josliver

Has anyone tried the Mytek (or the Sonore) with JPlay new version - V4.3 with DSD support?

Hi, I know you shared your experience and I thank you for that but, I would like to read more about the Sonore from other people and how it behaves in other systems. Based on the reduced quantity of personal information available on the Net, it looks to be a very nice option as a DSD Dac. It seems to be very simple to use, specially with Mac or Linux because no driver is needed but in spite of that looks like few people is choosing it. I have a reasonable Dac for PCM but I would like to buy a DAC able for DSD (even if not so good for PCM). As a starting point I like SONORE approach because it has only "what I need", USB input and line analog output. I feel all the money is spent for my main objective, not paying for things I don´t need like output level control or other kind of input. Of course that is only valid if music quality is good. The main intention was to collect SONORE owners opinions (like we have for Mytek) and be able to have a better idea how the SONORE behaves and how good it is, if possible compared with other Dac´s. It would be excelent if we could define how it behaves in DSD compared with other known DSD Dac´s (Mytek one of them of course) and PCM compared with other well known PCM Dac´s.

Hi, Do you already have some experience with your Sonore?

Any Sonore ex/D owner that wants to share the experience?

My first DAC is a Hegel HD2 and I am happy with it for the price. I think is a good option to play 44.1, 48 and 96kHz at 16 or 24bits, quite natural and dymanic. Very few people talk about it but I think is a refined sound for the price. By the way, I want to have DSD capability, can anyone share any coments regarding how the Hegel HD2 compares with the Mytek or Sonore for PCM 24/96?

Hi, do you have any news? Already had the chance to listen the two DAC side to side? It would be very nice to have you opinion on what is diferent and what is similar when both are inserted in same system and using same DSD and other format files. Thank you in advance.

Can we focus on results first and try to understand the reasons behind in a second step ? I would like to know the root cause for many things but my main goal is to profit and enjoy the results even before knowing why. Sometimes there seams to be no rational reason to explain what we listen to but for sure if we can feel some diference that means that there is some direction we can explore and maybe profit from, in my opinion that is the area that JPlay sw is exploring. I think we can be part of this development if we listen to the new versions in our systems and validate or not if they can be good tfeatures. Maybe in some systems, because they are not transparent enough or are so good that nothing can improve, no changes are detected but maybe other system can take advantage of the new features and only by trying and sharing our findings we can help Josef to validate his developments. We should share how our system is implemented, if we detected any diferences or not and if we do, how do we correlate the changes with the settings. Things can only improve if we help each other. The ones that are sure that there is "nothing to good in this direction" should not care so much to distroy others illusion.

Anyone wants to share a first impression on how the new JPlay Beta version sounds? I have it but I am having problems with one of my power monoblocs and can not make correct evaluation.

I am evaluating and in future I will use both JRiver and JPlay. I decided to do it because we are lucky that both sw are available to try before buy and that was just what I did, I evaluated several options and confirmed excelent behavior from both the sw. JRiver is the best I ever tried to "organize" my music and is an excelent player, Pc correctly tuned and result is excelent in my system, I don t want to loose JRiver functionalities so will keep it. JPlay brings something more to the texture and more air to the music, It sounds more close to live music on my system. I don t need to understand the reason behind, that maybe a concern to the ones developing sw, I just tested and can clearly feel a diference and for me is on the right direction, maybe others on other system can not define any diference or may consider that is diferent but not better. I believe that if we fine tune our Pc to the extreme (I know there are a lot of things to do, some are "well kept secrets" that we need to pay a lot of money for), JRiver will play as good as JPlay but, with JPlay we reach that high level without any special tricks. As summary I will have the best of both worlds JRiver "optimized" by JPlay, a great sound and no doubts if I have dialled the best possible settings on JRiver and Pc. With this combo I have a more consistent result than with Pure Music on the same Mac Mini. Considering all system costs involved, 99 is very reasonable. Most of sw are available to try for free, my sugestion is that even if you do not know / understand/ believe the technical reasons behind each implementation, try before you comment or criticize, otherwise your words add nothing to the duscussion. I am just concerned that I plan to buy a new DAC with DSD capability and I will not be able to use the same aproach for DSD files.

