Does Toast Convert 24/96 Wav Files When Burning Cd?

[waltwagner]

My 24/96 .WAV mixes play back perfectly in QuickTime or iTunes. Toast's (TT v15.1) Audio CD window accepts these files, but playback from the window is crackly, and a burned CD sounds the same. No good!

 

I know the CD spec doesn't support 24/96, but isn't Toast supposed to be able to convert from that, to burn a CD?

 

[theoldarchiver]

I tried to replicate your issue, by downloading a sample 24 bit, 96 kHz audio file and creating a CD-DA disc image file (.Sd2f) from that with Toast.

Toast authored (and converted) the track to 16 bits, 44.1 kHz, and I couldn’t detect anything “crackly” about it, when listening to the result.

[theoldarchiver]

Note: If you make a ‘Music DVD’, then you could keep the audio as PCM 96 kHz 24 bit (custom encoding settings), and thus keep your mixes in high definition audio.

... if that is a viable option for what you plan to do, and if it is meaningful for the source files and the audio chain (player-receiver-speakers combo).

[waltwagner]

I tried to replicate your issue, by downloading a sample 24 bit, 96 kHz audio file and creating a CD-DA disc image file (.Sd2f) from that with Toast.

Toast authored (and converted) the track to 16 bits, 44.1 kHz, and I couldn’t detect anything “crackly” about it, when listening to the result.

Thanks for looking into this. Instead of "crackly" I probably should have said aliasing - that's what it sounds like to me. A steady, low-level, maddening static, i.e. that one would hear when the clock is not synced with the interface. I'm mystified, because, as I said, it's only upon playback/burning/making a disc image from Toast that this happens; from any other app it's fine. My (MOTU) interface is correctly set to 24/96. I get the static even if I omit the interface and just play through the built-in Mac soundboard.

 

I'm stumped. I keep feeling like there's one little detail I've missed...

[theoldarchiver]

Let’s try something. Can you detect the artefacts in my audio file? (file 24-96.wav is the source, file 16-44.wav is extracted from the Toast conversion.)

[i realize it may be a totally different kind of audio from yours, but that’s the free high res sample file I picked.]

 

As far as Toast preferences go, I had Enable dithering and Show advanced audio mastering settings both checked in the Audio tab. Probably the default.

[waltwagner]

Really appreciate your efforts, archiver. With your files, the music is so dynamic that you really have to listen hard, but the 24-96 file definitely has the noise (again, playing from the Toast window, not QT or iTunes), which is carried through to a burned disc. The 16-44.1 file has no noise. Arrrrr!

 

Now I know that it's not something weird that's happening with Digital Performer when I create my 24-96 files. So thanks for helping me rule that out.