Hope all is well! I have a few questions: do you feel the crashes are windows 7 related or third party issues? Also, what are the main advantages of using 64bit in this application? Is it to take advantage of more ram?

Thanks

Jesus R
www.sonore.us

Hi Jesus - Yes, the crashes were all related to third party issues. Windows 7 by itself seems stable and fast. I'm using 64-bit because I have 10GB of RAM in this machine.

Chris how much time are you spending downloading and implementing sound cards for Formula One and Formula two?

When I read your articles I feel like you need something like a woodworking jig to make things work. Not the user experience I was thinking about for Windows 7.

Chris - Are you able to get hi-res playback via the new beta Lynx driver? I upgraded the firmware on my aes16e to v9 and upgraded the driver to the new beta version that you are using, and I can no longer play files with resolution >96hz (ie, 176 or 192)(via single-wire output to BDA-1). These previously played fine with this software and hardware configuration. The OS which I encountered this problem on was Vista32, and now having upgraded to Win7_32 it persists. The light on the DAC indicates the resolution of the stream correctly eg, 176, but no sound is produced. The Lynx Mixer Outputs panel also show no activity on the relevant channel when the file being played is above 96k resolution, so this might be a bug in the beta driver, or if you are not experiencing it, a bug in the new aes16e firmware.

Hi carloscarr - I believe the new firmware is for 32-bit operating systems only so I skipped it. I can play everything from 44.1 to 192 via single wire just fine. Your issue is similar to one of the issues I encountered over the last couple days. Are you using ASIO? So far it's required in my system.

Any word on USB Class 2 drivers?

Using WMP at unity gain will give bit-perfect output, including HDCD. This is according to the dev team that wrote the code. Several are knowledgeable audiophiles (along with their day job as developers :))

What happens with other drivers and players, I don't know. Just see if the HDCD light comes on in an external device, which is a good litmus test. Being able to detect bit perfect playback by ear is I suspect a superhuman feat.

And at less than unity gain, the volume control software is highly sophisticated affair, generally competive with that of high-end DACs that don't use mechanical potentiometers or resistor networks. They were very serious about audio playback in Vista compared to XP, and put a huge engineering effort into it. Win 7 contains additional improvements of an incremental nature.

Having used Windows 7 for a year now, the overall experience is way, way better. The attitude in Redmond was, when it's ready, we ship, and not before, and this shows. The product was tested by a very large community, well into six-figures worldwide.

Windows 7 is working fine here with MediaMonkey 3.1.2.1277 + Otachan ASIO plugin SSE + ESI Juli@ 1.07 (SPDIF).
I have an Asus M2NPV-VM motherboard, AMD 6000+ CPU and 2 gigs of RAM.

For me it sounds better than it did with the same config on Windows XP.
Thumbs up!

See their differences here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7_editions

Matias,

Are you running the 64 bit version of Windows 7 with Media monkey 32 bit?

According to the developers, they're seeing HDCD bit streams passing through WMP and lighting up the HDCD indicator on external devices, at least in the 16 bit form, at unity gain, thus they are inferring bit-perfect in this specific situation, despite the 32 bit floating point volume control. So it's apparently touchy.

My impression is that bit-perfect is available under some, but not all, scenarios. DD/DTS seems to work OK with external receivers, indicating that they're apparently happy with the output; this apparently happens through the DD/DTS bypass mode.

We'll be testing via S/PDIF shortly, and at 24 bits.

No no, you are not going to read what you expect after seeing that title ... it is WORSE ...

Some things are just unknown, which doesn't mean I don't know them hehe.

My impression is that bit-perfect is available under some, but not all, scenarios. DD/DTS seems to work OK with external receivers, indicating that they're apparently happy with the output;

Before Vista, people used to perform the "DTS test". This was very common, and it would prove for XP for some situations (soundcards/drivers) whether playback was bit perfect. Not in all cases, and nobody understood it quite well.

