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On 12/28/18 12:02 PM, Fred Maxwell [email protected] [EAC] wrote:
> I’m sorry and disappointed that you ran into so many problems.
The logical conclusion to draw is that either the encoder or the iPod or
both are defective. But the files work elsewhere and the iPod (which was
completely reset and re-loaded with the latest firmware) plays
everything else that it should. Had I been doing the project for myself,
I'd have tested a few files first and known right off the bat that I had
a problem before wasting so much time. But I'm not the iPod owner and
didn't have it with me to test. I just foolishly assumed that if iTunes
didn't complain, everything was fine.
> I know that seems insane
What's insane is that we all have to play these various workaround games
because almost nothing is a perfect device that plays everything.
Whatever the shortcomings of dragging a stack of CDs around may be, at
least there was an excellent chance that any random CD player would play
any random CD. Though to be fair, probably 99% of everyone reading this
really only cares about 44.1 and is perfectly happy with it.
After over a decade with LMS/Squeezebox, during and before which I
played around with a lot of other options, I still think it comes
closest to perfect, but it can be quirky as well. I even have it running
on a battery-powered Raspberry Pi that I can take in the car, but it's
just enough of a nuisance that I usually don't bother unless it's a
somewhat long trip. There's literally nothing mono or stereo in my
library that it won't play, usually at the file's native resolution. DTS
and AC-3 work great, DSD could be played natively if I had a USB DAC,
but I just have it converted on the fly to 88.2 PCM. Even absurd PCM
rates above 192k are playable, though at least in my setup they're also
downconverted at playback time. Literally the only thing it won't do
that I want is lossless multichannel, though fortunately I finally have
other options for that.
> I have several devices (including the iPod Classic in my car)
> that are limited to 48kHz/16 bit as well as others that are
> incapable of dealing with Apple Lossless.
I have the sample rate issue for at least one non-Squeezebox player as
well. Also, it seems that most embedded hardware (e.g., non-disc players
built into new cars) even in late 2018 do not offer gapless playback,
which is unforgivable. So if I want to take advantage of my car stereo's
ability to play MP3 but want to listen to classical or Pink Floyd, my
MP3 conversion process has to begin with the concatenation of all the
individual album tracks into a single album-length file. Even the very
first iPods were not gapless, though distant memory says that was
quickly addressed via firmware and no one had to buy new hardware.
The FiiO x3 seems to be most flexible portable out there, working with
PCM (WAV/FLAC/ALAC) up to 192k and even DSD. But careful listening says
its alleged gaplessness is not always perfect.
Bringing this back on-topic, I've often wondered if Herr Wiethoff fully
appreciates how revolutionary EAC was at the time he released it and how
it still has very few real competitors (I can think of a whopping /two/,
three if one counts his own Easy Audio Copy). Without his attention to
error-free CD reads, I can't imagine that I would ever have gotten to
the point where I have over 110,000 songs at my fingertips. If those
tracks were as garbage-filled as what we used to get prior to EAC, I'd
never have bothered.