Hi Josef, I see your point but, meanwhile we have a lot of good audio in DSD format that many of us like to listen to and will never be possible to record in 384kHz or similar. I am sure that DSD conversion to PCM, independently of the way it is done will not add anything good to final result. Conversion can not add information that is not there, maybe it can make it easier to convert with actual DAC´s and allow better results but a direct DSD conversion is a more lean approach. I am very happy with JPlay for the PCM data streaming, it would be interesting to use the approach you implemented in JPlay to check how good DSD can be, using the full potential of DAC with direct DSD decoding. If you can stream "perfect" DSD data out of the USB, everything will dependend only on DAC, and DAC evolution will make it better. Summary: In my opinion, it would be nice to have JPlay streaming DSD data. Regards .... JOliveira

Hi Josef, Is there (or planned to be created) any way to use JPlay with DSD files and stream DSD out on USB output? I may buy a Mytek in near future and would like to use it with JPlay. Thanks.

Could you please clarify what you mean by "utterly horrible - sound here until I deinstalled Splashtop". Do you mean that with Splashtop running on your Pc you could identify sound degradation? Was it caused by the incorrect audio setttings that Splashtop forced on your Pc or something more?

Splashtop tries to take control of the audio settings at the moment of connection, to allow audio streaming. That is a fact. After that if/ when other program wants to change the settings Splashtop tries to change again to initial settings. That is another fact. Anyway: a) At connection, Splashtop is not always sucessfull on taking control of the audio settings, as example: 1.if a hidef music is already playing with a software with "exclusive control", Splashtop will report that was "not sucessfull at setting correct audio settings for audio streaming" and settings are not changed. 2.if you define audio settings for your Pc and do not allow changes, Splashtop will report that was "not sucessfull at setting correct audio settings for audio streaming" and settings are not changed. b) It is possble that the sw we use to play music has the ability to force the change of the settings Splashtop defined and do not allow Splashtop to change back. I do not know if any sw can do it. c) It is possible that the sw we use to play music sends the bits to output disregarding the PC audio settings. I do not know if any sw can do it. My point is that, for sure there are several work-arounds to live with this problem but it would be much leaner if Splashtop had an option to disable the control of the Pc audio settings. I believe that some of us are thinking our DAC is receiving hi-def data but in fact our sw is converting it to lo-def to comply with the settings defined by the Splashtop sw. This happened to me on my first experiments and was the reason why sometimes i liked the reult and other times not so much, depending if I was using Splashtop or not.

Based on the experiments I made so far, I think that if we want to use iPad+Splashtop to control the Pc we use as music center, we would need to have a new feature/ option that allows us to sellect "No Splashtop control of PC audio settings". For the Pc to be able to send the correct format to the USB output, Splashtop would need to allow the "music software", we use, to control the audio settings, that does not happen. At the moment I see no way to do it. Splashtop takes control of Pc audio settings when connects and when the "music software" wants to change it, that does not happen, Splashtop puts back the configuration that needs to allow audio streaming to iPad, hidef music will not flow to the USB output. Depending on the way the software we use is working it may seem to be working Ok but, in fact in the USB output only lower definition music flows Anyone knows how to solve this problem?

Hi Josef, Yesterday I made some more tests and I believe that the problem is related with the interaction between Splashtop and JPlay. Splashtop has an option that when activated, after connection between iPad and PC, the sound is transfered to the iPad. You can have image, control and sound on the iPad. This is good for most applications but not to listen to hidef music. Problem is that, even with "sound transfer option" not activated, when JPlay starts working, Splashtop recognizes that something was changed on the audio settings, reports it on the display and even if apparently the music is being played, there is no sound out to the DAC. When I stop and restart the player I receive an error: "JPLAY service disconnected". I confirm the service is disconnected but I can not restart it without restart. It is my understanding that when Splashtop connects, it forces the Pc audio setting to a certain condition and when JPlays starts playing music tries to change that audio setting and the service crashes. I will also try to contact Splashtop but I will follow you sugestion and send you a mail with more details. Thank you for your time ..... JOliveira