Software media players tricks and tips

[StanleyB]

As mentioned in passing in another thread, this one is for users to mention any tips and tricks useful for media players like JRiver, MediaMonkey, Foobar Winamp etc. that they discovered or picked up.

I'll start off with the memory buffer in Media Monkey. I am using version 4.0.3 as a reference.

If you go to Tools -> Options -> Player -> Output plug-ins, you'll see a listing on the righthand side that shows you the available output plug-ins. I haven't installed the ASIO plug-in yet, but the OutWave plug-in has turned out to be very useful for high bitrate files. If you highlight it and then click on the Configure menu option just next to it, a new screen will open up. In that screen you have various options. Try them out, but the memory buffer increase is the one to pay attention to. I use 2000ms for the Buffer length, which has allowed me to play some difficult high resolution files. Because some of those files are 100MB or more, compared to maybe 40MB for a 16 bit/44.1KHz file, it is quite easy for the playback to suffer from buffering issues and reduced playback quality. You can mess about with the various buffers and then play some large files to compare. Once you hit the right spot the PBQ available is tremendous.

[WAD62]

Good stuff Stan...

As a general concept with all windows based players;

Set the windows sound scheme to ‘sounds off’, set the onboard soundcard as the default sound device (your music player will be configured to use your DAC or whatever), and set all device volumes to maximum

Ok my player of choice is Winamp, which when configured correctly is excellent IMHO ;)

Options/Preferences is where all of the important stuff occurs...

General Preferences - Set 'Priority Class' to high

Playback - Check the allow 24bit box (if you're using high res, replay gain, or upsampling)

Playback/Replay Gain tab - Uncheck this box (if you want to use RG it's better via FFSoX), also uncheck the 'ask before writing RG' option as this can become very tedious when RGing a lot of albums

Local Media/Watch Folders tab - Define your music directories here, the rescan option will identify any changed/new music, without having to completely refresh your catalogue each time.

Plug-ins/Input - If you are using FLAC with ASIO there is a known bug, gapless doesn't work properly, (WASAPI works fine on W7). The solution is to use the FFSoX plugin available from
http://in-ffsox.sourceforge.net/
This is an excellent plugin, which will transcode from FLAC (amongst others), and optionally allow real time upsampling to 24/192 and all points in between. At the same time it can be used to apply ReplayGain if required. Because it transcodes the data stream prior to hitting the Winamp player the gapless issue is eradicated. I tend to use it with no upsampling, no ReplayGain, no dither, no limiter for best SQ, but this depends on one’s preference and DAC.

Plug-ins/Output(For XP) – Use Otachan’s ASIO out .dll available from
http://otachan.com/out_asio(dll).html download, unzip, and drop the .dll into the program files/winamp/plugins directory. This will give you an ASIO output option in the Output plugins list. Select your device driver from the dropdown list ASIO4ALL if you don’t have any specific drivers, set the ‘thread priority’ to highest, buffer size to highest, and select gapless, no resample. N.B. If you are using an ASIO driver eg. ASIO4ALL set your buffers to the highest level in there too.

Plug-ins/Output(For W7) – Use Maiko’s WASAPI out .dll available from
http://maiko.elementfx.com/ same process as with the ASIO .dll above. Turn off volume control, and give WASAPI exclusive control of your output device. This is why it’s best to set the onboard soundcard as your default soundcard, thus preventing any contention in the usage of your DAC etc. Set the buffer size to the highest available value.

DSP/Effect – Ensure that this is set to off.

Err that’s about it I think…oh apart from be careful when installing, don’t set AOL as your default browser, don’t have the 50 free mp3s, don’t allow anonymous usage statistics, and don’t subscribe to their promoted radio stations…other than that it’s a nice piece of software!

Enjoy :cool:

[Spectral Morn]

Thanks guys for doing this - great help to newbies like myself :cool:

[technobear]

For those using Windows Vista/7 who may have missed it, the WASAPI 3.0 driver for foobar has now been released.

http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_out_wasapi

Version 3.0 has lost the flakiness of the earlier version 2.1.

I use it in 'event driven' mode. I use a buffer of 540 ms and it plays faultlessly with no gaps in the sound (into an Audiolab 8200CDQ).

