Topic: SBE and CD Wave question

[bconnolly]

I hear a lot about Sector Boundary Errors.  SBE's they call them.  You know, the bits that get padded onto the end of files and make the recording pop improperly.

My question is: does CD Wave account for this when encoding to FLAC? Am I unknowingly compressing my shows replete with SBE's?  Someone help me out here.

[bconnolly]

Hm, after reading the "frustrated mac user" thread I'm beginning to think that SBE's are, in fact, the stuff of lore and legend.

SBE's are a myth I tell ya.  A myth.

[pfife]

my guess woudl be that the format in which it exports is irrelevant - its the precise location of the track cuts that makes the difference.  FWIW, I still have never heard an SBE artifact, but others report that they have, and I have no problem taking their word for it.

[bconnolly]

my guess woudl be that the format in which it exports is irrelevant - its the precise location of the track cuts that makes the difference.  FWIW, I still have never heard an SBE artifact, but others report that they have, and I have no problem taking their word for it.

So how are you supposed to pick the exact slice of the wav to split it on?  Do I need to become some kind of mutant?

[Brian Skalinder]

So how are you supposed to pick the exact slice of the wav to split it on?  Do I need to become some kind of mutant?

CD-Wave adjusts the exact slice of the WAV you select to prevent SBEs.  You don't need to do anything other than select your track splits.  And I believe CD-Wave handles the SBEs when saving to FLAC also.  I assume it still saves the file to a temp WAV file and then calls the FLAC program to encode.  No different than doing it manually, except, well...you don't have to do it manually.  If you really wanna know for sure, email the CD-Wave guy.  Or check yourself:  save to FLAC, then decode to WAV, and use shntool to check for SBEs.

[pfife]

my guess woudl be that the format in which it exports is irrelevant - its the precise location of the track cuts that makes the difference.  FWIW, I still have never heard an SBE artifact, but others report that they have, and I have no problem taking their word for it.

So how are you supposed to pick the exact slice of the wav to split it on?  Do I need to become some kind of mutant?

Once again, this is my belief, so take it fwiw - that's what CDWav does.  It makes sure that it cuts it at the right spot, and it's basically an invisible process to you.  However, being a mutant wouldn't hurt. 

[bconnolly]

So how are you supposed to pick the exact slice of the wav to split it on?  Do I need to become some kind of mutant?

CD-Wave adjusts the exact slice of the WAV you select to prevent SBEs.  You don't need to do anything other than select your track splits.  And I believe CD-Wave handles the SBEs when saving to FLAC also.  I assume it still saves the file to a temp WAV file and then calls the FLAC program to encode.  No different than doing it manually, except, well...you don't have to do it manually.  If you really wanna know for sure, email the CD-Wave guy.  Or check yourself:  save to FLAC, then decode to WAV, and use shntool to check for SBEs.

+T, thanks for the info.  Honestly, I've never heard an SBE in any recording because I'm just not that discerning.  I just don't want to call the fire and brimstone of the hoards of audiophiles on Dime.

[flipp]

Read the FAQ at CDWav. It explains about where it cuts and why, even does the math for you. All you'll ever likely need to know about why SBEs occur and how to prevent them.

[bconnolly]

Read the FAQ at CDWav. It explains about where it cuts and why, even does the math for you. All you'll ever likely need to know about why SBEs occur and how to prevent them.

Hm, I loaded up the FAQ page and CTRL+F'd for SBE and didn't find anything.  I shall look again.

EDIT: Here it is:

http://www.milosoftware.com/cdwave/faq.html#Technical

[fsulloway]

I've found that when I start with a 24 bit source and use cd wave I never have SBE's. However when I convert dats I seem to get the SBE's even though I used Cd wave. I don't understand why that is. I use Trader's Little Helper which is a simple step and it's kind of expected to list the shntool output anyway on digipanic where I do all of my seeding. However if use cd wave to track and cut a tiny slice from the beginning and end of the file then that seems to eliminate the SBE's when seeding Dats.

[pfife]

I might be wrong, but I believe SBE's are only an issue w/ 16bit files.

[Ed.]

i thought you always had to cut on the :01 in order not to get sbe's...if you cut at like :66 or something, you'd get an error.

*shrug*

[JasonSobel]

i thought you always had to cut on the :01 in order not to get sbe's...if you cut at like :66 or something, you'd get an error.

*shrug*

nope, not at all.

if you use CD Wave, it will ALWAYS cut on sector boundaries.  the reasoning behind snipping off a tiny piece at the very end, is that the entire file might not be an exact multiple of a sector size (one CD sector is 1/75th of a second).  So, if you don't cut the last file, your last track will have whatever "remainder" beyond a CD sector that the original file had.  If you snip that last little piece off, all your files will be cut on sector boundaries, and you'll just throw away the "remainder"

[Ed.]

i did not know that...i guess it doesn't matter too much tho.

[F.O.Bean]

just run your wavs thru flac frontend if youre on windoze and check the 'align on sector boundaries' box, done deal, since doing this i have yet to hear any artifacts YMMV tho