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[jsjanx]

I'm starting to encounter "buffering" delays and/or system freezes frequently when I begin playing a file on MC 15.  When I select and hit play, instead of immediately playing, a message pops up at the top of MC 15 saying either "buffering" or "buffering with a specific % listed" and there is either a significant delay before the music starts playing (could be 10-15 seconds all the way up to minutes) or the system just freezes with the buffering message displayed. 

I'm running 32-bit Windows 7 and all of my files are FLAC files and stored on a removable hard drive (powered by the PC).  The output is sent from the PC via USB cable to an Audio Research DAC-8 and then on to my preamp.  All of my music files have been ripped with MC 15 and most are 16 bit/44.1 kHz and roughly 50MB-90MB in size.  Recently though, I've started downloading and playing 24 bit/88.2 kHz, 96 kHz, 176.4kHz and 192 kHz files which range in size from 100 MB all the way up to 700 MB.  The buffering issue has begun occurring much more frequently with these files.  The problem is more likely to show up when I launch MC 15 and play the very first song, but occasionally shows up later as well.

Is there a setting I need to change in MC 15 or in Windows 7 that will fix this?  The drivers for my DAC are written to give it exclusive operating system control when internal drives are involved, so it's likely I'll soon purchase a new computer with a large internal drive and/or an ESATA-connected drive so that other operating system priorities don't interfere when the program is running...but I don't think that the removable drive is the issue here...

As an aside, I'm terminating all other programs and connections (internet, wireless cards etc.) when I play music to reduce the chance of interference.

Thanks for any assistance you can provide...

[JimH]

Try moving a few to your local drive to see if that works.

The removable drive may be too slow.

A virus checker could also cause this.

There are two wiki articles that might help.

http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Audio_Output_Modes
and
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/DAC_Settings

[jsjanx]

I've read the attached articles and set up the player with ASIO output based upon them and have been running fine for a while.  I'll try running from the internal drive and also from a powered removable drive and see what happens...

[coxhaus]

I am having the same problem running from a local drive with Windows 7 x64. I don't think running from a local drive will fix it. I am running the latest drivers from Audio Research version 1.25. I am going to try MC16. Have you had any luck with this problem?

[JimH]

Try different output modes.  See the Audio Output Modes article above.

[coxhaus]

AS far as I know if you have an Audio Research DAC8 you need to run their ASIO drivers. I did find one thing. Did you by chance have Do not play silence (leading or trailing)" option checked? Try unchecking this option. I found a reference on ComputerAudiophile where Chris said "when enabled, hindered stable playback when using one specific USB DAC". I have unchecked this option on MC16 and I will see if it helps. You might try the same thing and report back. I hope this helps.

[popper]

I have exactly same problems.