Windows high res playback

I don't really know Windowze server software, but isn't ther a setting such as 'native' (or similar)?

I use a PC running foobar and a usb connected Chord Hugo with great results. Plays anything up to DSS64 and including Tidal on MQA. 

What software do you use as a player on the windoze PC?

Instead of directly answer you - may i recommend a mac+audirvana plus, that would sort you out, you can play  hi res raw or even upsample it higher.

Peter Dinh posted:

Instead of directly answer you - may i recommend a mac+audirvana plus, that would sort you out, you can play  hi res raw or even upsample it higher.

+1

i believe that set up,optimally Audirvana is the best computer rendering software available, readily competing with considerably more expensive renderers, however it only runs on the Mac platform, so does not fit the Windows world. I bought my MM specifically for music, to both store and play, neatly sitting with the hifi gear, running headless, silently and with never a glitch.

The fellow has a Windows computer...advice that he buy a Mac is probably not effective.

James - How about running J River on the Windows PC?  My local hi fi shop has used J River forever, including to this day.  

From what I believe, there is precious playback software that does automatic bit depth/frequency switching like a dedicated streamer would do. I think a few of them do - can't remember, but this is why I don't want PC playback in my system - it's too much of a faff.

If you use the WASAPI device (i.e. drivers) to output sound, then you should get native resolution bit-perfect output.

+1 for j River, and WASAPI.

When Windows PC was my main digital music source, I heard a very worthwhile improvement when using Fidelizer.  This clever software is available as a free trial, and is easy to use. With Fidelizer running, the sound was more clear, with much more noticeable space between the notes.

Klyde posted:

+1 for j River, and WASAPI.

When Windows PC was my main digital music source, I heard a very worthwhile improvement when using Fidelizer.  This clever software is available as a free trial, and is easy to use. With Fidelizer running, the sound was more clear, with much more noticeable space between the notes.

 

It appears that Fidelizer is trying to do the equivalent of having a machine dedicated to audio with nothing interfering, at least within the limitations of the computer and what else it is used for. Whilst other solutions are neater, as inferred in my previous post, it would appear that Fidelizer may help especially if you have no option but to use a general purpose computer for your audio source and can't dedicate it completely and disable all unnecessary processes etc.

Hi all,

Many thanks for all of your comments and apologies for the late reply but things have been busy! 

Yes I have been using the wasapi output and I can manually change the bitrate higher, but then everything is at 192, even Cd quality stuff which can't be ideal. I have just been using iTunes.

I am considering a Mac mini, but I have tried using my MacBook Pro into the same system and I'm having the same problem. In the midi settings on the mac it allows me to change the bitrate manually, but it doesn't change automatically for some reason. Surely it should just change according to what it is playing right? All I want it to do is play what it should be playing at the correct sample rate! Either mac or windows.

Do I really have to fork out for another music player for windows or mac?

Thanks.

James,

What are you actually using?

iTunes does strange things, so use something else.  On Windows you could 'fork out' for Foobar 2000 (cost - £0, so not really a problem to fork out for that).  Otherwise JRiver isn't that expensive and is a very competent product.  Used with a WASPI or simple audio driver, and without manually setting the bit rate or bit depth these should give native resolution on replay.

Hi Huge,

Thanks for the reply. I'm using a Lenovo flex laptop which I bought as it has a 500gb hard drive for storage and as it is only to be used as a music player the spec is more than enough. It is also very discrete as you can flip the screen to hide the keyboard. Just using iTunes in 'Windows Audio Session' config.

This goes into my Gustard spdif via USB and then optical to the Hugo then on to the Naim system.

As I said though it won't automatically change the bitrate on my 2014 MacBook Pro either?

Thanks. 

Highly recommend J River on a PC - gives you an absolutely clear indication whether the file is being sent without any modifications and can make sure you bypass Windows mixer/resampling etc.. . Use WASAPI with your Gustard. If you use the Hugo direct on USB you could use Chords own ASIO driver.  J River is free for a month and very powerful. Ask if you have any problems. 

Audirvana is the way to go on a Mac - again, a months free trial.

Ok I might try J River then and see how I get on with it. I am fairly new to computer audio so I do have a couple more questions.

A few years ago I tried other audio players ( can't remember which ones ) and I noticed that a lot of my metadata which was correct in iTunes changed and was wrong in other programs. So band names and song titles for example were different than how I wanted them. This is one of the main reasons I didn't explore other players....that and I do find iTunes easy.

Is there any way to make sure that the metadata tags stay the same in other programs as they are on iTunes? 98% of my library is 1411 kbps AIFF files or higher.

Thanks again!

JamesN posted:

Hi all,

Many thanks for all of your comments and apologies for the late reply but things have been busy! 

Yes I have been using the wasapi output and I can manually change the bitrate higher, but then everything is at 192, even Cd quality stuff which can't be ideal. I have just been using iTunes.

I am considering a Mac mini, but I have tried using my MacBook Pro into the same system and I'm having the same problem. In the midi settings on the mac it allows me to change the bitrate manually, but it doesn't change automatically for some reason. Surely it should just change according to what it is playing right? All I want it to do is play what it should be playing at the correct sample rate! Either mac or windows.

Do I really have to fork out for another music player for windows or mac?

Thanks.

on a Mac, Audirvana is widely considered to give the best quality, and often said to be better than players available for PCs. It is available for free trial, thoughits i-device app is not free (though you can use without it, using VNC software on any machine). Best optimised as given in the Audirvana instructions, using a dedicated USB bus output to the Gustard. For very best quality it may be beneficial to haveon a dedicated and headless mac, but trialable on your Macbook. When I used mine into Gustard it always displayed the bitrate as expected.

