Search the Community

Just wondering, what has been the experience of others using Windows Server 2012 Optimizer. In early September I loaned my Zuma to one of the world's most famous amp designers (the current Stereophile has a super positive review of one of his amps) and he loved it so much with Windows 2012, Jplay/JRiver and the Audiophile Optimizer that he won't give it back (literally!). And he's stopped all other playback -- CD's, other servers (and he has a lot of them), etc. He did offer to buy it but after hearing how much he liked it, I refused and told him to build his own. I'm curious if others have had the same experience. I'm getting the Zuma back November 9 and am anxious to hear it for myself. One more note: I'd had the Zuma running with Window 8 and JRiver and it couldn't touch the quality of what I got playing a CD through my Wright tube-modded Oppo 95 so I stopped using it. The amp designer has the newer tube-modded Oppo 105 and he says the Zuma with Server 2012/JRiver-JPlay and the Optimizer is much better than what he finds on playing a CD with even his Oppo.

Since the latest Roon update my single PC setup running AO / Roon / Tidal / HQP is not working anymore on Windows Server 2016. Roon did not provide a solution so far. The above mentioned combination does still work on Windows 10. As a result I' ve to decide to step back to Windows 10 or stay on W2016S and remove HQP from the set up and upsample via Roon instead. Would like to hear your opinion which option would resultaten in the best sound quality. Thanks in advance, Benno

Hello everybody, in the last few days I have installed on a separate partition of my (single) PC a dedicated configuration of audio playback only. Now I have a "General Purpose" partition, where I have Windows 10 Pro, Fidelizer Pro, JPLAYStreamer via minimserver, and an "Audiophile" partition with Windows Server 2016 GUI, Audiophile Optimizer, Fidelizer Pro, Process Lasso, JPLAYStreamer / minimserver, a few more tweaks derived from the CAD optimization scripts for bringing the number of processes at a reasonably low level (around 28, with network services active). Also, Audio configuration runs with shell replacement to Fidelizer Pro, again aiming to resemble a core installation. The downstream components are an Audio GD NOS11 V2 DAC/Amp (connected through USB, with an iFi iPurifier 2) and a Sennheiser HD 800S headphone, via balanced cable. When comparing the General Purpose set-up sound and the Audiophile set-up sound, the Audio set up is clearly an overall winner. I am not sure how to split the improvement because I installed W2016, AO and PL (i.e. what makes most of difference between the two setups) in a single shot. Where the Audiophile set-up easily wins is with resolution, transparency, soundstage layering and focus. Also, a general sense of less noise / more air around the instruments provide the feeling that the sound is coming out of nowhere, as opposed to the slightly veiled feeling I get from the General Purpose set-up. So overall I am satisfied, ... but ... Where I still think there are margins of improvement is at both ends of the frequency spectrum. The high frequency with the Audiophile configuration can be ear-piercing, while maintaining a very fine grain, while the bottom and feels much more satisfying, significantly fuller and more extended with the General Purpose setup. So far I have tried various settings of Audiophile Optimizer sound signature and digital filtering, ending up with the 4-D combination which to my ears is the smoothest one (but yet not smooth enough to my taste, especially for long listening sessions). Anybody else had a similar experience after upgrading their system? What have you tried / would you try to further improve? Thank you, Simone

Hello, I hope somebody can help me with the following problem. I have a two PC setup, one Control PC and one AudioPC. The ControlPC is on Windows 8.1 and only running RoonServer. I had my AudioPC also on Windows 8.1 and only running RoonBridge, but decided to change to Windows Server 2012 R2 to further improve the sound quality by using Audiophile Optimizer. The installation did go OK with only an .INF-file I had to change to get the driver for the network adapter (Intel i217-V) accepted. But after running Audiophile Optimizer at the last part when Windows is doing the changes I get the message "We couldn't complete the features, Undoing changes". Audiophil pointed out that this was a Windows problem, perhaps it could have something to do with a component store corruption. I did run the command to repair this and got the message that the repair was successful. Unfortunately the message "We couldn't complete the features, Undoing changes" remained. Any suggestions on how to solve this? Your help is greatly appreciated.

I've just completed the process of putting together a dedicated machine to run Roon + HQPlayer. I'm upsampling everything to DSD 512 (which I feed into a T+A DAC 8 DSD). The OS is W10 (Enterprise) and I've already removed a lot of applications which I will not be using (like One Drive, Skype et al). In this context, and while I'm in awe with the SQ, I would like to get the last drop of performance and Fidelizer or Audiophile Optimizer seem to be the most widely used options. Which one do you think will work best with W10? Thanks!

