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[Blaine78]

Hi,
Does JRiver decompress FLAC files on the fly, or decompressed and sent to memory before playing?

Reason i ask, I'm sure some are aware of the numerous debates, if FLAC decompression on the fly adds CPU noise downstream, even though the CPU usage is tiny.
There are programs like Amarra (for Mac) that challenge this theory by decompressing FLAC before sending to memory before play. If JRiver could do this, it would remove the doubt that FLAC decompressing CPU noise theory all together, and would add another notch to the JRiver Audiophile belt.

Thanks

[MrC]

Do you have any idea how many MILLIONS of instructions are being executed each second in a modern OS/computer?

[Blaine78]

Do you have any idea how many MILLIONS of instructions are being executed each second in a modern OS/computer?

yes, yes i do. why contribute to it.

[rick.ca]

If you were to provide some credible evidence it does make a difference, or even a plausible theory at to why it might make some infinitesimally small difference you are nevertheless able to hear, maybe some change could be considered. Otherwise, such behaviour is more likely to result in diminishing a reputation for integrity and excellence.

[Blaine78]

If you were to provide some credible evidence it does make a difference, or even a plausible theory at to why it might make some infinitesimally small difference you are nevertheless able to hear, maybe some change could be considered.

do some google searching.. look for FLAC vs WAV. There is some interesting information by credible people in the industry. Mastering engineers, Hi-Fi manufactures, hobbyists and random freaks alike.

this be the most interesting... especially the posts by cookiemarenco of Blue Coast Records

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/Sound-better-uncompressed-downloaded-files

Otherwise, such behaviour is more likely to result in diminishing a reputation for integrity and excellence.

Well... if you say so, it may come to fruition. so be kind and and keep it between us, aye  ...

[rick.ca]

do some google searching

It's not my suggestion. I don't care. Besides, if you believe this stuff, why don't you just use WAV?

[Blaine78]

It's not my suggestion. I don't care. Besides, if you believe this stuff, why don't you just use WAV?

i do use .WAV, but my 3TB drive is getting a little cramped for space. i'm just putting out some suggestions. there are some of us who like these options, even though others don't agree/care/believe.
I find no use in the streaming, pictures, and TV options, but others need em.

[Vincent Kars]

I assume you are talking Memory Playback.

This can be
1 – loading the track in memory only so a kind of RAM disk
2 – decode the track and store the result in memory

As far as I know it is not documented what JRiver is doing.
I have the feeling it is 1.
There are players who do 2 and also wait with playback until the process is completed.
I do think the 256 Mb JRiver allocates is a bit too low.

[Blaine78]

I assume you are talking Memory Playback.

This can be
1 – loading the track in memory only so a kind of RAM disk
2 – decode the track and store the result in memory

As far as I know it is not documented what JRiver is doing.
I have the feeling it is 1.
There are players who do 2 and also wait with playback until the process is completed.
I do think the 256 Mb JRiver allocates is a bit too low.

Thanks Vincent,
yes, memory playback. 2,  decode the track and store the result in memory, would be a great feature.

[Hendrik]

Its sad how supposedly "credible" people keep misinforming people.
What makes them credible? Just because they work in the industry doesn't mean they know wtf they are doing. If i look at audio or video publications, sometimes i think that the mastering engineers did really not know what they were doing, because its completely screwed up.

Long story short, if it sounds better to you, great, if placebos make you feel better, its all good for you.
On the other hand, i hope JRiver will not waste time on features that are arguably completely useless (like a few % cpu usage make your audio sound differently  )

[Blaine78]

Its sad how supposedly "credible" people keep misinforming people.
What makes them credible? Just because they work in the industry doesn't mean they know wtf they are doing. If i look at audio or video publications, sometimes i think that the mastering engineers did really not know what they were doing, because its completely screwed up.

