Does Z9X Pro play multi-channel audio files?

I have a large collection of audio files, both stereo and multi-channel, in FLAC and DSD64 formats. Does the Z9X Pro handle multi-channel from audio files? I can currently do that with my now-orphaned Zappiti Neo but that plays only the FLAC files gaplessly, not the DSD64 files. I'm looking for gapless stereo AND multi-channel playback on audio files.

I also have a number of SACD ISO images, some of which are multi-channel. The specs I've seen say that this generation of Zidoo players can play SACD ISO images, but can it play the multi-channel tracks on those that have them? And can you set the player to have multi-channel tracks take precedence over stereo tracks on those SACD ISO images?

Thanks!

 

Its supposed to play DSD Mch ,and they keep saying its fixed in each f/w ,but atm its still not working correctly

DSD Mch should play as 5 channel flac at 176khz via HDMI but its still only 2 channels working

Also ive found Iso MCH atm is playing noisy vs the ëxtracted"dsf mch files

It all works fine on the earlier Z9X range

dsf 2 ch works fine ,ie out to usb audio dac (topping e50)
Other issue with new model range is the change to android tv vs original android OS ,thus apps like USB Audio player pro i purchesed back on the older Z9X model ( when i was testing usb audio to dac since it wasnt working ..my fault lol 2 diff models of the denon 3700h i was looking at the other model back panel so 1 out on hdmis ) now wont work

Zidoo have been working on it each patch originally in .52 f/w MCH dsd was just all noise on 2 channels ,now its playing fine in 2 ch for .dsf ,and will one day work as intended in 5 ch



Hopefully

Ive got around it for now by just grabbing a Panasonic ub450 uhd player
The in built media player will play MCH DSD fine over hdmi (Dark Side of the moon sounds way better in mch )

 

Not the answer I was hoping for, but I appreciate the quick reply!

Is this an issue for MCH DSD64 files only? Or does it affect MCH FLAC files as well? And how is the support for MCH SACD ISO images?

And you're absolutely right - DSOTM has sounded WAY better in MCH since it came out on SACD. Also great are Wish You Were Here and Animals as well as Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms and even Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. And... Well, I'm just a sucker for MCH!

 

I couldnt find any of my mch flac files (think i wiped wrong drive lol ) but didnt have many since i have lots in mch dsf

I did try an atmos version of The Wall ...zidoo shows 8 ch amp shows recieving 2 ch

It will be fixed ( thou its still going to be 176khz flac mch not dsd)

I grabbed floyds DSOTM in 5.1 flac last night and tested

Same result as MCH SACD
Zidoo says outputting 6 ch Denon 3700h shows recieving 2ch stereo (via HDMI )

 

I've done a bit of testing here with my Z2600 running v1.0.75_G beta and the included version of Music Player 7.1.15, but cant do the full testing until my Anthem ATMOS receiver comes back from service.
Currently its HDMI to TV, then the TV (which supports pretty much everything) converts everything to old lofi AC3 for my backup receiver which is a pre-HDMI Yamaha.

MCH flac (6ch or 8ch) seems to be output in stereo only with the current latest beta firmware on my Z2600, both HDMI and direct coax/optical are 2ch only regardless of auto/raw settings. sometimes they arent played at all, they just sit at 0:00 untill I restart the app. this seems to apply in the build in music player and ZDMC.

E-AC3 Atmos (lossy) plays fine in .m4a files, multichannel and the coax/optical outputs also work when playing the base downmixed layer just fine.

lossless Atmos .m4a I cant seem to get working, the player just skips the files, but that might be due to the stand in receiver I'm using while the good one is out of service.
ZDMC actually seems to play these fine, not sure if its passing the full TrueHD Atmos until i get my good recevier back, but i'm getting multichannel out so its at least sending the base layer.

Multichannel music within a Video container works just fine in the video player as expected, so if you have straight MakeMKV rips of your music DVDs and BDs they're good to go, its just individual track files we are having issues with due to android limitations, somehow Kodi on Shield solved these issues so we know it is possible at least. on the shield many apps show the exact same 2ch output limitation when playing music files (plex, jellyfin etc) but kodi solved it.

DFF tracks and DSD ISO files seem to work perfectly in stereo using the build in DSD Decoder and PCM output or Analogue RCA output (and sound excellent at least, the resampling of the software decoder is great, and the Analogue outs on the Z2600 are very good), but no multichannel.

For now I'm going to stick with the Nvidia shield for multichannel music, Kodi plays everything in surround perfectly on that system even with the HDMI to TV setup, and I'll re-asses when i get the proper receiver back but it seems multichannel flac is not working on this version of the OS and Media player.

