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[sbinco]

Howdy folks...I have questions for people smarter than me....the bar is pretty low, so I suspect that's more than a few of you...

My thinking is this: If I wish to utilize some DSP in MC21, I can invoke windows to use MC21 as my default audio device, and any audio I play from a windows program will be routed through JRiver and JRiver will then subsequently use the audio device/driver that I select in JRiver, and I can then take advantage of the DSP in JRiver or 3rd party plugin. I have read that this is relatively new functionality that utilizes the JRiver WDM driver and I know that this driver is installed. I have read that one needs to jocky the buffering in Audio Device, Device Settings, and this ranges from 500ms to 5ms with an option to "use large hardware buffer", or not (I am getting the best results with this set to 500ms). I believe another key setting might be the Live Playback Latency under Audio, Advanced...this ranges from "minimum" to 500ms (I am getting the best results with this set to 50ms "recommended").

Problem - when I have the system in the above configuration I get semi regular glitchs/pops/clicks in the playback - 5 - 10 per minute on average I would guess....more than enough to make the experience unacceptable. I can certainly make it worse by changing these buffering settings.....but I would prefer to make it better 

Extra details - when I don't have MC21 as my default audio device in Windows and instead select the XMOS USB 2.0 DAC (Grace m920) and stream Tidal or other internet sourced music, playback is perfect. When I play one of the FLAC files from the PC through MC21, they play fine, regardless of the audio device setting in Windows, I suspect because I have the XMOS m920 ASIO driver selected in JRiver and this is more or less doing the same thing.

So this issue is only when streaming music through a windows program (Firefox or Tidal) and only when it is routed through MC21, when it is selected as default audio device.

Questions: Is this supposed to work? Am I doing something wrong? I am an electrical engineer as my day job, and the advice I have seen thus far is "play with both buffering settings above until you get a combo that works". This is not very scientific and makes me ask, what if I don't find a combo that works? Is there another setting I am missing? Is there some scientific guidance for how these buffers work together that might help me understand the issue?

Note that this a music only system - I stream from the internet and Tidal, plus have about 1000 CD's that are now FLAC on the PC. The PC is an HP workstation with Win10 Home and 16GB of RAM. If I left out any critical details, please let me know.....

Thanks for the help!!!

[sbinco]

OK then…no one has responded to this…..I don't want to seem impatient.....this is my first post to this forum. Did I leave critical information out? Does nobody use the WDM driver, selecting JRiver as the default windows audio device? I know someone has to be doing this, yes? I believe I have tried every possible permutation of Live Playback Latency and the buffering under Audio Device, Device Settings, buffering.  With more experimentation I am finding lower values in both of these settings do best……but I can, at best, get 5-10 or so minutes of playback without glitches and then I get a string of them. So…the bottom line is I want to use a FabFilter EQ plugin, which I bought for this purpose. I loaded it but it doesn’t matter whether it is engaged or not in JRiver – the experience is the same. As I mentioned previously, I can play any of the Flac files I have on the hard drive via JRiver, through the plugin, and it’s all fine – this tells me it’s not the plugin or the invocation of JRiver DSP. The streaming I do is Tidal (CD quality bit rate) down to run of the mill lo res (128 kbps)…..I see no difference in the behavior through the WDM driver (these play back fine if I select the USB DAC as the default driver in Windows). The problem seems to me to be that any other Windows programs using the WDM driver (Tidal, internet radio, etc.) are experiencing the glitches…..which tells me (correctly or not) that it is Windows 10, the WDM driver, or some unholy combination of the two.

I would really appreciate any advice from the experts out there…… should I be able to have JRiver selected as my default audio device and stream music through Tidal (or other player) reliably without clicks/ticks/glitches? What is the real world experience with the WDM driver?

Thanks again

[RoderickGI]

First, I'm no expert. Especially on the WDM Driver, which I have not permanently implemented on my HTPC because of the issues you are having, and more specifically, I cannot make the audio lag acceptable when playing video from the internet. i.e. YouTube. Audio lag with respect to video has to be 25ms or less, or it will be detectable, and when using the WDM Driver with YouTube it seems to be in the 100's of milliseconds. 

It seems to me that you have read most if not all of the relevant discussions on tweaking the WDM Driver. As far as I know there is no tool to help find an acceptable solution, at least no tool from JRiver. I think one of the discussion talked about using some tools to see the effect of the driver, but I'm not sure.

Anyway, if you are solely using this PC for audio, I would think that making the buffers as large as possible would get rid of the clicks and pops, although it would add a delay to functions like Play, Stop, etc. If you have tried that, then I can't suggest any better buffer settings.

