copyright law when converting, NB: For those with purchased downloaded 24/192 FLAC files where this issue is a problem just a reminder that most vendors will allow you to go to your account and “refresh” your download in e.g. However there are too few 24/192 files that play continuously across track boundaries to establish this. If so and if this is the cause the issue it should also be inconsistent. That would suggest that these are likely to vary substantially. Of course the size of the image is down to the record label who provide the original file to Qobuz. However is more than the front cover artwork included? It is certainly all that is displayed. Of course exactly how Qobuz streams the hi-res FLAC files within a limited bandwidth is not public information ( I assume it is some kind of adaptive bitstreaming). In that case the suggested workarounds would not seem to be applicable. Unfortunately the issue relates not only to local files but to hi-res streams 24/192 from Qobuz.
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