JamesN posted:

Ok I might try J River then and see how I get on with it. I am fairly new to computer audio so I do have a couple more questions.

A few years ago I tried other audio players ( can't remember which ones ) and I noticed that a lot of my metadata which was correct in iTunes changed and was wrong in other programs. So band names and song titles for example were different than how I wanted them. This is one of the main reasons I didn't explore other players....that and I do find iTunes easy.

Is there any way to make sure that the metadata tags stay the same in other programs as they are on iTunes? 98% of my library is 1411 kbps AIFF files or higher.

Thanks again!

It's been a long time since I used iTunes .. easiest thing for you to do would be to download J River and see what is and isn't to your liking. J River won't change any metadata at all, unless you make it. But it might use slightly different tags, or use them in slightly different ways. If you do need to change any metadata J River gives you the option of only changing that metadata in it's own internal database, or applying the change to your rips. While you are messing about, the former is probably best. And  you can make views that are exactly to your liking, or adapt existing ones. It is very flexible. It'll probably take you a bit of messing about to get going, but it is a very powerful piece of software, with tremendous audio features, so a little patience usually pays off. There is an absolutely superb  J River remote app for an iPad called JRemote. Ask on here if you get stuck, or on their excellent forum where you will usually get a reply from a developer or an experienced user very quickly.

J River has been recommended many times in this thread.  If one wants to torture oneself with iTunes, so be it.

And with Audirvana on a Mac you can integrate iTunes - however it is not recommended if it is sound quality you're interested in as it degrades it.

Jamesn, this sounds like Windows behaviour, as with the AudioQuest Dragonfly, you also have to set the bit level, ideally as they state, to the most common file format played so in your case 192.  Even if you use a player like Foobar2000 which plays all the file formats, the DAC setting is separate to this, so as you point out, you could be down sampling if it is set to 44.

Hopefully, either the vendors or Microsoft can come up with 'dynamic' playback setting in the future...

Guy007 posted:

Jamesn, this sounds like Windows behaviour, as with the AudioQuest Dragonfly, you also have to set the bit level, ideally as they state, to the most common file format played so in your case 192.  Even if you use a player like Foobar2000 which plays all the file formats, the DAC setting is separate to this, so as you point out, you could be down sampling if it is set to 44.

Hopefully, either the vendors or Microsoft can come up with 'dynamic' playback setting in the future...

Not sure I agree .. with J River at least you can completely bypass Windows settings and let the player control things, independently of what you have set in Windows audio settings. I'm very nearly absolutely sure that foobar will behave the same. But it is true that iTunes on Windows is at the mercy of whatever settings you have made in Windows. The moral of this tale is you can do better than iTunes! Audirvana on Mac similarly takes control of things and stops OS X messing your music up.

LIKESMUSIC, I wish that were true for the DragonFly ( which sounds similar to the Gustard) as you can see, the same issue occurs on the Mac as well, strange but true...

http://www.audioquest.com/wp-c...-FlightManual-EN.pdf

Guy007 posted:

Jamesn, this sounds like Windows behaviour, as with the AudioQuest Dragonfly, you also have to set the bit level, ideally as they state, to the most common file format played so in your case 192.  Even if you use a player like Foobar2000 which plays all the file formats, the DAC setting is separate to this, so as you point out, you could be down sampling if it is set to 44.

Hopefully, either the vendors or Microsoft can come up with 'dynamic' playback setting in the future...

That has nothing to do with Windows, but everything to do with the manufacturer's driver for the audio device (as the AQ Dragonfly example shows).

In fact if you use a WASPI driver (or a DirectShow driver without any filter graph element) then, according to the rules, it shouldn't alter the data (provided the hardware can render it).

It's also possible that, particularly for laptops, the hardware can be limited or the hardware could force upsampling.  In which case you selected (or just had) the wrong type of hardware to optimise for audio use - unlike Macs, different PC hardware can be optimised for different usages.

I tried  J River on a number of PCs, although via USB, and it worked well.  I also tried different software on a Mac Book Pro, also via USB, which was considerably better and then bought a Mac mini and Audirvana which is superb.  I've stuck to the USB route and included a jitterbug and USB regen and I very much doubt I could get a better digital source without spending a very large amount of cash.  I'm surge similar results could be had via a PC but with more effort I suspect.  There is a also a remote for J River which is useful if you are running headless

dayjay posted:

I tried  J River on a number of PCs, although via USB, and it worked well.  I also tried different software on a Mac Book Pro, also via USB, which was considerably better and then bought a Mac mini and Audirvana which is superb.  I've stuck to the USB route and included a jitterbug and USB regen and I very much doubt I could get a better digital source without spending a very large amount of cash.  I'm surge similar results could be had via a PC but with more effort I suspect.  There is a also a remote for J River which is useful if you are running headless

When I was auditioning the Chord Dave, using my own MacMini/Audirvana (which I ran direct USB into Dave omitting the Gustard that I has used with Hugo because Dave has excellent RF rejection), through a pretty revealing system (Bryston 4Bsst2-PMC Fact12), at the end of the session I had them substitute the Melco N1A for my MM. I did not detect a difference. I can't say there was no difference at all, because it was quite a short listen, but any difference there might have been was certainly not immediately evident, unlike other source comparisons I've tried.

Hi again,

So I've spent my day downloading and acquainting myself with Jriver for Windows. I have to say that I'm impressed! I love the look of it and the remote control is superb. My metadata is in tact too.

More importantly though the Gustard is now correctly showing that Jriver is changing the bitrate according to the file type, which is great. Finally i can play my high res tracks! Thanks for everyone's suggestions.

One issue I do have though is that all of the album art is present and correct, except for anything I have downloaded in Qobuz. Not sure why that would be as they come up in iTunes and are the same file type (aiff).

Any ideas?