The installation instructions are nonsense. You cannot install the new component by double-clicking it. If foobar does respond, it will try to play the file. You also cannot install it by clicking 'Install' in the 'Components' page of the foobar Prefs as the file type is not recognised and so it doesn't appear in the list. The only way to install it is to drag the file to the list of components, click OK and let foobar restart. Then go to the foobar Output Prefs and select 'WASAPI (event): <name of your DAC> ....'

I don't know if the old WASAPI component is removed by the installation so you might want to go to the components folder ( C:\Program Files (x86)\foobar2000\components ) and delete it (while foobar is not running of course).

[WAD62]

...might be worth making this a sticky :eyebrows:

[337alant]

I think JRiver media is really excellent now at Ver 18, download it from here http://www.jriver.com/index.html
I built my own HTPC and installed windows 7 / Jrivermedia and it worked great with any output to my M2Tech Young Dac, Coax, Optical and Asynchronous USB which I think sound best.

Once installed read this http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Getting_Started
And the user manual http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Media_Center

Couple of tips
From the opening page go to tools and options
Set up your Library only to automatically import music from your storage device, go to configure import I use a NAS drive so you just click add and link it to that I delete other links it automatically sets up like the C drive or any other comuters on the network which it will import music from if you allow it. I have all my music in FLAC so they are the only files I want it to pick up
In the main page go to File, Library, Import and select run auto import now

Click on the start up tab and select to automatically start up when windows starts so it boot straight into Jriver and all your Tunes are right there:)

in output mode settings check that your sound device is selected, if you are using USB it should show in the drop down box


In the options set the output mode to WASAPI - Event Style if your hardware will take it as this stops windows from using any of its processing like the system mixer, it goes straight to the output device if you get any tics just increase the buffer from 50ms to say 100.

If you are using a sound card as an output then ASIO may perform better.

If you do use USB go to your Dacs web site and get the proper driver.

Don’t tick anything in DSP studio as you can end up up scaling or downscaling and processing the sound in some way. however if you have a DAC that wont play a certain frequency output (say88khz) then this can be useful to automatically resample this to another usable frequency.

in settings select playback from memory instead of disc function as this buffers the music into ram and I think this sounds better particularly if you are streaming from WIFI but it does induce a delay on WIFI. I have my Nas hard wired with Cat6 so there is no delay in my system.
I use a Samsung tablet as a remote control using an App called Gizmo it works great and I can access Jriver from other rooms
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Gizmo this is the instructions for setting up Gizmo on your tablet and in Jriver.

If any of your cover art is not recognised just right click on it and select get cover art from internet, you can also edit the tag info as well

Hope this helps

Alan

[Gazjam]

You can get a a worthwhile improvement converting your Flacs to uncompressed format, noticable particulalrly if running Jriver.
JRiver 18 is the most transparent, most "audiophile" player out there imo and shows up any changes you make quite easily.
I tried Jplay, Cplay, XXHighEnd and...naa.

Using Jrivers inbuilt tools try converting a Flac album to Aiff.
Not Wav though, doesn't sound as good... :D
Apple do the whole audio thing a bit better than Microsoft.
(Aiff is Apple's version of a Wav file)

Yup, I know Flac is lossless and theres checksums and all that good stuff to ensure the original signal is outputted, but its the extra CPU load when uncompressing Flac back to PCM than can have an impact.
I've found that even with a powerful PC where you'd think this kind of thing would not matter it does.
In my experience with computer audio, getting the software right can make as much difference as changes in hardware.
Tweaked a mates server recently and the difference was quite a omg moment.
His speakers are doing bass like they shouldn't, just because of software.

Try converting a couple of favourite albums to Aiff in Jriver. It might surprise you. :)
I heard it for myself in my system, enough so that I converted 5000+ abums to Aiff. A major PITA but worth it.
Had to buy an extra 2TB drive mind you, but not that expensive in the scheme of things.

try it for yourself though..its worth doing and it's free.

[337alant]

Gazjam
Ok thats very interesting Ill give it a go :)

Alan

[Gordon Steadman]

You can get a a worthwhile improvement converting your Flacs to uncompressed format, noticable particulalrly if running Jriver.
JRiver 18 is the most transparent, most "audiophile" player out there imo and shows up any changes you make quite easily.
I tried Jplay, Cplay, XXHighEnd and...naa.

