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[spmiller15]

I recently recorded from the YouTube Jazz at Lincoln Center 2020 Gala (wonderful if you like that) to Windows 10 Audacity. I have no idea what the sample rate and bit rate were on YouTube. I recorded it using a virtual cable loopback device, so no A/D in the chain. I set Audacity project to 88khz/24 bits, and the input to the 'output' of the virtual cable, and recorded it with no Audacity effects other than fade-out for applause and splicing out some excess applause.

I'm playing it back from my Windows 10 Audacity, setting the output to my Chord Mojo D/A, which feeds my desktop powered speakers. It sounds excellent.

However, when I export it from Audacity to a file in that same 88/24 wav file format, confirming with Media Info that it is indeed 88/24, and then playback the file thru JRiver, with JRiver Audio Device set to either the Digital Chord Mojo, or the ASIO Chord 1.05, it lost some quality. In particular, it was not quite as clear, dynamics were somewhat muted, and high end sparkle of the cymbals, snare drum, etc., wasn't as good.  I had turned off all of the optional 'processing' in JRiver, as best as I could find.

Any ideas why this is happening, and if there is some way for me to get the file played via JRiver26 to sound as good as when played directly from Audacity?

Thanks,

Steven

[JimH]

Could be DSP.  Volume or Volume Leveling.

Are the playback devices directly connected by USB?  Or network?

[wer]

We can try to help, but this is not a trivial question, and subjective audio-reviewer words like sparkle and dynamics don't really help us since we can't hear what you hear.  Have you for example done an analysis to actually measure dynamic range of the two files, or compared the waveforms of a transient?  Those are quantifiable.

The list of things that could go wrong, or that could affect the sound, is almost endless.  So a much more detailed examination will be required beyond the quite limited info you've provided. I'm not criticizing you, that's just the reality of diagnosing sound problems via text over the internet.

For starters, it's not clear exactly what you're comparing.  But your words indicate you're comparing the Audacity playback of the original Audacity project against JRiver playback of the exported file.  That's not a valid comparison.  You would need to load your exported WAV file into Audacity and play that to even begin to claim there's a difference.  We don't know your exported file sounds the same as the original yet.  I know you said you matched the sample rate and bit depth, but there are other things that could have been done.

After comparing the playback of the exact same file in both apps, you should then play back the file in a different app.  Does that app sound like Audacity, or like MC?  That will begin to give an indication of where we need to look.

[spmiller15]

Thanks to both of you.

The playback device, a Chord Mojo, is connected to the computer via the USB cable that came with the Mojo, and in turn is connected to the powered speakers via Audience Ohno interconnect cables.

All the JRiver DSP options were turned off, and the output sample rate was set to match the input sample rate.

I'm just looking for some low-hanging fruit to eliminate as part of the cause(s). The cause could be either something on the Audacity side, or something on the JRiver side, or both.

Next step, I will try importing the Audacity generated wav file back into Audacity, and contrasting that sound to the sound of the original Audacity project. I will let you know what I find. If there is a difference, I can try to eyeball the Audacity spectrum tool for both, and see if there are any obvious differences. And I can try Windows Media Player as well.

Regards,

Steven