J River feeding a Hugo
Posted by: dayjay on 08 February 2015
Is anyone using J River, or anthing similar on a PC, to feed a Hugo via UsB?
I must admit I was just using the stock USB cable that comes with the Hugo.
I've used JRiver on and off for 5 years now (mainly with an Oppo as a renderer) and love the features and ease of use (once you're up to speed)but was underwhelmed with the PC playing direct into the Hugo.
dayjay - re buzzing - fwiw my system is pretty close to silent at full volume just using Chords own USB lead. You might want to look at an Olimex USB isolator to help with noise - Mr Watts himself says he prefers the sound with one - without he could tell the difference between pcs! As I said earlier, I've found the iFi audio iUSB to offer worthwhile isolation, and it gives you hires. It does clever things with earthing and noise I believe.
Interested in your experience with the iUSB, I understood its purpose was to provide a clean power supply to USB powered devices,but the Hugo has it's own power. An ifi dealer told me there was no benefit in using it on self powered units
The iUSB also breaks the DC ground connection between your pc and the Hugo, and cleans up the USB signal (so it says!). True, Rob Watts recommended an Olimex USB isolator - trouble with that is it won't do hi-res. I happened to have an iUSB anyway, initially I used it just for hi-res on the HD input and an Olimex for redbook on the SD input - found I couldn't be bothered switching, couldn't hear much of a difference, so just stick with the HD input and the iUSB. The new TT and 2Quote make all this fankle redundant as both have galvanically isolated USB inputs, I may well give the TT a try. Then again, there's the new QBD ... My pc seems to have nice quiet USB outputs in any case - like I said, full volume no noises.
Can I ask what USB cables you are using?
I use the USB cable that came with the Hugo to connect to it, and a Supra USB cable from my pc to the iFi Audio (or to the Olimex when I was using it). The Supra is under £30, the Olimex isolator a similar amount. Not much,in the scheme of things, to give you galvanically isolated USB for redbook rips. I've also used a Squeezebox Touch into my Hugo - still driven from JRMC using the whitebear plugin. Worked fine, just right now it suits me to connect the pc more or less directly, and am absolutely delighted with any of these ways of driving the Hugo. It is just lovely.
For the record I've had good results using a Furutech Formula 2, it's a little more expensive than mentioned above, but again, not much in the grand scheme of things, and nicely made. I did perceive a gain in SQ when I moved to this from a 10 quid Belkin cable, but can't see why that should really be the case, and remain open minded to the idea that said gain could have been all in my head, and improving the SQ was not the motive for buying it.