Colinzeal

I also have a similar topic. I have found a notable difference between local playback and NAS. The NAS always sounded better and I am not sure why.....

I dont know if this is a related issue but if I set "XHCI Mode" to Enabled Jriver freezes until I turn off my DAC. If I set it to Smart Auto then I get about 3 seconds of playback before freezing. To get consistent sound I have to set "XHCI Mode" to manual and disable "USB 3.0 pins" Could this be giving me the low quality sound through local playback?

I tried through the HDMI and both local and remote drives sound the same to me. The motherboard I have has the "gigabyte USB DAC UP" which is supposed to clean up noise going to the DAC. My DAC is wall powered so I have turned off USB power on the board.

I have tried both UPnP and SMB and both sound better. Trying to define "better" is difficult, it is not as flat, better detail. I have compared a few more songs today and listening over the network is an improvement over the local HDD. If it is noise, would it becoming from the local hard drives power?

The remote HDD is better. I can hear the difference. So, is there a problem with my local HDD for having less clarity?

The pc has an i5 3.2Ghz processor and I have 8GB ram. I have a USB TEAC UD-501 DAC Nothing is being overloaded and both are being played from memory

Hello everyone I havent posted much here but I often use this site for information about computer audio. I dont think I know as much as you guys though, so maybe you can help me out with this one. I usually have all my msuic on a 2TB SATA hard drive, connected straight to the motherboard. Then I have the SSD with Windows and Jriver on. Recently i connected an old 500GB USB drive to my router. When I played music back from it using Jriver, it sounded better!! I was surprised. Everything is the same, just instead of being played locally, it is played from a router. Is this normal? What is happening here? Am I just imagining it?

There once was a time when being an audiophile meant being a millionaire (or having a very supportive family) but now we can get so much great stuff at more affordable prices. The problem is there is just an abundance of different things that everyone says is essential to audiophile quality. I read recently they can make a synthetic ear which can pick up sound out of range to human ears. What i want to know is, is there a common audiophile setup that can be both affordable and high quality. I am thinking of something that would fit into a small/medium sized home which isnt always symetrical. The system should be seperate (in my opinion) speakers, amp, dac.....etc. it should "wow" friends and family too i.e. it should be noticeably above average in quality. What would you recommend for this kind of setup? For my system in my small Japanese front room i have gone for the following. i5 computer $600 itunes / Jriver $46 playback: flac, mp3 and dsf mostly KORG USB DAC 44/48/88.2/96/176.4/192khz $500 DSD 2.8mhz / 5.6mhz Yamaha RX-V2600 $900 KEF Qcompact x3 (only 2 used for music, centre used for movies) $500 Sony SA-W3000 sub $100 All the wires and cables are stock which came with the devices.