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[RandyP]

Just upgraded from MC14 now that kids are out of college. It's an audio tour-de-force with an effortless, exact upgrade from the MC14 backup. Jim, Matt, et al, you are an amazing group of people!

MC25 is driving a Levinson system from the computer's HDMI output converted to coax SPDIF. The sound room has acoustic treatment. The equalizer's Room Compensation took performance to a new level - it is a fantastic feature! I would like to have the equalizer process an optical signal from the TV or HDFM. Is this possible? Forgive me if it's documented - a search for "equalizer" was unproductive.

[sjhilton]

Hi RandyP - I assume what you mean is capturing an SPDIF signal and then modifying it using JRiver for playback? It is possible using the WDM driver feature with a soundcard with optical in. I use a soundblaster z - something like ESI-U24XL audio interface may work as well (I'm not sure if other users have any experience with something like this). If this is what you mean I'm happy to provide further guidance.

[RandyP]

Thanks for offering to help! Yes, you described exactly what I wish to do. I've been wondering how it would be done, when yesterday I realized that the "Drives and Devices" might show a SPDIF input if one were present. MC is being run on an MSI gaming laptop. While it is very fast and has good audio output through HDMI, it doesn't have a SPDIF quality input. Could that be why I'm not seeing anything in Drives and Devices?

I'd like to do what you are doing. Where do you see and how do you select the SPDIF input? What's the nature of your sound card?

[RandyP]

It wasn't clear from my previous post, but I will get an external sound card for the laptop if this is possible. Mr. Hilton, can you please tell me your setup? Thank you!

[sjhilton]

Hi RandyP

I think it should be possible with an external sound card on a laptop. That isn't my current setup which is a desktop with Soundblaster Z PCI-e card with SPDIF-IN. If you have SPDIF-IN it should show as an input on Windows 10 sound settings (unless it has been disabled).

Maybe the ESI-U24XL audio interface I mentioned in my post could work for you although I haven't used this. The Sound BlasterX G6 also could work as it has a mini Toslink input - again I haven't used this, but others on the forum may have.

Once you work out your SPDIF-IN situation then it is just a matter of doing the following:
- enable WDM in JRiver
- set WDM driver as your default sound card in windows 10 (this assumes that your audio settings in JRiver are specifically directed to a DAC or your laptop sound card already)
- under the additional device properties for your SPDIF-IN go to the 'Listen' tab tick 'listen to this device' and set the WDM driver as the device you want to play the input to (it doesn't work by just using default sound card in my experience)
- under the same 'additional device properties' I would also set the following on the 'advanced' tab - set input to 48kHz/24-bit and allow apps to take exclusive control
- you should also set whatever your source is to output 48kHz/24-bit as well.
At that point you should be able to play sound through JRiver from the input. If you want to use the equalizer/DSP functions of JRiver then I'd recommend setting up zones for WDM (which you would apply the equalizer settings to) and not WDM (for playback of everything else). After you do that you'll need to use 'Zoneswitch' to switch automatically between them. For not-WDM use the rule -[Filename]="live:////ipc" (the minus at the start needs to be included) and for WDM use the rule [Filename]="live:////ipc".

There are some quirks if you're taking sound from external video sources. I've experienced some latency/sync issues, but they have been largely fixed by fiddling with buffers in JRiver. The extent to which you experience these issues will likely depend on your hardware. I also had issues generally with the output popping and crackling a bit, but this has been practically eliminated by setting everything to 48kHz/24-bit.

I'd say it's not a perfect solution, but it does work. I've been using it for the last few years without many issues.

Hopefully I haven't missed anything. If you have any further queries please let me know (and sorry for the delay in getting back to you).

[RandyP]

Hello Mr. Hilton,

Thank you for all the time you put into answering this question. It may be of value to many people. The G6 is my current choice, but there are a number of interesting candidates out there. I look forward to this new capability!

All the best for the holidays,

Randy

[zebm]

Perfect, thanks for this.

For all of us with the ambition of running everything only with the JRiver engine and a PC with as little AV hardware as possible. With the high video quality (HDR) streaming apps included on the TVs that's doing a much better video job than the Windows 10 apps it's hard to get quality sound output without AV receivers and stuff. This should do it.