Best Software Multimedia Player for usage on a PC?

Greetings all,

I am still waiting for my Dac to be built and it wil be great. I am using J River Media Center for playback on my PC and also, through the digital out on my M-Audio sound card going into my AV system. I use Direct sound and it is nice, I do enjoy it.

Once my Dac is ready, my laptop will connect via USB and feed my tube based system. Since I use XP Sp2 , I am under the impression I should use ASIO and bypass the K-mixer. My friend tried this and can not get it to work so he continues to use Directsound. Can ASIO be used like this (as on Usbdacs.com) or should I try another approach? I know there are other apps out there like foobar and mediamonkey, etc.

I will not use the dreaded Itunes as I feel that application is not worthy of audiophile playback. Many people are coming to me to have me upload (DREAD) Mp3's to their Ipods as Itunes seems to screw them up. J river works flawlessley without installing any other software. I must use XP so no other OS. If I knew I could get a great application for Ubuntu then maybe I would use that instead.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Liz out

No Responses :-(

Hi Liz - This one slipped past me :-)

In my opinion you must use ASIO to bypass the KMixer and get the best sound. I highly recommend trying all the possibilities yourself to see if it really matters to you. Some people care and others do not care about bit perfect playback.

ASIO functionality is dependent on your audio player (J River) and hardware. If ASIO is not supported by one or the other then it won't work and likely will not even be an option to setup within the software.

After much testing with J River I decided not to use it until version 13 comes out. Right now it can't play some of the high resolution files I have, like the HRx 24/176.4 albums. MediaMonkey works really well and I highly recommend it.

Speaking of Linux, I am working with openSuse 11 right now but have not been impressed with the results. I'm not giving up though. I'd love to see Linux take off in the music server world.

Chris,

I want to use my laptop (IBM Stinkpad t43) to connect to the USB Dac and use J River Media Center. In your opinion, if I install ASIO4all, will I be able to get that to work or will I have to use Direct Sound?

Is media Center the right app to use because it is recommended by Gordon at Wavelenght (www.usbdacs.com/windows)?

The files I will play will be FLAC and APE format, mostly 16 bit.

Liz

It will work if you can use ASIO4ALL with J River Media Center. If not then I would lookl at Foobar2000, it does work with ASIO4ALL.

TY BT and KM,

A buddy of mine as per my advise, uses his sony laptop and J river and can't get ASIO to work. That is why I posted this.

J river is awesome so I will have to tinker with it.

Liz

Here is an update.

Until my Dac is ready and that should be sometime next month, I am using my M-Audio Revolution 7.1 sound card in my desktop as a transport. I run an Accell Cables 35 digital coax to a Monarchy DIP (reclocking device) then it connects to my AV HT preamp.

I know M-Audio sound cards have built in support for ASIO yet I could not get mine to work so I used Direct Sound.

I am so glad I stuck with J. River because now I use ASIO and it sound sound better. I had to change the Channel Offset setting in Tools>Options>Playback>Audio Output settings.

When listening into the early AM hours, I enjoyed this so much and it is not my main listening system. The HT system, an outlaw Audio 1070 receiver used as a preamp , connects to an Anthem MCA 5 Series II amplifier. These components do not have the overall musicality that my tubed based 2 channel system has yet I am finding the experience to be very enjoyable. I use the remote, turn the 1070 on, configure the M-Audio control panel to use the digital SPDIF connection, then the amp turns on through it's auto sensor.

I do not have to warm the system up for a long time, criticize it's playback, worry about the tubes, etc.

I did recently acquire, four Genelex Gold Monarch KT88 tubes from 1969 that are in great shape and let me tell you, WOW!

When my Dac is ready, and my laptop is connected via this superb USB cable I will buy, and my tubes are cooking, I expect the sound to be so audiophile like , I will probably belive I have a VPI, Linn or Sota turntable playing!

I told my buddy about the Channel Offset on his laptop and now he is able to use ASIO. Neither of us using high bit resolution files at this time so we love J River Media Center.

In short, using tunage through tubage being driver from your computer is the real deal!

Hi Liz - Thanks for the update on the channel offset changes you made to use ASIO. I look forward to hearing your impressions of your system.