The above quote reminded me of one of such unknown things, and this is that with encoded material Vista (and the likes, like W2008, W7) switches to bit perfect mode. It must, or otherwise these streams cannot be played; the encoding would be destroyed.

Now, in here I have seen so so many posts about the HDCD light and the proof of *thus* being bit perfect when the light lits, that I gave up on it and let it be. This, while to me it is more than 100% clear when and when not bit perfect playback is possible over Vista likes. However, during normal thinking and operation this is about ASIO/WASAPI, and not about DTS streams ... of course.

But what I never thought about before is that HDCD has to be treated as encoded material just the same, or otherwise it can not work at the decoding side.

Read what Juergen just wrote ... he is just correct. But with my reason behind things (which is just in the Vista specs !) all things come together. This should mean that :

Vista (etc.) indeed is bit perfect for HDCD material. But only for that (as a kind of representative for red book).

Peter, bringer of bad news, who can now at last put his mind to rest on this subject and who could have come up with this a few years back ...

Peter, bringer of bad news, who can now at last put his mind to rest on this subject and who could have come up with this a few years back ...

I love the sense of humor Peter :~)

I have tested the actual Version of J.River MC 14.0.84 in Windows 7 Home Premium 32 under the exclusive WASAPI Mode and it works perfect in every way.

Juergen

I just upgraded my Zalman Music Server from WinXP Pro to W7 Pro 64 bit and am hearing improvements in sound quality - increased clarity, resolution and macro/micro detail. I'm not sure how much of the improvements are due to W7 or the new Lynx 64 bit driver for my AES16 PCI card (which drives a Berkeley Alpha DAC), but I am very pleased. I'm using Samplitude 10 as a digital player.

Overall I'm more of an Apple guy, but I must admit that so far I am very impressed with W7. It is decidedly faster, more stable and responsive than WinXP. I use a Netbook to remote control my Zalman with Remote Desktop Connection and compared to WinXP Pro where I would get periodic drop outs in playback I have had zero drop outs with W7.

Hi Chris - I've been a periodic lurker on your site here, and a regular over on Head-Fi for a bit. I have to say you're doing a great job!

I too, was hoping Windows 7 would "finally work." I had high hopes this past couple months as I've been testing the Release Candidate. It actually installed very cleanly and I even had my Older E-Mu 1212m up and running with relatively minimal headache. This computer is my "all-in-one" HTPC, so I needed a full-featured HTPC frontend, and the Windows 7 Media Center certainly delivers the goods. The OS in general is very clean, fast, and has actually been a joy to use...except that I've had a weird latency issue with my 1212m and my keyboard, of all things.

I researched and found this on the Microsoft Developer Website:

The Microsoft Windows audio team is working hard to reduce overall audio latency in future Windows operating systems. An important part of this effort is to provide low-latency implementations of audio APIs in order to eliminate any need to access the KS audio components directly.

The plan for future Windows products is to provide built-in multimedia APIs and core services with very low latency and complete bit-for-bit transparency. These features should eliminate the need for any application program to circumvent the audio subsystem....Be forewarned that the DirectKS approach is unlikely to work on operating systems after Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.

That, from this page:

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/archive/directks.mspx

Now, it's admirable that Microsoft seemed to be working on bit-perfect output, but this was from 2002. We're at 2009, and bit-perfect output seems still a bit far afield. If Microsoft has stuck to their guns, and DirectSound is not yet yielding true bitperfect output, I fear we're in for a long wait.

It's a real pity, because I've actually enjoyed working in the OS. Double-pity because Windows 7 Media Center is the best overall HTPC frontend implementation I've seen even compared to my previous favorite, MediaPortal (which is currently breaking on 7, depending on your situation). It even does quite a few things better than MythTV and XBMC, which I'd also tested pretty extensively.

It does everything except *ahem* play back cleanly while I'm working at the computer.

*Sigh*....I feel like I'm going to have to wander in the desert again for another 40 years.

