[GreenBow]

It's amazing how quickly time goes by. The last eight days of my JRiver trial just vanished. I am at this moment listening back on Media Go.
 
I have found the sound to be noticably different, with Media Go being fixed on Direct Sound. (Or placeabo is strong with this.)
 
What is odd is that when I previously compared Media Go (Direct Sound), with JRiver (bitperfect) I struggled to differentiate. Today however Media Go sounds cold, less detailed, not as interesting, less smooth, and the timing sounds off. It's almost like it's running fractionally fast. (I am very tired today and that could be affecting my perception. However I have had to stop and think if I have changed any settings. I feel the sound is so changed.)
 
I have taken a quick look at free bitperfect players that I mentioned, namely Winamp, AIMP3, and Winyl. However I can't see if they allow insertion the necessary second's silence which the Chord Mojo needs, for hardware synchronisation. (To avoid the muting of the first second which the Mojo performs.) Overall it would be much quicker and easier to buy JRiver. My specific complication is the very reason why I need JRiver. I need to insert a second of silence before playback with the Mojo. (Plus Bitperfect audio drivers of course.)
 
To buy or not to buy; that is the question.

 

[bgentry]

Funny how we miss things once we get used to them isn't it? This also illustrates the power of long term listening. Your brain picks up on things that you don't necessarily consciously figure out during A/B listening.

When my JRiver trial expired, I realized that I didn't want to use any other players, even though I had 3 or 4 others installed at the time. There is a 5 or 7 day trial extension you can ask for. That will give you a week to figure it out for sure.

About the price: I asked myself these two questions:

1. How much will I use this player? How many hours, over how many days, while I own it?
2. How much have I spent on media over the years (CDs, DVDs, etc) and how does the cost of this player compare to that?

My answers to these questions made the purchase very, very easy for me.

Brian.

 

[GreenBow]

I have been thinking the same about A-B testing just recently.
 
I also find A-B testing to be tiring. I think that listener fatigue can set in after quickly when performing comparisons. What I mean is, when you play a track, enjoyment depsnds on factors. Factors such as when was the track last played. If a particular track has not been heard for ages, it's great to re-hear. Or if there is a particular track that is a favourite right now, it's good to put it on.
 
However play that liked track two times in succession, and the second listen can be a quite different listeing experience. From this, I find A-B testig to be fatiguing.
 
Yeah I think JRiver is a good buy for getting stuff right, many thanks to you Brian, bgentry.
 
The downside of JRiver for me is that I need it specifically for the Mojo. My Meridian Explorer DAC doesn't mute the first second of music, on hardware synchronisation. The Mojo does it on sampling rate change, or it sometimes sees a pause in music as a sampling rate change. Otherwise any Bitperfect player would be fine for my Explorer.
 
The Mojo however behaves outside of normal behaviour sometimes. It's a bit over sensitive. Like it can stop playing music if I pull a gadget out of another USB socket. Long story short, it has lots of foibles and I keep thinking about returning it under warranty. Uhhh could it be more complicated?

 

[jologskyblues]

I also experienced this.
 
After spending some time with JRMC, I could never go back to Foobar2000.
 
Maybe the Jriver's 64-bit audio path has something to do with the improved sound quality.

 

[GreenBow]

  I also experienced this.
 
After spending some time with JRMC, I could never go back to Foobar2000.
 
Maybe the Jriver's 64-bit audio path has something to do with the improved sound quality.

I can't cope with Foobar. It takes far too much configuring.

 

[milosingh]

I prefer JRiver as well. But that is for features. SQ is NOT better than Foobar.

 

[GreenBow]

I think some of the JRiver features could be good. Like playing DVDs bitperfect. I have read Cyberlink Power DVD does that now.
 
It might be an idea to look to see what the PowerDVD music player is like. Though I doubt it will be configured to insert a second's silence. I'd want to know what its player interface looked like too. I love the layout in JRiver. At first I wanted it to show each album separate, and not albums by an artist under one tile. I have come to appreciate it now though.
 
It also looks like JRiver needs another addon to work as a blu-ray player. (I have very little blu-ray but I still want a player.) I may need PowerDVD after all.

