J River

[erniejade]

Has anyone used JRiver? I am getting a w4s dac2. When i was on the phone with w4s ( btw excellent support and customer service) I asked them what do they recommend and they said Jriver expecially for the $.

Is anyone using it? If so, any tips or issues with it?

[PreCd]

Have not used it as I do not have a DAC but my brother bought it to use with his Schiit BiFrost DAC. He said it was a great improvement over iTunes.

[erniejade]

That is what the people said at w4s as well. They said it did a better job all around at everything vs itunes including sound. It looks like it is a solid front end from what I am reading on the web.

[98Badger]

I have been using JRiver with a W4S Dac2 since version 17 came out (18 is coming soon). The $50 gave me a bigger boost in SQ than anything else I have done lately. It was well worth the money. I have used media monkey and Winamp previously and neither one is even close to the same league as JRiver.

There is a bit of a learning curve. Everything can be customized. First off, use either of the WASAPI settings or ASIO. I would advise against importing your whole library at once if you already have them in WAV format. If you are using flac, everything should be good to go. If you are ripping cd's, make sure you set up the ripping to tag things the way you want. Like I said, you can customize just about everything. There is also a forum for JRiver users called interact where you can get help if needed.

I'll be happy to help you if I can. I'd recommend downloading the free 30 day trial. I didn't even wait until it was over before buying.

[erniejade]

I have been using JRiver with a W4S Dac2 since version 17 came out (18 is coming soon). The $50 gave me a bigger boost in SQ than anything else I have done lately. It was well worth the money. I have used media monkey and Winamp previously and neither one is even close to the same league as JRiver.
.

That is what I was hopping for! I have not started ripping cd's quite yet. I then when I do, I will use FLAC but, i have not decided on a format quite yet. I am also going to run my cd player through this unit as well. It will arrive tomorrow!

[erniejade]

I should say I was thinking I should use Flac instead of wav.

[erniejade]

It looks like J River also rips, is flac a choice on the format?

[brgman]

I use it and really like it.Yes you can rip in FLAC also.
Coversions are easy and lots of tools for all kinds of stuff if you have time.

[Fongolio]

Been using JRiver for a couple of years now. I currently output to my Cambridge DACmagic plus. Love it.

[Face]

Another J. River fan here too.

[strider]

Another J. River fan here too.

Me too. Switched over from Foobar and haven't looked back.

[IRLRaceFan]

J. River is the best option for Windows I've tried so far. It works as a great media server too!

[erniejade]

Thanks all it looks like thats the way to go! Hey IRLRaceFan, how are you liking the dac2? Mine should be here today. Outside of the burn in, any suggestions?

[PSOVLSK]

Can this be used with a Squeezebox? I currently use the Logitech Media Server.

[tonyb]

Can this be used with a Squeezebox? I currently use the Logitech Media Server.

Yep.....

[doctorcilantro]

In the newest version of J. River, Squeezebox devices should show up as a Zone. If you have an iOS device, check out JRemote. Gives you a native iOS interface to J. River and it's perfectly executed with good support. Then you can control all your zones or stream back to the iOS device.



Can this be used with a Squeezebox? I currently use the Logitech Media Server.

[doctorcilantro]

How's it sounding?

Here's the Wiki page on DAC setup in case you need it.

http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/DAC_Settings


Thanks all it looks like thats the way to go! Hey IRLRaceFan, how are you liking the dac2? Mine should be here today. Outside of the burn in, any suggestions?

[IRLRaceFan]

Thanks all it looks like thats the way to go! Hey IRLRaceFan, how are you liking the dac2? Mine should be here today. Outside of the burn in, any suggestions?

I really like it and to be honest, I didn't notice as much change during the burn in process as I expected. I use an Audio-gd digital interface with mine and it makes a difference, but I'm also using a 25ft coax cable between the interface & DAC.

I'm kinda late responding here - how are you enjoying your DAC2?

[erniejade]

So far so good. I am coming from a Jolida tube cd player to this dac with cd transport and the sound is different than the jolida. Not better or worse kind of thing just different. THe jolida cd players are a different kind of sounding player.

I started ripping cd's in flac, artist, album title, and the files inside the folders are track number, song name, artist. I need to figure out if there is a way to rip in a higher bit than 16 since the dac 2 can go higher but, native cd is 16/44 the jriver i found out you can up the playback though to 192!! when i did this, i feel i lost a hair of bass but, the mids and highs were actually better than if i played the cd version vs flac upsampled to 192 on the same DAC!

Question, on flac there is a 1-8 setting for compression and it defaulted to 6. Should that be higher or lower? It looks liek the higher the number, the more compression it uses but, jriver says since its losless, there will be no difference on the sound quality.


There is a lot ot learn on Jriver. each little setting makes a huge difference.

[erniejade]

Output Bitdepth

It is recommended to output to your soundcard or DAC using the highest bitdepth that the hardware supports. This is 24bit for most high-end DACs.

If you play 16bit input, you might feel inclined to output 16bit data even though your DAC is 24bit. This will at best sound the same as outputting 24bit. But it has two important drawbacks:
Transitioning between 16-bit and 24-bit source material will require reopening the audio hardware (so make gapless transitions impossible)
If you apply any digital processing, including volume, the sound quality will be worse



this is taken from the wiki. It is a bit confusing for me. So am I supposed to set the bitdepth to 16 or 24? I have it set to 24 right now.

Is there a way to rip cd's to a higher bit or is 16 basically max since that is what cd's are?

[strider]

Downloaded Gizmo to my 'Droid from Google's App Store over the weekend. Allows me to stream any content that JRiver can see over my phone. Also works as a remote for the Theater View function. Pretty cool. Also free, which I like.

[erniejade]

I have this all set up and running and so far it sounds darn good. My quesiton is listing or display. I am a DJ on the weekends. So besides the flac files i am ripping, i figured i would also add my mp3's that i use to dj. Problem now is, since I suscribe to a dj music service called prime cuts, and prime hits, I now have 1000's of entries for prime cuts or prime hits for cd title searches. How can i hide this and just make it the full flac cd's that I ripped? The way i added them, i added the folder i use like 2012 pop, 2012 dance, 2012 country, 2012 rock, jriver just takes the actual file itself without reguard to the file structrue that it is in and lumps it all together. how do i 1 get it so it doesnt show 10000's of hit disk, and 2, keep the file structure I have on my dj music?

I use somehting called virtual dj for my dj rig. That takes the file structure that is on the drive and that is exactly how it shows up. I would like to keep it like this. I have over 100,000 mp3's and i have not loaded all of them into jriver because it is getting messy fast.

[strider]

Not following what your goal is. If it were me, I wouldn't bother having the mp3 files accessible to JRiver and would just use the FLAC files for it to pull from.

[erniejade]

when i click on the cd tab or icon, it comes up with 1000's of hit disk titles. The problem with that, is hit disk or prime cuts is the name of the DJ service i suscribe to so I would like all of them hidden under the cd icon. 1 cd of prime cuts will have everything that hit the top 40 that week from country down to rock. i get a cd of mp3 from them a week. Same with the others of the dj service. So imagine trying to find jason mraz cd but having to scroll through 10000's of prime cut cd titles. Now under the artist tab, i dont mind scrolling but, when i want to find just the flac cds i ripped and not have to go through that many primce cuts and hit disk cd titles. So how do i hide prime cuts and hit disk CD title under the cd icon?

[strider]

What version of MC do you have? I don't have a CD tab on my screen.