I have an extensive library of DVD-A, SACD, BD-A multichannel and Atmos music that I have personally ripped from my own disks and extracted with MakeMKV and MusicMediaHelper7 to split and extract tracks, several Tb worth in fact, and I have been using Kodi on Shield without any issues for well over a year now.

 

`MCH does work on the older Z9X series thou dsd is downsampled to 176khz 6ch

They slowly got it closer to working each firmware
ie original .50ish mch was stereo but broken and noisy
.60ish it was mostly clear stereo but at like a weird 352khz sample rate
.75 or .80 is still stereo but at least its at the 176khz target sample rate

One thing i wonder is in the earlier z9x series we could go to advanced settings and there was a switchable MCH to stereo setting in the audio section
This new Pro range we cant get to that setting now ...wonder if Zidoo team cant ,too

Like i suggested above thou ,for now if i want MCH i just play the mch dsf files via my Panasonic ub420 4k bluray player ...it works well and doesnt sound too bad

Ohh i grabbed a 5.1 flac for DSOTM and flac mch only does stereo too ,atm

 

Yesterday I received my Z9X Pro player. A friend recommended the Z9X for multi-channel audio formats. After a few tests, I was sobered to discover that the player can only output my FLAC and DVD-A in stereo and have now come across this thread. My friend's Z9X has no problems with this. Now I've looked in the Pro's specs and it says under Audio:

"Audio Decode Support HD audio passthrough and decode 2 channels"

I don't think the manufacturer is likely to add this functionality via a firmware update. Not in the short term either way. I will probably have to send it back.

What alternative can you recommend? As I have read, the Shield is an option. Are there others that can do this?

 

MCH for audio is supported on the pro range
and eventually theyll get it working ,as above, each firmware they get a little closer to it

it wont be dsd output (itll be 5.1 at 176khz ) if you want full dsd stereo and mch to say hdmi ,the best option would be something like their Eversolo a6 a8 type players with way better dacs etc

if your not worried about full audiophile type output ,do like i did ,get a panasonic 4k uhb 420 ( 820 ,900 or 9000 ) bluray players
It happily plays all my MCH dsf files via usb or network and sounds great

 

That is referring to the stereo analogue outputs only, the hdmi port can indeed passthrough multichannel lpcm, it works with video files just fine.

It is just currently broken for audio only playback.

 

Hi,

Just a quick confirmation, the same problem exists here on the factory firmware. I just received my player yesterday and after setting up I gladly jumped into the misoc player section to try my multichannel music files. None of them worked. SACD ISO, DSD, DSF, FLAC, M4A all plays as PCM 2.0.
Have you tried the 1.0.75 beta firmware? I's changelog says lots of improvement in multichannel music playback. Any imrpovement shoild be good as it does not work at all. :-(

 

I cant properly test at the moment, since my good Anthem receiver is still at the repair shop and my current backup receiver is pre-hdmi so its limited to stereo PCM or plain 5.1 AC3/DTS.
I am running 1.0.75G on my Z2600 so as soon as I get my receiver back I will keep testing.

I can get surround out of M4a files (dolby AC3 surround and some e-AC3 lossy atmos files) with the current setup, so something is working, that's a good step, but I cant properly test anything else as I have to use HDMI to the TV then optical out, so I'm limited to what the TV is willing to spit out as AC3 or DTS. the TV does support every format under the sun, but it has very little signal information to tell me what it is actually receiving (multichannel PCM and stereo PCM both just show as "PCM" for example, AC3, e-AC3 and TrueHD all just show "Dolby")

 

as i said above

They slowly got it closer to working each firmware
ie original .50ish mch was stereo but broken and noisy
.60ish it was mostly clear stereo but at like a weird 352khz sample rate
.75 or .80 is still stereo but at least its at the 176khz target sample rate

Its playable now with good (but stereo ) sound . at first .52 firmware it played but had a lot of static glitchy playback (dsf and dsd iso formats)
It will only be 6ch 176khz once it is working ,thats all zidoo and the chipset allows (as oppossed to 6ch dsf) ,but it does sound really good on the older Z9X range that way ( thou so does my Panasonic ub420 which can play the 6ch dsf files via usb and lan )

the ac3 eac3 true hd are all more video audio formats and all work fine when playing video formats as does atmos music vids

 

Yes, I get it, however this is not a small glitch, like a dislocated icon or so, but a missing function which was advertised at the time of product launch last year. If the previoys model had no issue with MCH playback it is even more embarrasing that they dis not put more effort in it to correct by now. That was the main reason I replaced my older kodi media player which struggled with SACD and DSD playback. My 8 years old Popcorn A500 had no issues playing even multichannel DSD so it seems we are going backwards in terms.of audio playback.
Zidoo support suggested to update to 1.0.75fw to solve this issue. I'll do it tomorrow and see if MCH will be playable or its still stereo as your system.
Cheers

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No, unfortunately no SACD, no DSD or M4A multichannel audio is playing, only FLAC multichannel 88.2kHz/channel started to work with the new firmware.

