Almost no change from the previous version, just enabled multi-threading with 128k buffers for SoX. It might be marginally faster on multi-core or hyper-threaded CPU’s.

Download: FWLSetup_v1.31a.exe

I’ve added tentative support for .iso files such as those produced when ripping your SACD’s using a playstation. This will almost certainly only work with players that understand how to digest a DSD ISO image, such as JRiver Media Center or foobar with the appropriate extensions.

The new version can be downloaded here: FWLSetup_v1.31

Also, the good folks who provide SoX have released 14.4.1a – this now includes FLAC support and has been tested with this version of FWL, I had no problems. The new release can be found on their sourceforge page. I suggest the file “sox-14.4.1a-win32.exe”, that is the self installing Windows binary. It’s absolutely not necessary to get the latest version but generally a good idea so you benefit from bug fixes.

I’ve added .DSF support to the program, this acts just like the .DFF handler, it simply copies them to your local cache and generates the playlist. Also, the clear list and exit after decode options have changed, they have been replaced with a drop list with the option to clear after decode, exit after decode or simply do nothing. I may add a clear button back in for the rare occasion where you don’t want it doing something automatically. As usual, please uninstall the old version prior to installing the new one.

On the problems with the latest version of SoX, some searching turned up that they inadvertently left out support for flac files in the binaries, so avoid version 14.4.1, it simply doesn’t work, 14.4.0 works fine.

Download version 1.3: FWLSetup_v1.3.exe

The new version of SoX v14.4.1, released on 2013-02-01 is not compatible with the current version of FWL. I will update as soon as possible to correct this. Some of the SoX command line parameters have changed so the code must be adjusted.

In the mean time, it works just fine with 14.4.0.

Very minor change for this version. It looks at the player executable and if J.River Media Center is detected, the Media Center command utility is used to launch the program and pass the playlist. The playlist is passed using the /replace option, this clears the existing playlist and loads the new one.

No other changes and all previous information applies.

I previously suggested Primo Ramdisk from Romex Software. This still works great but I’ve since switched to SoftPerfect RAM Disk from SoftPerfect. This seems to be a bit faster and best of all is free for personal use. I’ve been running this for several weeks now on the music PC with zero problems under Windows 8.

Download FlacWavLoader v1.24

Minor release, added some logic to pass .m3u playlist if selected player is JPLAY, otherwise a .pls playlist is passed.

Be sure to install the latest version of SoX, it uses this for decoding.

For the adventurous, try using a RAMDrive for the destination directory. Of course this means you need plenty of RAM. For a free RAMDrive program, try ImDisk. If you want an easier setup and don’t mind spending a few bucks, I really like Primo Ramdisk from Romex Software.

FlacWavLoader v1.23

Nothing major in this one. Fixed a bug that would not allow resetting the SOX path once set. Added code to remember window position from session to session, seems to work as expected, even across monitors.

FlacWaveLoader version 1.22

I’ve recently had my collection of SACD’s ripped to native DSD format. While there is a SACD plugin allowing foobar2000 to play the resulting ISO, I’d rather play the individual .DFF files that can be extracted from the .iso file. Of course you can convert the DFF to WAV and then to FLAC and then decode them back to WAV but that seems a bit messy.

So, the FWL program will now copy any .dff files that are selected and add them to the playlist. No other actions are performed and unless you are using foobar with the DSDDIFF plug in I very much doubt this will work for you. Your music player program will need to understand/handle the .dff files.

Download FWL version 1.2 Beta 3.

Yeah… mp3 support. This is strictly a convenience thing as suggested by WGH on AudioCircle.com. It does not decode the mp3 files to wav, it simply copies them and adds them to the play list. I did experiment with converting to wav and perhaps they sound a little better but the standard version of SoX does not contain the needed library to decode them due to licensing restrictions. While I did try adding the needed libmad library and it worked, I thought this too much of a pain for a non techno user.

This code may have added new bugs but it seems stable. I’ve been using it all day at work with no issues. If you find a problem please report it.

FWLSetup_v1.2b2

I’ve made some updates to the FWL program to allow copying or upsampling of .wav files. Prior to this release the program would only accept files with a .flac extension. Since I have a few things that were ripped as wave files it seemed the little program should know how to digest these as well.

The new behavior is as follows:

If the selected files have a .wav extension and either SoX is not configured or if the sample rate is set to “Don’t Resample”; the files will simply be copied. If SoX is configured and the sample rate is other than Don’t Resample, the files will undergo SRC per the chosen values.

Download FWLSetup_v1.2b1

I’ve tested all the new bits and believe I’ve quashed the bugs but as usual, please let me know about any errors that you find. Issue Tracker URL: https://bitbucket.org/mgalusha/flacwavloader/issues?status=new&status=open

Mike