SeeHear

Here's a purely selfish perspective: At work, I can't watch a video while sitting through a conference call waiting for my five minutes to speak :^)

Hey, Miguelito! I'm in Chelsea nearly every weekend. I'd like to come by and do some MQA comparisons on your system with you.

My first iRiver player was Toblerone shaped, and sounded great! Better than anything else available at the time, especially the shitty iPods.

I just wanted to clarify what Exclusive Mode is/does. It makes the DAC ignore all other applications. If your player app does not engage the DAC in exclusive mode, it (the DAC) will default to one (usually user definable) bit depth/sample rate setting if more than one software tries to send data through it. Unless you have configured it to be something different, it's probably 24/48. In other words, your player will not have exclusive control of the DAC - which is needed in order to control the bit depth and sample rate of the DAC. If you're hearing your OS notification sounds through your DAC, you're not in exclusive mode. Exclusive mode also precludes any other software using the DAC while the primary software maintains control.

I've had (way better than expected) success with the Bluesound Node 2 (S/PDiF and USB). Also, the Aurender N100 (USB only) is great, too. The Node 2 also does the first unfold of MQA files.

The only issues I experienced with Monkeymote were from not updating the idevice client and the Foobar component at the same time. Never had any issues with it as long as i remembered to upgrade the component when the app updated, and vice-versa.

RAID is a method of physically organizing your storage. The different RAID levels offer varying degrees of speed and/or fault tolerance. RAID 5 is the most common for CA use as it is fault tolerant and provides great read performance when there are multiple requests. RAID arrays can be in a NAS, a SAN, a traditional file server, a PC or whatever. NAS - Network Attached Storage - is a specialized server that's sole purpose is to provide storage on a network. It's usually a small, relatively low-powered box running linux with a light weight GUI for management. Some support installation of media servers to obviate teh need for a PC altogether. CA users usually deploy a NAS in a distant room or closet so as to keep the noise and heat from encroaching on the music. You can employ RAID or not in your NAS. Some will allow you to provision multiple arrays in a single NAS - limited only by the number of disks you install. I have three different NAS on my network - a one disk LaCie, a two disk Buffalo (RAID 0) and a 5 disk Thecus (RAID 5). My machines see them all the same (meaning a client machine can't tell what the underlying RAID is - it's just a resource on teh network) and they serve as storage for the family. Only the Buffalo is audio-only because I use it when I travel. I configured a RAID 0 in it just to see what would happen. There was no audio-significant increase in performance, and when one of the drives died, I lost all of the data. Fortunately, it was a redundant store. But still annoying to lose. I took it to a head-fi meet and was chagrined when it didn't work, lol! I would suggest any multi disk box - at least RAID 1 for redundancy, better to have at least 3 disks and go with RAID 5. You can get a multi-disk chassis and then add disks as needed with RAID 5 implementations on all the NAS boxes I've seen.

Except, and I did read Chris' recounting yesterday, I don't recall that Chris argued anything was superior; rather, he challenged the assertion that vinyl is "huge." He then opined (correctly, IMHO) that the recording process was more important than the medium. I've been reading Mikey's articles for many years - far longer than I've been reading Chris'. I've never met him, but he doesn't strike me as one who would tolerate well not being totally agreed with in a setting (and regarding a subject) where he believes he's the alpha. Some people welcome debate, others view disagreement as a personal affront. Granted, I was not there and can only comment based on my perceptions borne from their respective recounting of the event.

Thanks to Tidal, I've rediscovered the joys of David Lee Roth's Eat 'em and Smile! His vocals on that album, and the guitar... The drums. All in all, very well produced.

JRiver will work better with the drives mapped - if you haven't mapped persistent drives, that could be your problem right there!

I haven't tried JRemote on android - Gizmo works really well (as does JRemote on IOS); both are virtually bullet proof in NYC metro and DC metro areas in my experience, on T-mobile and ATT networks. Either one requires configuration of your router and/or firewall to access from outside you LAN. JRiver's help files have all the information you need regarding which port to configure, regardless of the mobile client you use.

I have successfully implemented several systems with jRiver using NAS and an ethernet/wi-fi attached renderer. I'm guessing the OP is having network related issues. Assuming he has updated both jremote and JRMC, look at the network configuration. If the network is GigE, and all of your devices are, enable jumbo frames. Definitely use Ethernet wherever possible and check for sources of interference like wireless landline telephones (not cell phones), microwaves, baby monitors, etc. that can degrade wi-fi performance. Also, try changing channels on the access points(s), sometimes nearby access points will interfere and drastically degrade performance.

Playback is great - especially with an HDCD enabled decoder. Mary Jane's Last Dance through my Martin-Logans sounds like the Heartbreakers are in my room, especially the guitar intro.

Ahh-ha! Thanks, Chris, for giving a useful answer to what was a rhetorical question!

Perhaps "Jay Z & CO." would respect you if you gave away your work-product. You could donate any compensation for your work you're entitled to for educational scholarships in your field. That way, we'd know you weren't working for the money. Wait!! Why, exactly, do we _need_ to know you don't work for the money? Now that I think about it... No. No, I wouldn't respect you at all if you gave away your work-product for free. I would think you're a fool. Why do people think musicians shouldn't be paid for their work? If you think what they do is so easy, do it yourself; then you won't have to pay anyone. Oh, wait - who's going to pay your bills while you (assuming you have any aptitude for it) make all this music that you don't buy? Or provide the training and the instruments? Oh, yeah - your non-profit? But, who's going to support your non-profit? ;^)