otisbass

Ron I'm happy that mediainfo and my Weiss Dac see files that are 24/48

Thanks Ron It's actually 24/48 presumably the same as the stereo mix on the DVD-A. It does sound a bit more interesting than the red book version so that's a result!

OK - I downloaded the HD Tracks Nightfly which is advertised as 20/44.1. My Weiss DAC2 immediately switched from 44.1 to 48khz indicating that it saw the file as a 48khz file. I've no idea what is going on now!

I need to listen to this properly but first impressions are good. The one thing I've noticed is that the liner notes accompanying this version are the 2002 liner notes - presumably the source file for the HD Tracks dates from then

Would logmein not work? You can download the free version and remote control your MC using that.

isn't that wonderful? anyway i've started downloading it now so will post my thoughts on the 24/44.1 versus 16/44.1 shortly

Chris Just found this link http://www.aes.org/aeshc/pdf/fine_dawn-of-digital.pdf which explains that the 3M system used on the Nightfly was a 16bit 50khz system. The article is actually fascinating beyond this piece of information and I'd recommend it to anyone with an interest in early digital recording. Still it pretty much confirms that any version of the Nightfly which has a bit length greater than 16-bit has had some generous padding with lots of zeroes. I've read good reports of the 24/48 version on the DVD-A of the Nightfly - does anyone know if that was an actual remaster of the original or perhaps it was otherwise upsampled?

I came across a quote from Roger Nichols on the decision to record the Nightfly on digital equipment on another website. "We booked the Village Recorder in 1981 to cut tracks for Nightfly and decided to try the 3M digital machine. We ran a Studer A-80 24-track analog machine in parallel with the 3M for the test. After the band laid down a take we performed an a-b-c listening test. The analog and digital machines were played back in sync while the band played along live. We could compare the analog machine, the digital machine, and the live band. The closest sound to the live band was the 3M digital machine. We re-aligned the Studer and gave it one more chance. The 3M was the clear winner. We rolled the Studer out into the street, (just kidding) and did the rest of the recording on the 3M 32-track machine. When it came time to mix, we mixed to the 3M 4-track machine." You may well be right Chris that the original recording was 24bit and chopped for CD, I defer to your greater experience of these things. I suppose the only way to find out if a 24/44.1 version has benefits over the CD version is to download it and try it out!

Can anyone tell me why I should buy the newly announced 24/44.1khz version of the Nightfly? Surely adding a pile of zeroes to pad out the bitlength isn't going to make a button of difference to the output? I know lots of people here have shown spectrum analysis of HD Tracks material - a review of this new rip of the Nightfly would be great.

I'd suggest you go for 15 if you can find it; as far as I know most of the upgrades moving from 15 to 16 are for video. http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=60113.0 Have a look at the discussion on the link above it help me understand what all that 64-bit thing is about. I use the JRiver volume control into my Weiss DAC2 and can't hear any degradation of the sound compared to using the DAC2's own volume control - it is more convenient to control the volume within JRIver. Hope this is helpful

does anyone know if JRiver 16 has any audio related advances over 15? What I've read so far seems mostly to relate to video.

I haven't installed service pack 1 yet; i'll not need the hdmi interface either and my system is otherwise up to date. I'll give it a go but make sure i have a restore point in case it messes things up - thanks for the "heads-up"

I'm still using your tweaks and I'm quite pleased with the performance so far - as for Windows 7 versus Mac, it's the fact that Apple want to control your life that puts me off Mac. Ironic since the Apple case was always that Microsoft were monopolising computer use and development. I just feel PC is a much more flexbile platform. Anyway JRiver is a great product I'm getting excellent results from it through a Weiss DAC2 on either firewire or SPDIF.

i tried it tonight and i think you are right, it does sound more airy. don't know why that should be but it seems to work, thanks for the tip...

I too use JRiver on Windows7, it is the best sounding most elegant solutionI've found. I love too that using the Internal Volume option I can leave my Weiss DAC2 unattenuated before the analogue stage and control the volume in JRiver - I use logmein to have a remote control to the laptop I run my music from. Works great. I'm going to try your ideas about pre-buffer/buffer size and see what that does.