Anybody compared JPLAY vs Foobar for audio results?

Did you try?

IMO JPlay crushes Foobar, JRiver and the like

what is jplay?  A google search returns nothing relevant.

Aleg:- Not yet but had it recommended to use with M2 HiFace/EVO to get Kernal Streaming or WASAPI in Windows 7.

Peter:- Links not allowed but try going to jplay dot eu. Lots of claimed advantages on the front page.

regards

Geoff

My concern about Jplay is its GUI, developers say their focus is only on SQ, I think It is planned a future version with the possibility of being controlled by a tablet though,

I see some strange claims on their site.  I dont think they were the "world's first"  on many of those features.  No MP3 support is bizarre.

It feature list reads very similarly to J River.  But I doubt it comes anywhere even close to JRMCs ultra fast database and tagging.

Anyone who claims JRiver, Foobar, JPlay or any other media player is better than any other is full of shit.

-Patrick

+1 

Every thing I've tried on a Mac produces the same PCM stream ... I can't see any advantage in using any of the plug-ins or alternative players you can get for a Mac unless you want to play a format iTunes doesn't support. I can't see why this would be different for a PC.

The only ripper that does better rips is the one I wrote (looks strangely like CD Paranoia) and the only player that plays better than iTunes is also the one I wrote. This is guaranteed because if you go to my web site you'll see I charge astronomical prices for them .....  

Here's the Who 

Meet the new ripper same as the old ripper, meet the new player same as the old player. 

Just use the player that you like the best - unless it's broken you'll get the same bitstream. 

If using a computer use a decent USB/S-PDIF converter and a quality optical connection to cut out the noise. A decent USB cable also helps to stop noise, but don't spend silly money. 

Next thing you know hi-fi journalists will be writing silly articles claiming they can hear differences between Seagate and Western Digital hard disks in their NAS - no sorry didn't mean that as we would be drifting in to the realms of fantasy. 

Let's bet on it. If it happens later than six months, I'll send you a postcard.

Max

While J River doesn't claim to sound better than any other player (i dont think they do at least), they do rightfully claim the deepest, fastest database in the field.  Their tagging system is inimitable.  Although I dont use my PC much for video, i think it may be a leader here.  I just use VLC for everything.

It is a full fledged media player, not just audio.

FULLY worth $50

No arguments there - I'm sure JRiver sounds as good as any other player and if it has lots of nice easy to use features then it is worth $50. Accurate tagging and collecting good quality artwork is something I'd appreciate.

I think a good player is one that plays any music you've got irrespective of format, has good features and is easy to use. 

The Meridian Soolos is the best interface I've seen, but it costs more than $50.

(If it only cost 10x as much I'd buy two).  

Guido,

I used to think Foobar was the only thing I needed.  I still do like it with the Remote App as control point (gapless!!).

After really getting into J River's Smartlists and extensive tagging, there is no going back.  With the Theater View, it offers a sexy fullscreen "10' experience".  The search function is stellar. And their support both in terms of their Forum and Frequent Updates is second to none.

My favorite feature though is the ability to set-up multiple UPNP servers.  I have "Remote" and "Home" servers set-up to transcode to 256 mp3 and full uncompressed respectively.  You cant yet stream lossless over cell networks without drops.

Give it a shot for free for 30 days!!

-Patrick

aleg,

I have tried EVERYTHING I could get my hands on for about 8 years now. 

Lets see....  I have used (on both PC and Macs):

- WMP (sounded bad..... not bypassing k-mixer)

- iTunes (same as above)

- Songbird (on a MacBook... deplorable)

- Play (almost as bad)

- dbPoweramp (still my go-to batch converter)

- Winamp (I think this is about the time I heard about windows ****ing with the bits)

- Foobar (Now I am using ASIO and things sound identical to spinning CD)

- XBMC (not my cup of tea)

- Cplay (whatever)

- J River ($$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$)

Since I found "bit-perfect" players using ASIO and the like, I have never once experienced SQ deltas.  I would be happy to give JPlay a try as well but I dont really see the point.  The reason for using my current players is the features they bring to the table, NOT alleged SQ differences.

Amarra, CPlay and others use upsampling or EQ'ing that messes with the file and therefore could make things sound different.  I did hear some strange things when I tried using Cplay. As it didn't sound like any of the other bit-perfect players I moved on to something with a half-way decent UI.

If you REALLY think it to be worth my while, I will check it out.  It would be an absolute must that it be a server of some kind though.

-Patrick

Patrick

If you want features, skip JPlay. You're not going to get them.

If you want best SQ, there is no player better than JPlay that I have heared. And I have tried all that I could lay my hands on for PCs.

For my personal taste I found best quality in JPlay using Kernel Streaming. This bypasses all Windows sound handling and goes right to the core of the OS and produces the most pure output. I prefer it to the WASAPI interface and IMO both KernelStreaming and WASAPI surpass ASIO.

On my setup I can use a DirectLink for buffer size meaning that only 1 bit is buffered.

The engine (JPlay offers two engines) that I like most because of its clarity and directness is Beach (the engine 'River' is to slick for me).

When using Hibernation mode your on top of what is possible SQ wise. But you loose control over your computer, because every Windows process is turned of that might influence SQ and that includes screen display, mouse & keybpard control, etc. Only USB events are monitored to stop playback.

It is a minimalist player to the extreme, but I think you are rewarded with SQ surpassing everythin else I have tried. I had no hesitation whatsoever to pay the asking price, because its improvements are much bigger the most of the far more costly changes I have tried before.

IMO they (Josef and Marcin) have found what is is that makes or brakes computer playback; and that is timing. And they are good at improving this aspect. I could even notice a definate improvement in sound using a tweak that changed only 1 single parameter of the inf install file of my sounddriver for my MK3 JKeny modded HighFace. They are getting deep into this stuff.

One of the contributing reviewers of 6Moons has put a review of JPlay on his personal blog at www.highfidelity.pl/@main-219&lang=en if you like to read another opiinion.

-

aleg

Very interesting Aleg, I think I will give it a try

What do you think of the Hiface Mk3? I am trying to decide between this and Audiophilleo, but I am not sure if any of them would be an improvement over my current RME 9632 card... Even thinking of taking the Naim streamer route

I am very satisfied with the Hiface MK3, very good quality sound, I have not tried the Audiophileo though.

And customers of the JKeny also get a 20% discount on JPlay  . It turns out to be a very good combination.

I don't know if you've already visited there,  but I would suggest you to read the fora at stereo-dot-net-dot-au and have a look in the Computers & Streaming forum. There is a thread about the audiophileo where there are a lot of comparisons with JKeny. Both devices are very popular in Australia and a lot of experiences are shared on those fora by some extremely knowledgeable people and digital engineers.

I personally do not want to go the UPnP streaming route. I have more fate in usb-spdif combined with

direct network access over SMB or NFS.

-

aleg

I started this topic because I have a JKenny device on order and he recommended JPLAY. I have a DAC under construction that offers an I2S interface and I am going to try out JK's I2S box ( based on the HiFace as all his clever boxes). 

I2S is reported to be the best connection for audio transfer so it will be interesting to hear how it turns out.

I recently had a direct comparison of Network - SPDIF streaming vs USB conversion and agree USB off computer is superior. I have both a Win 7 netbook and a MAC Air so it will also be interesting to compare the two.

Geoff