Using Jrivers inbuilt tools try converting a Flac album to Aiff.
Not Wav though, doesn't sound as good... :D
Apple do the whole audio thing a bit better than Microsoft.
(Aiff is Apple's version of a Wav file)

Yup, I know Flac is lossless and theres checksums and all that good stuff to ensure the original signal is outputted, but its the extra CPU load when uncompressing Flac back to PCM than can have an impact.
I've found that even with a powerful PC where you'd think this kind of thing would not matter it does.
In my experience with computer audio, getting the software right can make as much difference as changes in hardware.
Tweaked a mates server recently and the difference was quite a omg moment.
His speakers are doing bass like they shouldn't, just because of software.

Try converting a couple of favourite albums to Aiff in Jriver. It might surprise you. :)
I heard it for myself in my system, enough so that I converted 5000+ abums to Aiff. A major PITA but worth it.
Had to buy an extra 2TB drive mind you, but not that expensive in the scheme of things.

try it for yourself though..its worth doing and it's free.

For us Mac fans, would it be the suggestion that converting all our Lossless files back to AIFF would show some advantage??? Seems illogical but I'll try anything once!!:scratch:

[Gordon Steadman]

Well, I tried it and I can't say I noticed any difference. Maybe when I get my new DAC!!

It did increase the size from 30mB to 50mB (short song) which surprised me as I can't see how it can create any information that isn't there. I guess, basically, I just don't understand the technical stuff.

I just lurve the music.

[Rothchild]

The only difference between .wav and .aiff is the 'endianess' of the header file both are PCM wave files.

FLAC files are asymetricly encoded so all the processing goes in to the encoding (which is why there's a 'quality' setting when you encode, it doesn't affect the quality of the sound (they're all lossless) but it affects the resulting final file size - smaller file more processing to encode).

The processing power required to decode a FLAC is negligible and shouldn't cause even the slightest strain on any computer released after about 2005.

[technobear]

'Strain' on the computer is rendered irrelevent by the use of a USB Galvanic Isolator:

http://electronics-shop.dk/galvanically-usb_isolation

and a DAC which uses Asynchronous USB.


Beware some dodgy manufacturers (and I'm including some big names here) who work the word 'asynchronous' into their marketing drivel in devious ways. Their DACs might, for example, have asynchronous sample rate conversion (ASRC). This is completely unrelated to Asynchronous USB and is in any case not desirable. Sample rate conversion should be synchronous for best results. You might see weasel words like 'asynchronous signal processing' which is ambiguous meaningless bullshit. If it doesn't say 'Asynchronous USB' then it isn't and is best avoided.

[Rothchild]

'Strain' on the computer is rendered irrelevent by the use of a USB Galvanic Isolator:

http://electronics-shop.dk/galvanically-usb_isolation


Yeah, I fitted one of these to a 486DX with 16meg of RAM and now I'm realtime editing video on it, mining bitcoins and running 'folding at home' too!

Seriously though, what is that, a transformer isolated usb socket?(!)

[WAD62]

'Strain' on the computer is rendered irrelevent by the use of a USB Galvanic Isolator:

http://electronics-shop.dk/galvanically-usb_isolation

and a DAC which uses Asynchronous USB.


Beware some dodgy manufacturers (and I'm including some big names here) who work the word 'asynchronous' into their marketing drivel in devious ways. Their DACs might, for example, have asynchronous sample rate conversion (ASRC). This is completely unrelated to Asynchronous USB and is in any case not desirable. Sample rate conversion should be synchronous for best results. You might see weasel words like 'asynchronous signal processing' which is ambiguous meaningless bullshit. If it doesn't say 'Asynchronous USB' then it isn't and is best avoided.

Indeed Chris...:cool:

I've just replaced my danish USB isolator with this...

http://www.ifi-audio.com/en/iUSB.html

...although a damned site more cash, I think the purchase has been worth it, and that's with an M-DAC.

But I'll still use the isolator with my rPAC :)

[.mus]

'Strain' on the computer is rendered irrelevent by the use of a USB Galvanic Isolator ... and a DAC which uses Asynchronous USB.

Hi Chris,
Could you elaborate on this a bit? That is, what is the relationship between galvanic isolation and any negative influence introduced by activity within the PC?
I ask because, to my knowledge, my USB/SPDIF interface provides galvanic isolation and is asynchronous (in the relevant sense ;)) but still I'm using applications - like Fidelizer - to reduce the negative influence of activity within the PC, and they at least seem to improve things further (although the jury is out on memory play).

