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FLAC On A Mac

Forgive me if this subject has been discussed on this forum before, but I don't do much PC Audio and I get very confused.
I have downloaded some High Res content from HDTracks to my Macbook. These are all FLAC files. I tried transferring them to a flash drive to be played in two devices that are supposed to be FLAC compatible (most recently, the Marantz NA 7004 Network Music Player). These files won't play on either device.
They also won't play using the MacBook as the source, although I anticipated that.
Do I need some sort of a music management player to play these files? When I surf the net looking for conversion programs, most of them aim to change flac to mp3, which would defeat the purpose of trying to get a High Res file.
richardfinegold
lostbears's avatar
lostbears
538 posts
 

If you do decide to convert the FLAC files to another format, I would highly recommend that you keep the original files also.
ycharlesyost
8 posts
 
I recently purchased Decibel for $33.00, get yourself a High Resolution Technologies Music Streamer ll+ and you will be blown away!! Unbelievable!!
Everyone deserves great sound!!
achilles
135 posts
 
I downloaded Decibel, the trial version, and it worked fine with the FLAC files I downloaded from hdtracks. (Unlike the DVD-As I burned from those same files, but that's another story.)
I'm wondering if you downloaded 24-bit/192kHz files... The Marantz can only play back up to 24/96.
richardfinegold OP
196 posts
 
Achilles

The track I downloaded was a Reference Recording, Exotic Dances from the Opera, which is listed on the HDTracks site as 24 bit/96kHz.
The Marantz won't play it.
Shouldn't I be able to download a flac file on a mac as a flac file and then
copy it to a flash drive and still have it be a flac file? Or does passing through the mac environment corrupt the file? Keep in mind that I am not attempting to play the file from the Mac itself.
achilles
135 posts
 
I agree, the file should remain a FLAC file when you transfer it from your Mac to a thumbdrive. So I don't understand why the Marantz won't play it.
You know, this is likely unrelated, but I just copied my hi rez Rush and Milos Karagdelic FLAC files from my Mac to a flash drive. I also copied some Apple Lossless files to the flash drive. I wanted to see if my car could play the FLAC files, as it has a USB port. It turned out it could not. I wasn't really expecting it to. It occurred to me later though that the FLAC files may not be to blame, as I have literally thousands of Kindle book files on the same thumb drive, so maybe the car stereo got overwhelmed looking for audio files. SO, maybe we should both make sure there's not a lot of extraneous junk on our thumbdrives? I don't expect the Camaro to play the FLAC, esp hi-rez FLAC, but I do expect the Marantz to, of course.
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