To use the exclusive WASAPI mode in J.River correctly you have to set two important windows right: Go to: Tools – Options – Playback – DSP … - Output Format – Bitdepth – and choose 24 Bit (in case you have a 24 Bit soundcard) and the second point is: Go to: Tools – Options – Playback – Output Mode setting – and remove the point “present 24-bit data in a 32 bit package and then for me, J.River works perfect in Windows 7 and Vista, 100 % Bit True.

Sound of in Windows 7: I must also confirm that for me the sound in Windows 7, with absolutely the same hardware as in Vista, is more transparent with more resolution and more detail. A slightly weaker bass, but I think this comes from the higher resolution in the treble. Also the latency seems smaller, than in Vista. But still no native support for 88200 Hz (but either WASAPI or manufacturer made W7 driver can circumvent this point and will play 88.2).

USB DAC is working fine in Windows 7.

I have just repeated three measurements with Windows 7 for Bit True test and only the exclusive WASAPI mode is natively bit perfect in Windows 7, nor the Direct Sound Out or the Wave Out is. I am sorry, that I can’t post any pictures; otherwise you would be able to see it also.

Juergen

PS: I used my “special” Bit True test signal, created out of two different Bit True test signals from the Audio Precision System. This is a 16 Bit DC (constant value) on the left channel and 24 Bit Walking Zero test on the right channel test, to use only one test for testing bit true digital systems.

Actually I'm having trouble to make the sound work with my Juli@ in Windows 7 overall. Sound effects, YouTube, nothing sounds except ASIO in MediaMonkey or J.River. I tried switching analog/digital, enable/disable devices, testing and troubleshooting... and nothing.
Clean install on formated drive + newest drivers, everything as clean as it could be. Very annoying.

JR_Audio, I tried the settings you said and still no good. I guess the drivers are broken.

Hi Matias,

First of all notice there are new W7 drivers for the Juli@. I won't say that helps because it just as well can be player issues. The only thing I know from a couple of XXHighEnd users is that they don't see a problem whatsoever with W7 and the former Juli@ drivers.

Also notice that a WASAPI implementation can be done in many ways (by the developers), so it doesn't say much when one works, about the other.

And FYI :
By now I have one call from one user, which call seems to prove that something working under Vista does not under W7. This could be accidentally solved by settings in XXHE, but this is/was certainly not my intention. Were this setting not there, the sound for this user would just have stopped under W7.
So it seems there *is* something going on. And this is about normal USB ...

HTH a bit,
Peter

I installed the latest and greatest drivers on their website, v1.07, in a clean Win7. If it doesn't work that way, I can't imagine why.

Tested this player with my Win7 x64 + Juli@ 1.07 @ SPDIF.
External DAC is a Benchmark DAC1 USB @ SPDIF.
Engines #1 and #2 don't play, says it is out of memory.
Engine #3 plays with muted sound, no output in the Juli@'s mixer.
BTW, I tried registering to your forum but you won't accept Gmail accounts. :(

This is an amazing but true story. The interaction of a keyboard, PS2 port, whatever, created a problem. Somewhere someone else may have reported a similar problem, so it always pays to Bing or Google even the weirdest symptoms.

Who knows?

I had a similar problem as the previous poster had from a PS/2 keyboard, however, with the help of the dpc latency checker ( http://www.thesycon.de/dpclat/dpclat.exe ), I was able to identify the source of the problem with ASIO dropouts and latency spikes on my Lynx aes16e card: it was conflict with my wireless adapter (DWA-552), whose Windows 7 drivers are evidently poorly behaved.
I resolved this conflict by disabling the wirelss card, but for now I've rolled back to Vista because IMHO the beta Lynx drivers sound better on Vista than on Win7. Maybe by the time they come out in the final release this will be resolved. I still have Win7 on all my other (non-media server) computers, it's a great OS but with a few teething pains....