[NRG]

I cant see how a USB isolator like the one linked to above is any use other than to isolate the ground plane. Hash / noise on the signal lines and power line will still pass through the isolation Tx on each and be received at the DAC.

For a little more money you can get these true isolating boards that will fully isolate the DAC and can be powered by a clean linear power supply. A much better and more elegant solution IMHO.

http://www.circuitsathome.com/mcu/usb/usb-isolator

[.mus]

Hash / noise on the signal lines and power line will still pass through the isolation Tx on each and be received at the DAC.

That was my experience. I had much better luck simply attaching a ground wire to the computer chassis and earthing it at the pre-amp terminal - no more noise :)

[technobear]

Hi Chris,
Could you elaborate on this a bit? That is, what is the relationship between galvanic isolation and any negative influence introduced by activity within the PC?
I ask because, to my knowledge, my USB/SPDIF interface provides galvanic isolation and is asynchronous (in the relevant sense ;)) but still I'm using applications - like Fidelizer - to reduce the negative influence of activity within the PC, and they at least seem to improve things further (although the jury is out on memory play).

There are no absolutes in audio. Noise and distortion are never eliminated, only reduced. Less noise in equals less noise out.

[.mus]

I see, and do not disagree. I guess I misread your previous claim for a declaration of an absolute, since it suggested (to me) that an Isolator would eliminate the negative impact of 'strain' (PC activity), and that - as such - there could be no further benefit to be had in taking additional measures to reduce strain, such as playings uncompressed files. But clearly that's not what you meant.

[technobear]

For me, the isolator reduces the noise to a level where further action is not needed.

[Andrei]

Yup, I know Flac is lossless and theres checksums and all that good stuff to ensure the original signal is outputted, but its the extra CPU load when uncompressing Flac back to PCM than can have an impact.
I've found that even with a powerful PC where you'd think this kind of thing would not matter it does.

My experience is the opposite. The 'extra load' is fairly trivial. Try using Task Manager in Windows and go the processes tab. Foobar shows 0% process being used when playing Flac. Of course it is not 0% because it is rounded to the nearest percent. So it will use less than half a percent of the CPUs resources. So if Flac is < 1% it is not taxing the system at all. I've just done this on my office PC that has an AMD Phenom II X4 945 processor running at 3.0GHz and 8Gb of ram running at 1600MHz. (My Flac server has an Intel i7-3770S 3.1GHz processor with 16 Gb of ram running at 1866Mhz.) With a modern multi-core processor I would not expect a difference to be heard because the extra 'load' is likely done simultaneously.

I think of it like a car that cruises at 100 km per hour. Throw some bricks in the back and you will still travel at 100 km per hour. You will use a small amount of extra petrol for the trip but you wont notice anything different.

[NRG]

The Flac file is decoded first and buffered thats probably why you see 0% CPU usage but I agree the load is minimal to nothing on a PC with the spec you quote and the time to decode a Flac is only a few seconds...I've never noticed a difference between Flac and WAV sound wise.

[Rothchild]

I've just done this on my office PC that has an AMD Phenom II X4 945 processor running at 3.0GHz and 8Gb of ram running at 1600MHz. (My Flac server has an Intel i7-3770S 3.1GHz processor with 16 Gb of ram running at 1866Mhz.) With a modern multi-core processor I would not expect a difference to be heard because the extra 'load' is likely done simultaneously.


I'm currently listening to files encoded to flac and being live transcoded to mp3 and streamed over the internet (on a domestic ADSL line - upload is slower than down) on a £25 Raspberry Pi (700mHz ARM 512meg Ram) No glitches, no drop outs, yeah it runs the cpu up a bit on the pi but not enough to cause it to break sweat. Andrei has his bricks in the back of an artic lorry, mine are on a motorbike! They'll all get there at the same time and be the same bricks!

[Gazjam]

My experience is the opposite. The 'extra load' is fairly trivial. Try using Task Manager in Windows and go the processes tab. Foobar shows 0% process being used when playing Flac. Of course it is not 0% because it is rounded to the nearest percent. So it will use less than half a percent of the CPUs resources. So if Flac is < 1% it is not taxing the system at all. I've just done this on my office PC that has an AMD Phenom II X4 945 processor running at 3.0GHz and 8Gb of ram running at 1600MHz. (My Flac server has an Intel i7-3770S 3.1GHz processor with 16 Gb of ram running at 1866Mhz.) With a modern multi-core processor I would not expect a difference to be heard because the extra 'load' is likely done simultaneously.

