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[sorepinky]

Maybe this is already provided, but I cannot find it:

For audio playback I have 3 zones set up on one instance of MC22.

Zone 1 - WaveIO USB stereo
Zone 2 - Focusrite 18i20 Gen 2 multichannel no upmix 8 channels (for surround music 5 or 6 channels with surround channel replication to back surrounds and subwoofer only if present in source)
Zone 3 - same Focusrite 18i20 - multichannel with JRSS upmix (for stereo music upmix to 7.1)

My problem is in having 2 zones on the same audio device.

I have Zoneswitch set to switch to Zone 2 on playing anything with > 2 channels and it applies Stop command to Zones 1 and 3.  Works fine.

With WASAPI in exclusive access mode for Zones 2 and 3, if say Zone 2 is playing and I forget to press Stop, then go to Zone 3 and press Play on a stereo album, the expected error message is displayed and it's basically a dead end if you happen to be doing this via JRemote with the big monitor turned off (I like to run in headless mode).

So I switched Zones 2 and 3 to ASIO.  With ASIO you don't get the error message and instead you get an overlapping audio from the Focusrite as it's playing two zones at once.  No big deal... just manually go to one of the zones and press Stop.

But it would be really nice if quite apart from Zoneswitch, there was a way to automatically send a Stop command to say Zone 3 when pressing Play in Zone 2 for example.  This would mean that WASAPI could be used.

Maybe I'm missing something and this is already catered for somewhere???

Addend:  I found this from 2 versions ago but it does't seem to have been resolved: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,96353.0.html

[Matt]

Can't you just use the "Stop playback in these zones" part of the ZoneSwitch rule?

[RD James]

Can't you just use the "Stop playback in these zones" part of the ZoneSwitch rule?

This only seems to activate when the play command creates a new playlist.
If you start playback in a zone with an already existing playlist, it doesn't send the stop command.

[sorepinky]

Yeah, what I am describing is somethong that happens quite apart from what activates a Zoneswitch rule.  I'll try to explain better.

OK Zone 1 is one stereo zone.  It plays through a dedicated stereo DAC via the WaveIO converter.
Zone 3 also plays stereo sources, but with JRSS upmixing to the Focusrite.

I cannot set up a Zoneswitch to Zones 1 or 3 as they are both wanted (at different times of course) for stereo sources.
The only Zoneswitch that I can logically set up is to switch to Zone 2 for sources with channels > 2 and that works well.

The problem is that if Zone 2 is playing and I manually go over to Zone 3 (that shares the same Focusrite audio device) and Play a stereo album, no Zoneswitch rule is activated which is good because I want to stay there in Zone 3 and listen to the stereo album with upmix.  But (with ASIO set) the new audio stream is sent to the Focusrite audio device and overlaps what was playing to it from Zone 2.  If it was on WASAPI exclusive mode, an error message would show.

It would be nice if there was an option setting so that when pressing Play while in Zone 3, a Stop command was first sent to any one or more playing Zones on the same instance of MC22.  I.e. a Stop command outside of any Zoneswitch rules.

[blgentry]

Does your pre-pro or AVR have pseudo-surround modes?  So if you send it 2 channel audio, can it make 5.1 or 7.1?  If so, that seems like the best option.

Use one zone for all multi-channel audio.  Then have your pre-pro (or AVR) upmix it for you.  You've probably even got a remote control button to turn that feature on and off.

Brian.

[sorepinky]

The Focusrite 18i20 has 8 analogue outputs that would ordinarily feed 8 amplifier channels directly.

Yes, my pre/pro has that, but only for its digital inputs.  I am not using it. Rather I take the 8 analogue outputs of the 18i20 and connect them to the pre-pro's eight 7.1 "multichannel analogue input" RCAs.  These inputs are basically passed straight through the pre/pro in "Direct" mode - without A:D conversion and none of the pre/pro's algorithms (which can be applied to its HDMI inputs) work.

The simplest solution (I suppose) would be a "Send Stop Commmand to other Now Playing Local Zones on Play" option - where this option does not switch zones at all.

[blgentry]

Ok, so you're sorta using MC as a preamp/processor, but not entirely.  I'd bet your pre-pro could use surround modes on the multi-channel inputs too, but you probably don't want to, so you can avoid the additional A/D, D/A steps (as you hinted at).

What you're really looking for is a command to activate JRSS remotely.  That would do it for you.

How are you controlling all of this? JRemote, windows remote, keyboard ... ?

If you have some sort of automation system set up, you might be able to issue MCWS commands to stop the zones yourself.  <shrug>  Just some ideas.  Yours is a pretty special case (though not crazy or weird.  Just specialized).

Brian.

[sorepinky]

No it cannot.  It's an older Integra DHC-9.9.  The owner's manual says that on the multichannel analogue inputs it can only do "direct".  It converts the stereo analogue inputs to digital for upmixing etc., but that's using different RCAs.  Basically the 8 multichannel analogue inputs are for SACD players and DVD-A players that do the processing first and output via multiple analogue cables.  I suppose you could say I'm trying to get MC22 and the 18i20 to be seen as such a player by the Integra.  All processing by MC22.

Remember Zone 2.  It's set up to play 5 and 6 channels of music that has been extracted from SACD ISOs, DVD-A or Bluray audio discs.  There is no upmix wanted for these (apart from duplicating the surround channels).

I'm using "Room Correction" too with speaker distances and gains that I wrote down from the Integra's Audyssey set-up done previously.

Mmm... yes... maybe a command to activate JRSS remotely... two different lines of logic.    That would mean I could delete Zone 3?

At the moment I'm just using the keyboard and/or Remote Desktop, but once it's all working correctly, yes I would like it to happen from JRemote which I have on both Android and Apple devices.

Addend:  I hadn't heard of MCWS commands before, but just looking at them, surely implementing an MCWS "/stop" would be the same as just pressing stop on JRemote in the first place, so...

In the meantime I still think that a "Stop other playing Zones first on Play" option would be quite elegant and useful for various scenarios.  This would not switch zones at all - just Stop play in other zones on the same MC server (selected from a drop-down menu on set-up).

[sorepinky]

After listening to a number of stereo albums with JRSS upmixing to 7.1 in Zone 3, I decided to delete that Zone and stick with proper surround as mixed by the recording engineers on 5 and 6 channel releases (Zone 2).  I.e. stereo is stereo and upmixing it by an algorithm is but an interesting effect that might entertain some people with some albums.  Zone 2 merely duplicates the rear channels * prior to "Room Correction" and is awesome with the appropriate material.  For stereo albums there is nothing to copy, so it works well in leaving stereo as stereo.

* That's using the mixer feature in Parametric Equaliser - not the "clone side channels" option under Output Format that doesn't work the same.  Say what is a "side channel" anyway?

A consequence of deleting Zone 3 is that the problem of simultaneous playback of two zones over a shared audio device was ameliorated.  Also since the remaining zones don't share a common audio device, the stop feature of zoneswitch is no longer relevant so I removed it.

Still, for some users the requested feature could be useful.