Colinzeal Posted November 9, 2014 Share Posted November 9, 2014 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? Link to comment
unsleepable Posted November 9, 2014 Share Posted November 9, 2014 How is the rest of your setup? Link to comment
Colinzeal Posted November 9, 2014 Author Share Posted November 9, 2014 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 Link to comment
audiventory Posted November 9, 2014 Share Posted November 9, 2014 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? No difference sound transparency/quality playback from local HDD or from remote HDD via network. If appears network delivery troubles you will listen periodical pauses only. AuI ConverteR 48x44 - HD audio converter/optimizer for DAC of high resolution files ISO, DSF, DFF (1-bit/D64/128/256/512/1024), wav, flac, aiff, alac, safe CD ripper to PCM/DSF, Seamless Album Conversion, AIFF, WAV, FLAC, DSF metadata editor, Mac & WindowsOffline conversion save energy and nature Link to comment
Colinzeal Posted November 9, 2014 Author Share Posted November 9, 2014 The remote HDD is better. I can hear the difference. So, is there a problem with my local HDD for having less clarity? Link to comment
Cebolla Posted November 9, 2014 Share Posted November 9, 2014 Some routers run UPnP media servers to allow access to media files located on a storage drive attached to them, as well the more usual option of access via network shared folders, eg SMB. Which method are you using with your router? We are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us. -- Jo Cox Link to comment
unsleepable Posted November 9, 2014 Share Posted November 9, 2014 It could be noise from the computer that gets sent on USB. You don't hear the noise but the music could appear less detailed. And when you say "better", what do you mean? How does the sound compare, for example, in terms of soundstage? Link to comment
Colinzeal Posted November 9, 2014 Author Share Posted November 9, 2014 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? Link to comment
unsleepable Posted November 9, 2014 Share Posted November 9, 2014 From the power supply, I'd say. Maybe your dac doesn't isolate the port. If you hear differences in "depth", it could also be jitter. Or it could be a bad USB controller implementation in the DAC altogether. As for solutions to play directly from the computer, if your computer has a TOSLINK port, you could try that, and see if the sound is also improved over USB. Or use an Airport Express. Link to comment
Colinzeal Posted November 10, 2014 Author Share Posted November 10, 2014 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. Link to comment
Colinzeal Posted November 13, 2014 Author Share Posted November 13, 2014 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? Link to comment
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