The SACD multichannel file plays in stereo and very noisy stuttering. M4A with dolby atmos core only works is the atmos core is AC3 EX lossy and not TrueHD lossless). So, very minor improvements, but my 10 years old popcorn A500 had no issues playing these files (except Atmos).

 

The Eversolo can play multichannel DSD just fine why not the Z2600?

 

The eversolo is purely designed for audiophile grade audio
Zidoos are mostly video players with some audio

The base eversolo dmp a6 is 3x the cost of the z9x pro the a8 is 4-5 times the cost (nz pricing )

 

I recently bought a Zidoo Z9X Pro with the primary purpose of becoming my player of choice for my digital music collection. The player seems to handle stereo FLAC (up to 24-bit, 192 kHz) and DSD64 files and multi-channel FLAC (up to 24-bit, 96 kHz, 5.1-channel) plus ISO images of stereo SACDs just fine, including playing the songs gaplessly. However, whenever I try to play a multi-channel (whether 3.0, 4.0, 4.1, 5.0, or 5.1) DSD64 file, I get audio "breakups" that sound a bit like static every few seconds. I have Software Version 1.0.75 on this player. Is there a version that actually handles these files as all the literature on this model claims it does?

Ooops, sorry. I just read this earlier entry in this thread:

No, unfortunately no SACD, no DSD or M4A multichannel audio is playing, only FLAC multichannel 88.2kHz/channel started to work with the new firmware.

The SACD multichannel file plays in stereo and very noisy stuttering. M4A with dolby atmos core only works is the atmos core is AC3 EX lossy and not TrueHD lossless). So, very minor improvements, but my 10 years old popcorn A500 had no issues playing these files (except Atmos).

I too have a 10-year-old Popcorn A500 and it does play all my stereo and multi-channel FLAC and DSD64 audio files just fine. However, it has just about the worst interface I have ever seen for selecting the files to play. I was really hoping that 10 years would have brought about something with all the hardware capabilities of the Popcorn plus the ability to play SACD ISOs and a half-way decent user interface. The UI is important to me as my collection is pretty sizable (over 120,000 audio tracks).

I still have not quite 2 weeks before I have to send this back to Amazon to get a refund if I decide not to keep it. Maybe I'll try a beta version of the software (if one newer than 1.0.75 exists).

 

Yes. This Eversolo thing just keeps me constantly surprised.
Audiophile grade audio is actually a niche in comparison to media players - few clients but with high prices. I believe that in the audio/video players market there are more customers interested in video and audio than just in audio.
So potentially bigger market is for all purpose devices like high end Zidoo Neo Alpha or Zidoo UHD5000 which are all based on RTD 1619BPD firmware as Z9x Pro is... (so suffering the same bugs as Z9X Pro is).
So giving more focus over Evelsolo product, just the audio players is a surprise to me.

The only explenation is probably that Zidoo is getting much higher profit from the Eversolo series due to much lower costs factors.

Errata: Zidoo Neo Aplha is actually the older RTD 1619DR, not BPD. So this now forced me to rethink and I am starting to worry, that maybe 1619dbp SOC is "hardware" bugged so Zidoo gave up on this line as not promising/too pricey to fix. Hopefully I am wrong.

 

pretty sure thats only with iso format MCH Sacds
all of the dsf converted MCH Sacds ive tested play perfectly in just stereo in .75
It was only happening when i tested isos , but as above , in .52 it was almost unplaybale stereo for MCH in both iso or dsf format
.60 ish it was just minor breakups in dsf and more in iso

They are slowly getting there
we know it works perfectly in Z9X range (even if just 176khz 6ch instead of 6ch dsf/dsd

 

For sacd dsd64 id be perfectly happy with it doing the dsd to pcm at 88.2khz
That's what I've done my own conversions at in the past and even as a bit of a self confessed audiophile nerd I'm happy with the sound at that rate.

 

I've sent some test files to the service team, and I really hope they will come up with a quick solution for this currently missing feature of playing mch music files. Unfortunately not even the multichannel FLAC plays, they just tricked my AV receiver to think its 5.1ch 48khz source but only played the front channels. Interestingly the service person said, they can't reproduce the problems what we all experiencing they can play multichannel audio files. Hm...