I think of it like a car that cruises at 100 km per hour. Throw some bricks in the back and you will still travel at 100 km per hour. You will use a small amount of extra petrol for the trip but you wont notice anything different.

In recent experience I found that extra load makes a difference even on a high spec computer.
Cant explain it other than what my ears are telling me.
That said, I never did perscribe to the "its just 1s and 0's" camp though :)

Got curious, so I bought my work PC through to the lounge (Dual Xeon CPU, 32GB ram yada yada) and installed JRiver on it and set it up the same way I have my music server.
Heard the difference between switching Memory Play on and off, changing the buffering settings, anti virus&firewall on compared to off...

Task manager showed barely a blip, but ears said different.

I don't profess to have all the answers, just know that in my experience increased overhead on the system_DOES_make a difference.
Always a believer in experimenting and listening, and I found that it does makes a difference, even on a "high end" PC system.

[bpcairns]

In recent experience I found that extra load makes a difference even on a high spec computer.
Cant explain it other than what my ears are telling me.
That said, I never did perscribe to the "its just 1s and 0's" camp though :)

Got curious, so I bought my work PC through to the lounge (Dual Xeon CPU, 32GB ram yada yada) and installed JRiver on it and set it up the same way I have my music server.
Heard the difference between switching Memory Play on and off, changing the buffering settings, anti virus&firewall on compared to off...

Task manager showed barely a blip, but ears said different.

I don't profess to have all the answers, just know that in my experience increased overhead on the system_DOES_make a difference.
Always a believer in experimenting and listening, and I found that it does makes a difference, even on a "high end" PC system.

The most likely explanation for this is the PCs power supply feeding noise back into your mains and affecting your analogue components. More load means more work for the crappy, in electrical noise terms anyway, switch mode power supply so more noise fed into mains so more effect on the system. Big powerful computers are largely unsuitable as digital players for this reason, Also they are usually mechanically noisy anyway. I'm sure I've seen discussion of driving these small modern integrated systems with linear PSUs for this very reason. Can't remember if it was here or another forum.

I'm pretty certain it is just 1s and 0s but you have to get those from the PC to the DAC without affecting the rest of the hifi. PCs are electrically very noisy due to aforementioned power supplies as well as the high frequency operation of the rest of the system. So just because it is "only" 1s and 0s doesn't mean all other problems are solved. And that's before we even consider jitter, aliasing etc...

[realysm42]

I think Gaz and I use the same PSU for our music servers, they reduce the noise a lot, it was one of the single biggest upgrades I've experienced.

[Clive]

I strongly suggest some of you try the MQn player. It's still in development, free and is simply the best I've heard. It's very hair shirt and a very light load. It needs the sse2 or sse4 instruction set with modern pcs. Be ready though for several new versions per day! The likes of jriver can learn a huge amount from MQn.

[realysm42]

Hair shirt?

[Clive]

Hair shirt?

The UI or lack thereof couldn't be more different to jriver.

[Gazjam]

The most likely explanation for this is the PCs power supply feeding noise back into your mains and affecting your analogue components. More load means more work for the crappy, in electrical noise terms anyway, switch mode power supply so more noise fed into mains so more effect on the system. Big powerful computers are largely unsuitable as digital players for this reason, Also they are usually mechanically noisy anyway. I'm sure I've seen discussion of driving these small modern integrated systems with linear PSUs for this very reason. Can't remember if it was here or another forum.

I'm pretty certain it is just 1s and 0s but you have to get those from the PC to the DAC without affecting the rest of the hifi. PCs are electrically very noisy due to aforementioned power supplies as well as the high frequency operation of the rest of the system. So just because it is "only" 1s and 0s doesn't mean all other problems are solved. And that's before we even consider jitter, aliasing etc...

Not so sure about that Brian,
its a VERY high quality (as in measures extremely well in terms of ripple, noise etc) supply I use in my works PC.
Also it was plugged into my balanced mains system, so should have been fed with a clean mains.
Any jitter should be taken care of by the dac.

Hear what your saying about "normal" PC's not being as good for digital playback and I agree, I never buy off the shelf though but build my own.

The normal server in the listening room, is pretty highly specced too (4.5 Ghz i3750k, 16GB ram) and still I notice improvements reducing the load.
there are no switching supplies in this system as well, completely linear harwired into the balanced mains.

