Playing WAV files correctly

Hi,

I've been experimenting what some new USB sound interfaces that can handle
soundfiles at rates up to 96k samples/sec and with sample sizes of 24 as
well as 16 bit. However I'm having difficulty with finding a player app
that simply does this with no snags. (More about that below as context for
anyone interested!)

I've just tried downloading and using the ROX-app 'MusicBox-027'. However
this doesn't work at present. I have AlsaPlayer and Audacious working with
my alsa default device and they play things like 44.1k/16bit wave files
fine. But when I try the same wave files with MusicBox the display says
'Playing' for a few seconds, the time elapsed stays at zero, and it then
stops. No sound output. I have tried each of the alsa output options. No
sound.

Just giving files to MusicBox by drag and drop on my ROX filer/desktop. The
files don't have names that tell you 'artist' etc as many are simply LPCM
test tones or other test material. Not all 'songs', and no 'tags' in the
headers of the wave file. Just the basic 44-bytes for an LPCM wave.

Can anyone suggest what I may be doing wrong?

Context:

Trying out (currently) two devices:

1)  a Halide Bridge USB-SPDIF convertor. This will accept any normal rate
up to 96k and can handle 24 bit (in fact requires S24_3LE format which I've
specified in .asoundrc when making it the default).

2) Arcam rDAC. Same input specs as the above, but gives analogue outputs
not spdif.

AlsaPlayer works OK for 44.1k/48k wave files, although it's display gets
confused about the duration when playing 24 bit files. But it refuses to
accept any sample rate above 48k and says they are 'out of range'. Annoying
as otherwise I find AlsaPlayer is the one I'd prefer for all files and
streams. But it won't work with high rates.

(The aplay command plays such files just fine. Plays 96k/24bit sample
values bit-perfect. But not a very convenient way to play music when a lot
of my files are over an hour long! :-) )

Audacious also plays files and you hear the output. However despite setting
audacious to use alsa, give 24bit output, and avoid processing, the output
is rounded to 16bit. So doesn't really play 24bit files correctly, although
you can hear the 16bit result.

So far as I can tell, my alsa setup is OK since aplay has no problems
playing the files. [1] But for some reason MusicBox seems to be confused.

Anyone recognise the problem or can advise, please?

Cheers,

Jim

[1] Indeed as well as the default I now have also some 'plugs' defined in
.asoundrc that let me choose whichever output I wish for aplay and
alsaplayer. But the default is set as described above.

-- 
Electronics  http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scots_Guide/intro/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio  http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc  http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html


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