Support for Wavpack (.wv) decoding (of compressed DSF)

This should be a simple thing to implement - taglib (the open source library which Roon relies on to read file based tags) has built-in support for Wavpack:

and the Wavpack code library is freely obtainable:

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It may not be obvious, but getting some open source code is just the tip of the iceberg in doing what is required to support a new codec in Roon.

The actual codec or file formats are usually the least of the concerns.

Could you elaborate? Once decoded are they not handled by the same Roon code that handles PCM or DSD content?

Not every codec / format library uses the same api, so they aren’t drop in replacements.

There are differences between streaming and file based access modes, and there are concurrency issues to consider with every library. There are considerations for platform support, including optimized versions for various CPUs. We have to look into licenses, redistributions, plus patents, both locally and internationally. Plus are there any requirements for redistributions, modified or unmodified.

We also use these libraries in more than just audio decoding, there is also detection, and validation, plus format support.

As for taglib, while we do use it for some things, we can’t just upgrade to the latest version due to issues that arose last time we tried.

This stuff is complex.

Thanks for the insight on the potential complexities of adding this feature. From where we sit as consumers things often look pretty simple, especially when open source projects support a specific function, but that view can often disregard that supporting it may be part of why the open source projects are sometimes less usable or reliable.

If it’s feasible to add would certainly be beneficial in my situation, and I’m glad that it sounds like it’s at least under consideration.

To illustrate the benefit in my case, my SACD ISOs consume 1.6TB and are stored on backup disks, the extracted DSF consumed 3.8TB before being recompressed via Wavepack to consume 1.7TB (and being more easily tagable as a bonus). It’s the difference between needing to upgrade to a larger spinning disc as my total library size pushes well past 8TB with DSF versus staying around 6TB and fitting comfortably on a single SSD with .wv. That’s just me and I recognize that other people have larger or smaller libraries so they aren’t facing this -particular- decision, but I figured I’d share in case the insight helps.

So, what are you saying regarding support Wavepack compressed DSF files? Are you looking into it? Are you saying you aren’t looking into it? Will you look into it?

Note: This post was censored by @danny.

We aren’t staying no, and we try not to say yes until it’s done.

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Well I’m gonna bump this for the very reasons [Analogue_Ghost] mentions. My Library in DSF is @ 7 TB right now. I really don’t want to spend hundreds to get 12TB or 14TB drives it’s already costing me several hundreds just to get the music.

This is from my original Wavepack support feature request…
It would be REALLY nice to be able to save up to 50% of my hard drive space as I play mostly (90+%) DSF files from SACD’s. Wavpack is the only real multibit opensource compression for this and other high bit formats. (I’m not a programmer or CPU wiz)

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Another bump and +1 for WavPack support.

A growing niche of audiophile nerds are upscaling their redbook files to 32-bit 705/768k, and WavPack is probably the best file format for handling this need.

It would be nice for Roon to be ahead of the curve, rather than grudgingly accommodating to user demand after the fact.

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Whoa, why would you do this on disk? Instead, use Roon to do that upscaling without any storage required.

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Lol who is upscaling w/ Roon though? If Roon upscaling were any good, it wouldn’t need a ‘Add HQPlayer’ button.

About half of our users with gear capable of greater than 1x, not playing MQA.

We support HQ Player because early in our lifespan, a large group of our users wanted HQ Player support. Nowadays, while that group has grown, it is a tiny minority of our overall user base.

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Quite a large number I think you will find, myself being amongst that number.
Everything to dsd512.

Have you actually tried it yourself?

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Personally, I find HQPlayer’s upsampling and modulators to be far superior to what Roon offers….but maybe that is just me.

Either way, it still real time up-sampling.

Yah, what Joel said… Whether you prefer HQ Player, no reason to store upsampled content on disk. Roon (alone or with HQ Player) can do it in realtime.

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I was responding to @AceRimmer regarding their response to @jfx regarding Roon’s upsampling ability versus HQPlayer’s. In other words, a different topic than if someone should or should not upsample to disk vs. real-time.

Yup, I still have a bunch of SACD → DSD64 in WavPack 5 from years ago.

Wish Roon could play them…

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Danny, It seems the trend is arriving. Adding Wavpack support will help my DSD multichannel collection, not present in Roon at the moment (my stereo collection is about 6 TB). DSD audio is not niche anymore and my current DACs work its best decoding DSD. Resurrecting the thread.

I ran the same search wavpack dsd in DuckDuckGo restricting results to last month only. Few results indeed - I think this kind of search is not fair, because we DSD lovers are not mainstream. I have audiophile friends who do not accept anything as source beyond a turntable but they doesn’t cringe at DSD. Interestingly, I had a hit for MQA. By the way, I am not endorsing Wavpack as some MQA advocates do and I don’t want to mention MQA anymore in this thread. Alas, this closed-source technology is supported by Roon from some time ago and I think this is okay. Wavpack is open source, completely lossless and a mature technology, I don’t understand how come it is not yet supported by Roon.

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