Just go with what my ears tell me...that's all that matters really. :)

[mrmark]

Chris ...thanks for this info, the problem i always have when using WSAPI is that if i play a 24/96 file it tells me it's an unsupported format.........are there any solutions to this problem?

[Stratmangler]

Chris ...thanks for this info, the problem i always have when using WSAPI is that if i play a 24/96 file it tells me it's an unsupported format.........are there any solutions to this problem?

What that means is that the playback device does not support the sample rate required for playback.
I have the same issue with a desktop machine at home - it will not play 88.2, 176.4 or 192 files natively via the onboard audio device. When I add a device that can play the files (over USB) then it's quite happy playing the files over that particular device.

[StanleyB]

What is likely to happen if you tried to play a 192kHz track through USB on a DAC that only supports USB up to 96kHz? Has anyone tried this, and if so what was the result?

[mrmark]

Chris many thanks for your reply........ trying to get my head around it, am a bit of a novice. When i open and select the Foobar output device options, it will play 24/96 when using the DS.primary sound driver, DS speakers(2usb audio codec), the ASIO....but not the WASPI (2usb audio codec).....
Guess i don't really need to understand the reasons for this, as long as it's normal.......lol

[Stratmangler]

Chris many thanks for your reply........ trying to get my head around it, am a bit of a novice. When i open and select the Foobar output device options, it will play 24/96 when using the DS.primary sound driver, DS speakers(2usb audio codec), the ASIO....but not the WASPI (2usb audio codec).....
Guess i don't really need to understand the reasons for this, as long as it's normal.......lol

I take it you're using the sound devices on your PC?
The machine will resample stuff it can't play to something it can play. So if it can't do 96kHz then it will resample to 48kHz.
Using WASAPI stops that process taking place - the machine is effectively forced to deal with the file natively, and it can't, so you get the unplayable file stuff coming up.

[Stratmangler]

What is likely to happen if you tried to play a 192kHz track through USB on a DAC that only supports USB up to 96kHz? Has anyone tried this, and if so what was the result?

Can't answer this one Stan - IIRC the Caiman doesn't support 96kHz so that's one DAC I have here out of the equation, and the only other device I have is an EMU 0404USB which is happy playing everything I throw at it.

[StanleyB]

I shall post this question as a thread in its own right since it is of importance to me. I don't want to hijack this thread.

[WAD62]

Hi There foobar users, I normally use Winamp but have been messing around with foobar2000, just to see if I'm missing anything...

I'm currently running it on XP, using FLAC with my iFi Nano iDSD DAC/HPamp;

It's working fine via the iFi ASIO driver, I have a couple of questions;

1. Can I disable 'Volume Control'?, the only option I can see is to set it to 100% then remove the volume control icon from the main task bar. whereas in Winamp I can specifically disable it.

2. In Winamp I can can configure it to display by Genre/Album Artist/Album, I see no mention of 'Album Artist' in Winamp only 'Artist' which is a right pain in the posterior if you have a few compilations.

I'm still of the opinion that Winamp has a much better user interface, and when configured correctly provides at least equal SQ...perhaps I'm missing something :)

Cheers,

Will

[technobear]

File->Preferences->Media Library->Album List

by Album %album%[ '['%album artist%']']|%title%[ - %track artist%]

by Artist %<artist>%|%album%|%title%

by Genre %<genre>%|[%album artist% - ]%album%|%title%[ - %track artist%]

by Artist/Album [%album artist% - ]%album%|%title%[ - %track artist%]

That oughta do it!

As for the volume control, set it to 100% and hide it.


ps. don't listen to a micro iDSD unless you can afford to buy one ;)

[WAD62]

Cheers Chris, if the Nano is anything to go by the Micro must be terrific...;)

[Thetiminator]

Has anyone compared the sq differences (if there are any) between different software.....e.g. Media monkey, j river, xbmc etc?

[SLS]

I've found that if you want to lose years off your life and don't fancy taking up smoking, get into digital audio.

The list of things that can go wrong are innumerable and listing them would result in a nervous breakdown. However the first, with my first digital system, was that the network switch was too slow to cope with standard Flac files.

The only certainty is that if something can go wrong, it will go wrong.

Thank heavens my NAS/ripper has a built-in processor that handles everything from playback to remote backups, and can be controlled by n-Serve. I am buying a second system for the office and bought a Naim UnitQute2 simply because I know the devices will work together hassle-free.