 

[GreenBow]

Last night I initiated the JRiver trial extension. Straight away I could hear the improvement of WASAPI in JRiver, over 'direct sound' in Media Go.
 
The depth of sound was obvious. The soundstage was deeper and sounds had a more 3D depth. In Media Go (direct sound) I could hear the detail that the Chord Mojo was trying to produce. However the soundstage was altered. Sounds were tall in the soundstage, and wide enough, but they had no depth. The result was they sounded thin from back to front. The overall soundstage of various sounds was a thinnish wall of sound.
 
Once I got back to JRiver and WASAPI, sounds had their third dimension back. The overall sound is better, and it doesn't need an A-B comparison. It just feels and sounds considerably easier to listen to.

 

[bgentry]

I love the layout in JRiver. At first I wanted it to show each album separate, and not albums by an artist under one tile. I have come to appreciate it now though.

The Albums view shows individual albums. You can set the sorting mode to whatever you want in Albums view. So you can sort them by Artist (so all artist albums show up together, but shown all separately), or by Album name, or Import date, or Year of recording, etc. ...and as you mention, the default Artists view is nice for drilling down from Artist name into the next page that shows all of their albums.

It also looks like JRiver needs another addon to work as a blu-ray player. (I have very little blu-ray but I still want a player.) I may need PowerDVD after all.

If you want to play actual DVD and BD optical discs using JRiver, I think you're right. It's integration with optical discs isn't all that sophisticated. I can understand why you might want this, but most JRiver users rip their discs instead. Then the digital video files play just fine in JRiver and are very, very convenient. MakeMKV (free) can remove the encryption from DVD and BD discs and save them to MKV files with NO change in quality. Which is awesome! JRiver plays the resulting MKV files perfectly including multi-channel audio and multiple audio tracks.

Brian.

 

[GreenBow]

Well I am currently playing through a DVD box set. I played some today and the sound is considerably better in WASAPI with JRiver. Voices and effects were much more atmospheric in JRiver and WASAPI.
 
I tried a blu-ray disk but it told me to install a blu-ray player, (which I have read it piggy-backs on). It is mileading because the JRiver home page indicates that JRiver plays blu-ray natively. It is only when you go to the video playback link that is shows you need another blu-ray player. The player it recommends is something like Any DVD HD, and another one I forgot to note down. However I am not happy to buy AnyDVD HD at the price it is.

 

[422561]

If you have been messing with all the settings in the options, is there an easy way to set everything back to default?

 

[bgentry]

^ Not in any super easy way. You can create a new library and that will have all default settings in it. Except for stuff like Zone configuration and other non-library specific stuff.

Do you have a specific problem you're trying to solve? Or just curious?

Brian.

 

[Aurion]

Well I am currently playing through a DVD box set. I played some today and the sound is considerably better in WASAPI with JRiver. Voices and effects were much more atmospheric in JRiver and WASAPI.

I tried a blu-ray disk but it told me to install a blu-ray player, (which I have read it piggy-backs on). It is mileading because the JRiver home page indicates that JRiver plays blu-ray natively. It is only when you go to the video playback link that is shows you need another blu-ray player. The player it recommends is something like Any DVD HD, and another one I forgot to note down. However I am not happy to buy AnyDVD HD at the price it is.

DvdFab has a free download for playing Blu-Ray discs. I've been using it for years.

http://www.dvdfab.cn/virtual-drive.htm

 

[mordicai]

My problem with JRiver is that I can't figure out how to run it as a bit perfect player so I can use my Explorer 2 for MQA.

 

[jcn3]

 
My problem with JRiver is that I can't figure out how to run it as a bit perfect player so I can use my Explorer 2 for MQA.

 
as long as you do not use any of the setting under tools > options > audio > settings > dsp & output format, you'll be bit perfect.  look at the three icons below the right edge of the big middle display on the tool bar.  if the one on the right (looks like three sliders) is blue when playing, then it is bit perfect.
 
now if you want a 14/44 file to be output at 16/44 then you need to go to tools > options > audio device > device settings and make the bitdepth be 16 bits.  would need to make 24 bits for all types of 24 bit files.
 
not sure if this handles the mqa issue, though.