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[trcns]

A month ago I was happy playing my music in iTunes, till one day I decided to compare the sound quality of ripped music with the original CD. What a mistake!

So, said that I started looking into better software’s, first I bought Easy CD-DA-Extractor and started ripping my music. Two days later I read an article on Computer Audiophile recommending dbPowerAmp and JRiver, and ripping the music in three different formats, so bought dbPowerAmp and JRiver. I spent 2 week every night and whole weekends ripping my CD’s in Wav, FLAC and Apple lossless formats. Now it was time to compare original CD with ripped Wav file. I am using CD “Post Industrial Blues” by “Bob Brozman” track # 2 and 4. I also tried “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” track 1.

What a clean music! When I play through original CDs, the instrument and the vocals are so so clean and crisp, what a pleasure listening these CDs. But when I switch to ripped wave files they are nowhere close to the original CDs. Anybody has an idea why? I thought buying and playing through JRiver will solve my problem but no luck. Now question is that do I need any tweaking of computer or should I buy 400 CD disk changer?

I have ATI Radeon HD 4850 Video card that I specially bought to play my audio and video files on a PC with Windows 64 ultimate. I ripped my one CD in Loss-Less Wav format. When I tried to compare the quality of my CD with ripped wave file, its no ware close to the original CD. I am using a top rated “dbPowerAmp” CD ripping program which rips the CD as Source, I am using AudioPhile recommended “JRiver” playback software which plays the files as source without an clipping or any modification. I am not using DSP to change the output. But even then it does not sound the same, not even close to the original CD quality.

I downloaded the latest catalyst version 11 from ATI site. And I am using HDMI to connect my computer to my receiver. All the settings on my receiver are identical while sampling between CD and Wave file. I noticed that while configuring HDMI card, I have choices of 2, 4, 6 and 8 speakers, but no option for auto select based on source signal. I do have 7.1 speakers connected to my receiver. I do not want to make changes to speaker setting every time I switch between listening audio to watching video. What should be the setting on speaker selection? Or is there a way of auto select as the source changes?

I also noticed in audio configuration I have an option to select “16bit and 44.0 KHz” to “24 bit to 96 KHz” but there is no auto select option. As new audio files have different bit rates, should it not change automatically as the source file changes? Or should I select the highest bit rate no matter what? Please help?

Is it clipping the high notes? What’s going on?

[Vocalpoint]

I have ATI Radeon HD 4850 Video card that I specially bought to play my audio and video files on a PC with Windows 64 ultimate.

I have never heard of a graphics card handling any audio output (but maybe it's possible via HDMI?) - but please clarify exactly what you are selecting in JRiver:

Tools->Options->Audio-Ausio Output - and tell us what's selected under both Output Mode and Output Mode Settings.

Confirm these to let us know what device your are using to send the audio to your receiver.

Cheers,

VP

[trcns]

All the settings are default setting I am new to it, So I did not change any thing. Output Mode: Direct Sound

Device: Primary Sound Driver, Channels DEfault Channels.

[Matt]

This might help:
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Audio_Setup

[Vocalpoint]

All the settings are default setting I am new to it, So I did not change any thing. Output Mode: Direct Sound

Device: Primary Sound Driver, Channels DEfault Channels.

"Primary Sound driver" sounds like your - "probably less than desirable" - sound chip on your motherboard. What kind of computer is this and what sort of audio interface are you running?

VP

[mbagge]

Many video cards with an hdmi output, will route audio from the soundcard perfectly.
Just to get the facts right. When you rip to wav or flac format, ALL the bits from the cd is preserved especially if you have chosen secure rip.
So far so good, next you have to decide what sound processing you want to do in MC. Maybe you prefer a straight through  solution by selecting wasapi event style and keeping source bitlength.
Lastly doing the transport of the bits to the receiver. Configure your soundcard as an two speaker setup, (your receiver will do all decoding if playing surround). Make sure that your receiver plays two speaker stereo.
This way ALL the bits from your cd-rip arrives at your receiver and you should be able to enjoy the full sound quality.

If your receiver is dlna ready, you bypasses all the sound card drivers and windows components involved and eliminate potential jitter in the digital connection. In my experience the ultimate way of transporting the bits untouched.

[trcns]

First all thanks every for such fast response. These responses really help you someone like is stuck and need immediate help.

Hi Matt:
I looked at the link you posted, only questions I have are
What is “Leave mixing set to JRSS v2.0 for the best quality output.”
Also the sound card support 24 bit. But if switch it 24bit /96Khz is it not forcing it higher ever if the is in lower bit rate?

Vocalpoint
I have two sound cards, one built in on mother board which disabled in the bios of PC. Second is this HDMI card which is the primary sound card, so I left it as is. But I can change the option to specify this card. Its Dell PC 4.3 GHZ dual core CPU. I believe its e550 about 3 years old.

Mbagge
I ripped all CDs wav and flac formats with secure rip. I don’t know what is “wasapi event style” and how the set it. I just check its not dlna ready.
Now If I set my computer to 2 speakers only, do I need to change them back 7.1 while watching move through it?

[trcns]

Now would it help if I change this video card and buy a separate SPIF (Optical digital card)?

[JimH]

I don’t know what is “wasapi event style” and how the set it.

Tools/Options/Audio

[mbagge]

Ok then, you will be just fine transporting the audio stream through hdmi, s/pdif is not better in that respect.

Once I got an understanding on how audio was treated in a PC  , I decided to have as little audio processing done in the pc as possible. Many others for their reasons have chosen to use MC as the decoding and sound processing center and I am not judging on the best way only that this works better for me. It sometime confuses things because MC can do a lot of what is going on in a receiver.

In MC, Tools, Options, Audio, Output mode is where you select wasapi event mode. This option tells windows to leave the audio stream untouched. You should activate your onboard audio and make that your default output and select in the MC audio settings that you want to use your HDMI Output driver. This way all of the Windows beeps will go to default output and not to your receiver.

To separate stereo settings from surround settings, you should create two zones under 'Playing Now' in the navigation pane on the left, just right click. Then select the zone you will optimize settings for. Once finished fiddling around with the audio settings in the two zones, MC will open the audio channel the way you want.

Remember that it is your receiver that is doing the decoding, it detects PCM, AC3, DTS and probably many other formats. Your soundcard is not aware of this as the transport only is a kind of pass-through.

[trcns]

Thanks mbagge,

I always forced my HDMI card to be a default sound card. Never realized that other sounds may affect the playback. I will enable the other sound card. From MC side all is pretty clear.

 Now from MS windows side what do you recommend
1)   I should configure my HDMI card for 2 speakers only? And not for 7.1?
2)   What should I set bit rate and frequency? 24/96 or 14/44 or does it even matter?

[mbagge]

The general idea is that MC should own the soundcard exclusively (can only be done with more than one card in the PC) and not allowing Windows to 'interfere' with the sound.

ad1) as 2 speaker - the receiver will do the decoding and MC Will decide how many audio channels to open
ad2) use default - MC will handle this if the source material call for it otherwise the soundcard have to resample

[trcns]

Great Job mbagge:

Your instructions and screen shots were well explained. This is exactly what I wanted. Now it sounds great. Thanks again

[mbagge]

I am pleased to hear that you can enjoy listening to your music again.

I have got a lot of inspiration from http://thewelltemperedcomputer.com/ while trying to figure out what is going on in there as well as following many interresting threads in this forum.

Michael

[fitbrit]

Given the alarmist title, can we add a [solved] to the thread title.