Is iSub Truly Lossless? Even Hi-Res???

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Is iSub Truly Lossless? Even Hi-Res???

Postby vigotone » Sun Jul 05, 2015 8:22 pm

I finally got Subsonic up and running (despite being an idiot when it comes to pretty much everything). I installed iSub on my iPhone, so far so good.

Here's my question: All my music is in Apple Lossless, including many hi-res (24/96 and 24/192) files. I disabled transcoding for iSub in the Subsonic settings, and sure enough, my files are being streamed perfectly to my iPhone, even over LTE, and the display shows that they are at their original bitrates. Could this be? From what I understood, iPhones could not handle music above 24/48, but here I am streaming hi-res audio from my home server to my iPhone flawlessly! Am I missing something? Are the files still being downsampled? I certainly hope not!
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Re: Is iSub Truly Lossless? Even Hi-Res???

Postby manwithaplan » Mon Jul 06, 2015 3:06 am

You are correct - when you are not transcoding (as you stated), you are indeed streaming exactly what is stored on the server, so a 24/192 FLAC file for instance is streamed just as is. It is only when you allow the files to be transcoded that you may (depending on settings) be losing quality. This fact is what keeps me a loyal Subsonic fan for over 4 years. iSub is great, and as I have tried to point out all over these forums, unlimited LTE data providers such as my latest T-Mobile, provide for truly outstanding music streaming experience at no extra cost on our cell bills.

Now, if we could only find an app for iOS that will stream native DSD files, then we'd really have icing on the cake. A guy can dream :-)
Subsonic 5.2.1 on 2009 Apple XServe w/ Yosemite Server 10.10.5; 96GB RAM. Lots of Music - High Rez, native DSD streaming, and otherwise.
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Re: Is iSub Truly Lossless? Even Hi-Res???

Postby vigotone » Mon Jul 06, 2015 3:57 am

I just bought a Lightning-to-USB Camera adapter and hooked up my iPad to my Oppo HA-1 DAC. I am sad to say the display on the DAC shows that all my hi-res Apple Lossless files are playing back at 16/44.1, NOT 24/96 or 24/192. Which means downsampling is being done somewhere, despite what the display on iSub says.

Is there any way to bypass this?
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Re: Is iSub Truly Lossless? Even Hi-Res???

Postby manwithaplan » Mon Jul 06, 2015 7:39 pm

Make sure iSub is set to not limit at all...set it to "None" (the last box to the right) for Maximum Audio Bitrate under Settings...do so for both "Wifi" and "Cell"...also, I would be suspicious that the lightning to USB connector is limiting audio output on the USB connector...iSub is truly not doing the down-rezing.
Subsonic 5.2.1 on 2009 Apple XServe w/ Yosemite Server 10.10.5; 96GB RAM. Lots of Music - High Rez, native DSD streaming, and otherwise.
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Re: Is iSub Truly Lossless? Even Hi-Res???

Postby manwithaplan » Mon Jul 06, 2015 8:02 pm

By the way, which "iPad" are you using? Different versions of iPad had different audio limitations.
Subsonic 5.2.1 on 2009 Apple XServe w/ Yosemite Server 10.10.5; 96GB RAM. Lots of Music - High Rez, native DSD streaming, and otherwise.
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Re: Is iSub Truly Lossless? Even Hi-Res???

Postby vigotone » Mon Jul 06, 2015 8:54 pm

I'm using the last iPad before the fingerprint sensor. It has a lightning connector. I also tried my iPhone 6 Plus. In both cases, the DAC merely reads 16/44.1 regardless of what bitrate I stream through iSub. When I play a 24/48 file actuLly stored in the phone, the DAC accurately displays 24/48 (the highest bitrate an iDevice can handle internally).

My settings in iSub are correct, with both WiFi and Cell set to "No Limit". Could there be some setting in Subsonic that I've missed? I literally erased all transcoding commands from Subsonic!

Please help!
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Re: Is iSub Truly Lossless? Even Hi-Res???

Postby manwithaplan » Tue Jul 07, 2015 9:37 pm

Had some communications with the developer of iSub - he is thinking it might be a limitation of libBass, the library underlying iSub - it may need to be updated in a future maintenance release. If so, he will do that as part of iOS9 compatibility update, later this year. Incidentally, can you try the Vox app and let me know if you are able to get high rez out of the camera adapter? Vox is a decent app of course, and uses libBass as well, though likely a newer version of the libraries. But seeing it work would be helpful to the end goal with iSub as well.
Subsonic 5.2.1 on 2009 Apple XServe w/ Yosemite Server 10.10.5; 96GB RAM. Lots of Music - High Rez, native DSD streaming, and otherwise.
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Re: Is iSub Truly Lossless? Even Hi-Res???