Matias,

Are you not able to get J. River MC to play with Wasapi? Can you get it to play with Direct Sound? How do you like the SQ using Windows 7 as compared to XP or Vista please?

Liz

@Wonders:

I did Google the heck out of the issue, but came up blank. Got some useful info. from one of my IT colleagues at work, though. :)

After I solved the problem, somebody pointed out that perhaps it's a bandwidth or priority issue between USB and PS2 ports. Like you say...who knows? It's still somewhat of a mystery to me.

I installed Win7 on two machines ... one a 64 bit upgrade and the other a 32 bit upgrade. Former went fine. Latter has been a nightmare.

There is a conflict/bug in my Dell 1210 Broadcom NC 440x 10/100 Integrated Controller drivers. None of the drivers, going as far back as XP and as new as the latest release, work. Has trouble holding an ethernet connection, Auto speed control does not work, etc. My Tech Support guy spent 5 hours on this to no avail. It'll hold a connection if connected directly to the router, but only if the speed/frame settings are precisely tweaked, and won't hold a connection on any connection that has an extra device in between (like a hub).

Based on this I would only switch to Win7 with the purchase of a new machine.

Eventually, complete change out of the motherboard, which contains the controller, fixed the issue. I suspect something about the upgrade process caused some firmware on the board to get corrupted, or, reset something deep in the BIOS that the tech support teams don't yet know about.

Juli@ works fine with Windows 7 x64 final using drivers v1.05.
Actually MME hangs only if latency is large (like 2048 samples).
WASAPI now works in J.River, as long as the buffer is smaller then 1.5 seconds.
I'll try comparing sound quality between WASAPI and ASIO later.

Chris,
My Dell Dimension 8400 running XP Pro, using MM, and equipped with a Lynx AES16, connected to my Benchmark USB with an AES cable, just died. I've repaired/replaced the motherboard and power supply on previous occasions, and am thinking that it's time to buy a replacement. I will need a machine that the kids can do their homework on, so something akin to the Dell Inspiron 530 you've written about might fit the bill. Do you have any further thoughts on Windows based operating systems? I'm particularly interested to know what you hear when you use your Windows 7 system. Any further comments to offer after the frustrating first 48 hours?
Many thanks!

Hi Neovibe - I wish I could say yes to everything in your post, but right now it isn't that simple :~(

It's really hard to guarantee bit perfect because everyone's PC is so different and many things can creep up that other people would never think of.

It depends on the driver, playback software, volume controls, output method (ASIO, WASAPI, etc...), and settings within the playback software. This is one of those things that makes a Mac so appealing to people. I'm using Windows 7 hardcore right now with a couple soundcards and I like it. Mac isn't the only game in town it's just the easier one.

You are right, but I want to add some small points.

You said, being Bit-True, does not guarantee perfect sound, that’s right, but without being Bit True, you are far from having perfect sound.

So for example with iTunes under Windows 7 you can’t get the same Bit-True result when adjusting the correct Sample Rate, as with iTunes under Mac, no way.

With the actual QuickTime under Windows 7 you have three different output modes and also a “WASAPI” mode, but this is not exclusive WASAPI, so also not Bit True.

As stated PeterSt, with exclusive WASAPI mode, windows has no control of the volume (lucky it is not), so you can use this behavior the other way round. If you choose for example QuickTime (under Win7 or Vista) and select the “WASAPI” mode you will see when playing back a file, that Windows opens an extra Volume slider named with “QuickTime”, so you clearly see, that this can’t be Bit True, because it goes over the Windows Mixer. Instead if you are running in Exclusive WASAPI Mode J.River Media Center 14 or Foobar2000, you will notice that no additional slider will appear in Windows and that you have no control of the sound with the windows output slider. So this way you have real 1:1 Bit True output with automatically sample rate switch and also with 88.2 kHz sample rate output, that you will not have with the Wave or Direct Sound out in Win7 or Vista.

Juergen