JRiver 20

[struth]

Just downloaded the latest incarnation on my win 8.1 pc...seems to be fine so far although just looks the same.....anyone else got it yet?

[Zoidburg]

Iv had an email telling me it's available to download but not got round to it yet. Probably will over the weekend tho.

[Gazjam]

Yeah I got it Grant.
no real game changers yet, few subtle improvements and new features.

Not delved into the audio options yet... :eyebrows:

[Buggleskelly]

Yup, down loaded it this morning but haven't given it a whirl yet, apart from checking if there was any major look & feel changes - which at a first glance I can't see any.

Cheers / Stevie

[guyhayton]

I currently use iTunes to manage & play (via airplay) my 3,900+ albums. All are stored as Apple Lossless including my 24bit stuff (listened to via headphones)

Would a move to Jriver really be a worthwhile upgrade for £31 ?

Appreciation in advance for advice from users of Jriver

[struth]

Dont know if it would be better, but as far as I know, JRiver can at least play Apple lossless so you wont have to re rip them. Never used Apple stuff so cant really say which is best.

[Gazjam]

I currently use iTunes to manage & play (via airplay) my 3,900+ albums. All are stored as Apple Lossless including my 24bit stuff (listened to via headphones)

Would a move to Jriver really be a worthwhile upgrade for £31 ?

Appreciation in advance for advice from users of Jriver

Yes. Absolutely yes.
http://www.jriver.com/audiophile.html

[guyhayton]

Cheers for that link.... must admit I am quite interested in the comments that it's much faster than iTunes.

iTunes developed into somewhat of a "slow dog" once I passed 3,000 albums. No I don't fancy re-ripping all those CDs that are now in the loft :stalks:

[Gazjam]

Take it your files are in AIFF format?
Jriver handles that no problem and in fact is imo the best sounding file format.

I originally ran Flac, then converted to WAV.
Did a comparison with AIFF though and it sounded better to me.
Understand why, but wont bore myself stating the technical reasons! :)

[RichB]

I started on 18, paid to upgrade to 19 but didn't think it worth the money. I'm holding back on this upgrade.

[Ammonite Audio]

Take it your files are in AIFF format?
Jriver handles that no problem and in fact is imo the best sounding file format.

I originally ran Flac, then converted to WAV.
Did a comparison with AIFF though and it sounded better to me.
Understand why, but wont bore myself stating the technical reasons!

Isn't AIFF in effect WAV with good metadata facilities?

[struth]

Think the difference is in the way they are stored on hard drive mostly. Think macs use aiff/c

[Gazjam]

Isn't AIFF in effect WAV with good metadata facilities?

As Grant says, there are differences in the way the file is organised on the hard drive.
http://muratnkonar.com/aiff/index.html

Wav is organised slightly differently, (Endianness) though you can still use metadata with 'em.
My take is the way each file is processed by the server is slightly different, AIFF (in the case of my ears and my server) sounding better.

[Mr. C]

Question for Jriver uses


How many use the Jplay drivers with this?

How would you describe the sound when using this plug in compared to the stock JRiver?

[Gazjam]

I use Jplay.
I find it better, though it can be a bit temperamental at times.
improvement in sound quality is worth it imo.

[Mr. C]

I take it Gary you use it in hibernation mode?

[Gazjam]

Actually I don't Tony...

At one point I had a two PC Hibernation mode setup with the registry settings tweaked and whilst it sounded excellent, I found it not a big step up from a tweaked single PC setup.

Spent quite a while exploring the "hardcore" options (2 PC Jplay setup, Hibernation mode, MQn and the like) and while they can sound very slightly better, its not a whole lot better.
To me, in the real world, if your losing functionality, reliability and user experience for 5% improvement...the "benefit" is outweighed by what you lose.

Hibernation mode...It is slightly better than not using it, but its not such a big jump in my system.
Given the hassle of everything switching off in hibernation mode for not a massive jump in sound quality, I didn't find the return was worth the sacrifice.

Optimised hardware, linear power, Server 2012 R2 with AudioOptimizer, highly tweaked Jriver/Jplay in Single PC mode works for me.
Have things "just so" now and happy with that. :)

[Mr. C]

I would agree with the single PC route, though find audio optimizer somewhat limited. and Jplay really imparts an unnecessary element into the sound giving you that European 'hifi' presentation. R2 is better yes but takes more work. I core processors great for games not so for music. far too much noise. USB 3 arhhhhhhh great data transfer, who not so for tunes.

Functionality yes the vast majority of folks this is a must and J river does perform this well.

Are you still running USB Gary?

[Gazjam]

I would agree with the single PC route, though find audio optimizer somewhat limited. and Jplay really imparts an unnecessary element into the sound giving you that European 'hifi' presentation. R2 is better yes but takes more work. I core processors great for games not so for music. far too much noise. USB 3 arhhhhhhh great data transfer, who not so for tunes.

Functionality yes the vast majority of folks this is a must and J river does perform this well.

Are you still running USB Gary?