Hi, i startet to install the server 2016 on a single pc in core modus. Then I started to run the audiophile Optimizer to get into the device manager with the by AO created command. Everything was fine. My problem ist the rme driver. I tried to install before running AO, after running AO, I booted and preesed F8 to take out the driver signature. The result in these steps were different. Sometimes the RME driver could not be installed, sometimes he was installed, but I had a exclamation mark in the device manager, and now there is a question mark after another tries. Also the firmware could now be fixed. Windows can not determine that the rme is a USB Sound Card because the description above the RME in the device manager is stated ( && system 32.....) Tidal also doesn´t find the rme. How can i solve the problem?

Has anyone compared sound quality of a Roon ROCK (lightweight Linux) install vs. running Roon Server on an Windows System, with Audiophile Optimizer in Core mode? I’m currently doing the latter on and Intel NUC and it sounds great bit isn’t the most stable. Have to reboot quite often when the server loses connection to my network- (imagine it’s due to some service I’ve shut off in Windows using AO). Was thinking of seeing if I’d still get the SQ benefits of a minimal OS using ROCK, without the network connectivity issues.

Hello Folks The beta of AudiophileOptimizer for Windows 10 is making progress. It's still a lot to do, still many things not perfectly or only partially working, but the results are still pretty good so far, both for functionality as well as for sound quality. The first phase of the beta is going to end now, so from now on not only "chosen" ones can test the beta, every existing AO customer who is interested in testing the new beta is warmly welcome to do so. So this is the beginning of phase 2, the partially public beta. Quality To help us improve the quality and performance of the AudiophileOptimizer during the beta phase, please only use a fresh installation of Windows 10. Do NOT use any foreign scripts or other audio enhancement tools/software, etc. because your results would be useless for us. Just Windows 10, the AudiophileOptimizer and the mediaplayer of your choice. Who is the beta for? Please let me outline for who the beta is and for who it probably isn't yet. Consider yourself a possible beta tester if you: - Have a valid AO 1.30/1.40 license in place - Are a very experienced user of the AudiophileOptimizer and very computer savvy as well - Are able to provide a clean and fresh installation of (any) Windows 10 version to test the beta - Don't mind if you need to format and reinstall your system (maybe even multiple times) - Do fully understand what a software in early beta stadium is - Have no problems reporting issues or features that do not yet work as expected - Are able to clearly focus your testing on the features that are mentioned in the change log - Are able to provide feedback about technical issues via email to [email protected] - Are able to read, understand and follow our instructions carefully If you don't feel comfortable with the points mentioned above then testing the beta is probably not for you. You should wait for the final release of AO 2.00. But if you think you are the right person, have fun in testing things, are able to provide us valuable feedback and be an active part of this second beta phase, please feel free to give us a message to [email protected] and let us know about your interest and especially why you are the right person for this part of the beta phase. Change Log of AO Version 2.00, beta 4 ============================================ AudiophileOptimizer 2.00 - Several adjustments for Windows 10 - Enables MinimServer in core mode (Server 2012 R2) - Improvements on Kernel-Streaming and MediaPlayer support (Server 2012 R2) - Possibility to disables Windows Defender (Windows 10) - Possibility to disable OneDrive (Windows 10) ServiceTool 2.00 - Several adjustments for Windows 10 - Shell replacement for JRiver Media Center 21 - Shell replacement for MinimServer - Possibility to strip down Windows 10 (remove all apps, optional features, etc.) Setup 2.00 - Several adjustments for Windows 10 ...so let the fun begin! :-) Enjoy, Phil

Any word from the developers regarding testing on the beta versions of Windows 11? Audiophile Optimizer @AudioPhil or Fidelizer @Windows X Cannot see anything on here even though it’s not meant to be coming till October, which will some be upon up, so it would be interesting to know if anything is happening in the background Cheers, 🙂

Hi, I seem to have developed a new situation in my system whereby when I play DSD files I only get music for about 10 seconds and then it stops with JRMC showing "buffering" while slowly counting up to 100% again. This repeats, never letting the music really play for more than a few seconds. Background. I have a "CAPS" server running Windows 2012, JRMC and Audiophile Optimizer(AO). The caps server has a Paul Pang USB card powered by a +5v external supply. DAC is Wyred4Sound DAC2 DSD SE. JMRC uses the ASIO driver provided by W4S. I recently added a REGEN but the symptoms are there without it. Server runs in CORE mode. Settings in JRMC are as specified by the W4S PDF verified by calling them. I tried removing the REGEN and using a new USB cable but the symptoms are the same. I did have DSD playing fine for a long time and Red Book still plays perfectly and sounds wonderful. My hardware setup for the PC and DAC front end has really not changed. I have however recently upgraded JRMC to version 20 and AO to one of the last beta versions. My only guess is that one of the settings in AO has affected DSD playback. Since I was previously able to play DSD I assume that my CAPS server is up to the task. Before I start tearing down the system to it's frame I thought that I would ask for suggestions regarding a possible cause for the buffering. Thanks! Paul