So my advice if you want to spend more time listening to music than calling customer services or trawling forums is to get integrated systems, whether same-brand or all-in-one, which have their own tried and tested apps/control software. Unless, of course, you are mad about computers or calling customer services to brush up on your Geordie accent (apologies to Geordies, I love you all).

That said, I just bought a QNAP as a music server backup, remote backup from my offices, picture library and Time Machine backup store for about 4 machines at home. It's software is an absolute joy, and the music station is also excellent. I have called customer services a couple of times just for hand-holding, they answer immediately and have infinite skill and patience, but I am developing a Goldmember accent.

Incidentally, my NAS/ripper does bitperfect ripping using same software as the better Naim machines, producing WAV files. I like this approach as there are no settings involved, it just straight copies the CD with no compression at all and then looks up the metadata online.

[evir]

I have been trying to retire my CDP for a while now and tried using a macbook pro as a player with various software/dac/connection/file type combinations, just to discover there is a lot to it I don't understand.

The best solution to date has been to rip with XLD to an SD card and plug that into an Oppo 105 to play the files, out of the oppo's dac it's getting very close to the CDP. So back to trying other dac's now at least.

[Gazjam]

Has anyone compared the sq differences (if there are any) between different software.....e.g. Media monkey, j river, xbmc etc?

Yes.
Try Jriver and be let down whenever you try any other.

[Andrei]

Has anyone compared the sq differences (if there are any) between different software.....e.g. Media monkey, j river, xbmc etc?
I've used Media Monkey, Foobar, and J River and have never noticed any difference at all in SQ. Strangely though there was a very slight amount of clarity using Audacity - a soundfile editor. A more marked difference is with a command-line based software called MQN. It can be used within Windows, and is still under development. Neither Audacity nor MQN are user friendly so I don't use either very often.

[Yoga]

Not as tip as such, but Audirvana Plus (2.0.9) is bloody brilliant. I also own JRiver, for what it's worth.

Edit - to expand on that: sound stage and spacing.

[Thebiglebowski]

I trialled Audirvana and just couldn't get on with the interface and then tried JRMC and have used it ever since. Audirvana did sound slightly better but not enough to outweigh the friendlier interface of JRMC.

[Solrighal]

I'm also using JRMC. Version 19 in my case. I prefer it's sound over all the others. I also like that it takes VST plug-ins. Best of all though is that I can completely avoid iTunes and navigate my music collection via the actual folder structure.

The last couple of weeks though I've been experiencing a problem with it. For some reason it will not shut down. I always need to Force Quit on it. I haven't changed a thing in it's settings so I'm suspecting it's down to an OS X update. Damned annoying.

[rikardo1979]

Once I have tried Kodi(formally XBMC) (https://kodi.tv/download/) I can not think of any other multimedia solution


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXmzAjjEJUo

[Rick_F]

Annoyingly, I find a greater change in SQ by using different laptops. I have two, a Lenovo & an Acer. The Acer is much better, same detail, but more rounded at the ends, deeper soundstage and just more musical. I say annoyingly because that means all laptops may sound different and I don't wish to go down that route!

When this thread was new I had tried Foobar, Windows Media player, Jriver, Media Monkey and a couple of others. I found Foobar detailed, but bland, too clinical & the GUI hard to suss out. Windows media player was dull, Jriver sounded ok but kept crashing so I settled on Media Monkey. Have stayed with it ever since. That doesn't mean I won't try Jriver again though!

[StanleyB]

If you are using a laptop, try it on battery with the external power supply disconnected from the laptop. Then try it with the power supply connected and powering the laptop. I can detect a difference, and can even see the difference in the noise output from the USB socket on a scope. I should take some pics to show that last bit.

[Rick_F]

If you are using a laptop, try it on battery with the external power supply disconnected from the laptop. Then try it with the power supply connected and powering the laptop. I can detect a difference, and can even see the difference in the noise output from the USB socket on a scope. I should take some pics to show that last bit.

I sometimes think the top end improves slightly with battery power, but tbh, I doubt I could tell the difference if I were to do a blind test.

[roob]

I have tried this many times with my MBP sitting on my lap, listening via high quality cans/Mojo dac/amp detach mains lead replace mains lead no difference in SQ at all.
I expected to hear some difference but there was none, goes to prove what may be measurable does not always translate into what you can hear.