Agree on the Cores thing not being good for tunes, the less work the PC has to do the better.
I disable all but one core when running the Jriver exe, seems to sound better.
Under clocking both CPU and ram has a positive effect too.

Still using USB, still the best input for my Dac, though thinking of tinkering with a BNC connection on my server, not tried that on my Young dac yet.

[DiveDeepDog]

Trying to avoid the audiophillia bullshiticus, if you have Mac, try Vox. Its free, uses the iTunes library (+ plays FLAC) and IMO sounds better than iTunes.

I've tried Jriver 19 and some of the other players but Vox is up there for SQ.

[Gazjam]

it not bullshit, sorry.
Not tried vox, will give it a whirl.

*edit* :doh:
Its for mac....

[struth]

Think a lot depends on your hardware as well. My system downstairs sounds better with Foobar and the other 2 sound better with Jriver, yet they are all set up the same.

[guyhayton]

Well I have just completed my trial download of Jriver - so will start my 30days of evaluation.

Cheers is

[tiguan]

I use a dedicated netbook with SSD just for OS. 2 partition Aplinux v3 at one part, linux debian other part. All archive is at NAS connected with Cat6 cable to netbook. At linux debian part İ use Jriver...
Untill this setup İ used Windows+ foobar, windows+ jriver, aplinux v2+deadbeef, aplinux v2+ jriver, no apple IOS unfortunately,
İ got best performance from jriver at linux debian. Which became for now my Favorite. Planning to install also to Archlinux based Aplinux v3 as well to compare.
Just to suggest to make a partition at MAC and install linux debian and give a try to Jriver linux version with "play from memory option" checked.

[Gazjam]

I use a dedicated netbook with SSD just for OS. 2 partition Aplinux v3 at one part, linux debian other part. All archive is at NAS connected with Cat6 cable to netbook. At linux debian part İ use Jriver...
Untill this setup İ used Windows+ foobar, windows+ jriver, aplinux v2+deadbeef, aplinux v2+ jriver, no apple IOS unfortunately,
İ got best performance from jriver at linux debian. Which became for now my Favorite. Planning to install also to Archlinux based Aplinux v3 as well to compare.
Just to suggest to make a partition at MAC and install linux debian and give a try to Jriver linux version with "play from memory option" checked.

For Windows Jriver I've found the Play from Memory option is good if you have an onboard SSD storing your music. For NAS based setups not so much, as network fed music files are read into memory ANYWAY and its just doubling up processes.
less is better I've found.

Be interesting to know if this is the same for Mac, being a different hardware platform.

[User211]

I think play from memory loads your music file into RAM, so SSD or HDD for your persistent storage medium will make no difference as RAM is the source used for playback.

[Jazid]

I have used jRiver since issue 13 I think. I can see no point for me in tbe current upgrade from 19 to 20. FWIW I use play from memory to avoid dropouts etc.

I have tried jPlay and found it buggy, unstable, and user unfriendly. The only positive is that it had absolutely no effect on SQ at all. So I am better off without it. I am of an uncertain 'bits are bits' persuasion, have bog standard usb cables, but have added ferrite chokes to each end which I imagine cuts down rfi hash thus making the sound smoother. This could be foo however, but was very cheap to implement...

My computer is 4 core and runs win 64/7 and the machine never breaks a sweat with any multitasking I require it to do. I assume this might make it more stable when streaming music but have no proof of that; but jRiver is glitch free for me and recommended.

JRiver had better tagging for classical music than iTunes when I was choosing, that sealed my choice. The computer has 5000 odd albums as flacs on it, jRiver is in effect instantly responsive.

[Gazjam]

I think play from memory loads your music file into RAM, so SSD or HDD for your persistent storage medium will make no difference as RAM is the source used for playback.

uhm... :scratch:

[337alant]

Gazjam
I have owned Jriver since ver 13 as well and I think its the dogs boll*cks ;)
I havent used JPlay ?, but do use Gizmo as my remote app
I think I am using a pretty basic set up but I would be interesred in a list of your tweeks to JRiver if it iproves sound quality :eyebrows:


Alan

[tiguan]

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fIo-jusD910/U4mF5Qbbi_I/AAAAAAAAAKo/fmfAo4lszN0/s1600/digits.gif

According my experience during the digital music journey with Jriver,other then using "play from memory" what ever I did to eliminate jitter I got more relaxed, long time listenable music without loosing the impact, speed and dynamic at the sound. All jitter which is untill recording we can not do anything. But from storage (HDD, SSD, NAS, USB Flash disk etc) till dac output RCA control is in our hands.
Everything I did to improve power supply (lineer PSU or battery) gave a result to more analog sound.
İn my opinion to that reason SSD is better then HDD even if we play from RAM. Because of that added jitter problem. But the problem is that SSD is still expensive to be used to store all our archive. :(
I was suprised even when I used a Battery pack for network router instead of stock power adapter.
There is a ongoing debate at this digital signal subject. But that is my experience what I can do. :)

Other then this at interact forum I asked about alsa setting buffer time etc. No consensus at this.

[Gazjam]

good post.