However, have you set the WDM Driver to exclusive mode? If you open the Windows Playback Device, select the 'JRiver Media Center 21" device, open the Properties for the Device, then on the Advanced tab under "Exclusive Mode" select both items, "Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device, and "Give exclusive mode applications priority".

Also on the Advanced tab, under "Default format", you should select the highest bitrate and sample rate your XMOS USB 2.0 DAC supports, or the format that you use most commonly with Tidal etc. Try it both ways. Did you see this post and the thread it is in? Useful information.

I'm assuming that you did find the Wiki Article.

Good luck. Keep asking questions. Some others may add more information.

[sbinco]

Thanks RoderickGI.....I have actually checked out all the information at the links you provided, including the wiki on the topic. I also have on the Advanced tab under "Exclusive Mode" both "Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device, and "Give exclusive mode applications priority" selected (I think this may have been the default). I also tried under the Advanced tab, "Default format", selecting the highest bitrate and sample rate the XMOS USB 2.0 DAC supports, as well as the lowest (44.1/16 bit) - this didn't seem to make a difference.

As you suggest, I also believe it makes sense to have larger buffers rather than smaller ones, and I have tried this - but I don't have any inside information on how these buffers work with the WDM driver and how the driver interacts with Windows - that area is a total mystery to me. I guess I feel lucky at least for the fact that I am not trying to sync video to audio........using this for audio only should be much easier. For this reason, I am not too concerned with latency itself, as long as once the audio starts it doesn't glitch out on me.

There are comments in the wiki regarding setting up a a zoneswitch rule to automatically route WDM input to that zone, but my take is that this is more of an audio/video sync thing and not just an audio thing - I have not done anything with the zones and suspect I don't need to as my usage of MC21 is pretty simple......someone should correct me if I am missing something on this aspect.

The one thing I haven't tried is uninstalling the WDM driver in Windows and then reinstalling MC21 from the executable, as terrym@nz suggests in the relevant thread you linked. Do  you think this might correct something that is amiss?

I would also be interested if anyone who is familiar with the differences between MC22 and MC21 thinks MC22 might handle these issues more elegantly......

Thanks again for chiming in!!!

[RoderickGI]

......someone should correct me if I am missing something on this aspect.

You are correct in your understanding.

The one thing I haven't tried is uninstalling the WDM driver in Windows and then reinstalling MC21 from the executable, as terrym@nz suggests in the relevant thread you linked. Do  you think this might correct something that is amiss?

Reinstalling the WDM might help, but even Terry doesn't know why it helps. Part of the problem that for drivers installed into Windows like this, Windows does its thing and doesn't give you any control over that. So a reinstall might force Windows to do its thing better. But no guarantees. Turning off the WDM Feature, restarting Windows and MC, then turning the WDM back on should have the same effect as Terry's method though. That process has been written up a few times in earlier WDM posts.

I would also be interested if anyone who is familiar with the differences between MC22 and MC21 thinks MC22 might handle these issues more elegantly......

The WDM Driver basically hasn't changed since MC21.0.90 or earlier, so MC22 handles it pretty much exactly the same. There is a small change upcoming with its installation process, but not the functionality. Of course MC22 has had quite a few other features added and fixed, but I don't think it will help this situation.

The issue could be some interaction with your specific DAC. There has been some discussion on that sort of problem. Maybe search for posts regarding your DAC model or brand, here and on other computer audio related sites.

Otherwise I'm not much help. You need some of the big guns in audio to chime in and make suggestions. Or you could message some people who you think may be able to help. Maybe RD James, and others who have posted on the issue.

[sbinco]

You need some of the big guns in audio to chime in and make suggestions.

Well, yes...I agree. Thanks for your insight, though.......it's nice to not feel I am hanging out here all alone. Hey Big Guns  ....any advice?

The issue could be some interaction with your specific DAC.

I thought about that - but if the DAC works fine in all Windows applications, when selected as the default device in Windows, and jriver can play flac files just fine via that DAC, can it really be the issue? Logic tells me no, but maybe logic doesn't apply when it comes to Windows and WDM drivers. There is both an updated driver and firmware out there for the Grace m920 DAC. I would ask if anyone out there has had any issues with this DAC and jriver, but I don't think there are really that many folks out there using it......it's a pretty nice DAC tho. Is it worth giving the firmware and driver upgrade a shot? 

Turning off the WDM Feature, restarting Windows and MC, then turning the WDM back on should have the same effect as Terry's method though. That process has been written up a few times in earlier WDM posts.

I actually did do this last week, and it had no effect 

Anyhoo....I appreciate the help and welcome any other suggestions......at this point I am back to specifying the m920 as the default audio device in Windows....