Postby vigotone » Tue Jul 07, 2015 10:08 pm

Interesting. I haven't tried Vox, but I finally downloaded JRiver and JRemote (they were expensive, but I was so frustrated, I just did it). Much harder to set up than Subsonic and iSub, but they work flawlessly, and my DAC displays the proper Sample Rate (96kHz). Unfortunately, JRemote can't stream 192kHz. Also, for some reason, it only displays 16bit, not 24. Strange. I'm going to ask the developer about that.

I'd still love for iSub to stream hi-rez to an iDevice though, and I'm going to stick with it, as it's so simple to use. Great app!
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Re: Is iSub Truly Lossless? Even Hi-Res???

Postby manwithaplan » Wed Jul 08, 2015 12:21 am

Yeah, JRiver/Remote is a whole different animal, but glad you're enjoying it. Do us ALL a favor though - since you have a good 'control' right now in this testing, and you have the camera adapter for your iPad, go ahead and load Vox, it is free app for iOS, and try saving a 24/96 ALAC file or the like to your phone through it, then play the song via Vox through the DAC and tell us what the resolution is appearing as on the DAC. This test would go a long way toward convincing the iSub developer that there truly is a problem here. Nothing speaks better than evidence by direct comparison - your JRiver server success unfortunately is not as direct a comparison as it does not use libBass. Let us know what you find.
Subsonic 5.2.1 on 2009 Apple XServe w/ Yosemite Server 10.10.5; 96GB RAM. Lots of Music - High Rez, native DSD streaming, and otherwise.
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Re: Is iSub Truly Lossless? Even Hi-Res???

Postby vigotone » Wed Jul 08, 2015 12:28 am

Ok, will do! I'll report back as soon as I can. I've never attempted to actually load a 24/96 file onto my iPhone, but I'll follow the instructions.
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Re: Is iSub Truly Lossless? Even Hi-Res???

Postby manwithaplan » Tue Jul 28, 2015 1:34 am

Vigotone,

You should also try something even simpler as well if you can - try loading the AVSub app, version 11.1 which just released today, and see if you can stream native FLAC at high resolution and get any different results on your receiver's bit rate display compared to what iSub was showing. This could rule out a potential iSub issue, by comparing the behavior of iSub in this regard to AVSub.

Also, did you ever get the other testing done?
Subsonic 5.2.1 on 2009 Apple XServe w/ Yosemite Server 10.10.5; 96GB RAM. Lots of Music - High Rez, native DSD streaming, and otherwise.
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Re: Is iSub Truly Lossless? Even Hi-Res???

Postby vigotone » Tue Jul 28, 2015 2:41 am

I'll give AVSub a try. Does it definitely support hi-res? Do I need to stream FLAC or will ALAC be ok?

I apologize that I haven't had a chance to try the Onkyo app yet. Give me a couple days...
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Re: Is iSub Truly Lossless? Even Hi-Res???

Postby vigotone » Mon Aug 03, 2015 9:07 pm

Well, I downloaded AVSub. I entered my server info, and it loaded my albums. But it won't play a track! It just keeps buffering. I've tried turning transcoding on and off, I've tried clearing the cache, but nothing will make it play. I'm attempting to play over cellular (my reception is fine where I am), but nothing is working.

Is there some setting I have to adjust on the server side? iSub plays just fine!
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Re: Is iSub Truly Lossless? Even Hi-Res???

Postby vigotone » Sat Aug 22, 2015 4:54 pm

Just a quick update: AVSub does not play ALAC files, so I can't use that as a test. But I have yet to load VOX. I'll do that first chance I get and report back. I'm hoping there's a solution for why all hi-res material seems to be downsampled to 16/44.1 in iSub.
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Re: Is iSub Truly Lossless? Even Hi-Res???

Postby vigotone » Sat Aug 22, 2015 5:35 pm

Okay, just loaded a 24/96 FLAC into Vox on the iPhone. I connected the iPhone to my DAC via the Camera Connection Kit, (Lightning to USB Adapter), and sure enough, VOX is also downsampling files to 44.1.

So what does this mean???
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