Long story short, if it sounds better to you, great, if placebos make you feel better, its all good for you.
On the other hand, i hope JRiver will not waste time on features that are arguably completely useless (like a few % cpu usage make your audio sound differently  )

thank you anonymous person, you've shown me the way.
live and let live 

[Vincent Kars]

This graph shows the difference in jitter level between playback and stopped mode.
Looks like there is a relation between electrical activity of the system and jitter level

[Sandy B Ridge]

like Amarra

If this takes Matt 5 minutes to code and means that JRiver can sell an 'audiophile' upgrade for $700 (which will obviously sound better ;-p ) then I'm all for it (but won't be buying).

SBR

[JimH]

If this takes Matt 5 minutes to code and means that JRiver can sell an 'audiophile' upgrade for $700 (which will obviously sound better ;-p ) then I'm all for it (but won't be buying).

While it is sometimes tempting to follow an opportunistic path, and I know your post isn't entirely serious, I don't want to just add features that we believe have little or no value. 

Many of the audiophile suggestions are valuable, but some are not.  I don't want to lend our credibility to the ones that aren't.

[Sandy B Ridge]

...
Many of the audiophile suggestions are valuable...

Indeed, and in fact it was JRiver's audiophile credentials that drew me here in the first place. It was the excellent reviews from places like computeraudiophile etc. that made me download. So I actually 100% agree that JRiver's audiophile credibility is very important.

I am a subscriber to Stereophile every month and if nothing else it gives me a giggle to read about the flowery descriptions of various hifi components. I like to read it because I really *want* to believe that a $4000 mains cable with wooden toggles will make my amp sound more 'organic' but the sensible person inside me won't get the wallet out!


So I don't call myself a non-believer, merely a pragmatic agnostic - if that makes sense. So if something extra comes along at little or no cost (financial or programming time) then I really would be for it, even if it's 'all in the mind'! If it is at the cost of other features because it takes programmers away then probably not, if it costs $4000 for a couple of wooden toggles then definitely not!

SBR

[Blaine78]

Indeed, and in fact it was JRiver's audiophile credentials that drew me here in the first place. It was the excellent reviews from places like computeraudiophile etc. that made me download. So I actually 100% agree that JRiver's audiophile credibility is very important.

I am a subscriber to Stereophile every month and if nothing else it gives me a giggle to read about the flowery descriptions of various hifi components. I like to read it because I really *want* to believe that a $4000 mains cable with wooden toggles will make my amp sound more 'organic' but the sensible person inside me won't get the wallet out!


So I don't call myself a non-believer, merely a pragmatic agnostic - if that makes sense. So if something extra comes along at little or no cost (financial or programming time) then I really would be for it, even if it's 'all in the mind'! If it is at the cost of other features because it takes programmers away then probably not, if it costs $4000 for a couple of wooden toggles then definitely not!

SBR

there's audiophile, then there's AudioPhile. i'm the former.

[Sandy B Ridge]

there's audiophile, then there's AudioPhile. i'm the former.

I guess I'd like to believe one day that I am the former, but if I won the lottery I'd definitely be the latter!

SBR

[Blaine78]

I guess I'd like to believe one day that I am the former, but if I won the lottery I'd definitely be the latter!

SBR

 

[nwboater]

there's audiophile, then there's AudioPhile. i'm the former.

And then there's AudioPhool. Someone paying thousands for a power cable falls in that category IMHO.

Rod

[MrHaugen]

This kind of discussions gives me a smile each and every time

I'm more of a video kind of guy my self, so I do not have much experience in good sound at all. I had a top of the line Yamaha Receiver once. That's about it! I can not help my self thinking that most of this is purely a placebo effect, and if there is any changes at ALL, it is highly likely to be so small that not even a bio mechanical super ear from 1000 years in the future would hear any difference. But as other have said; if it sounds better to YOU, then fine. Go for it! As long as all of this seemingly "nonsense" changes in MC does not take up to much of the development time, and takes the focus away from other changes that we KNOW will make a huge impact to the better for many.

I think it's good to know that MC is targeted towards Audiophiles as well. That it has some really great sound features. It makes my job of selling it to such people that much easier

[Blaine78]

And then there's AudioPhool. Someone paying thousands for a power cable falls in that category IMHO.

Rod

true, but if they got the cash and makes em happy, why not. i mean, also silly to spend that kinda money on jewellery.. guess it's where your priorities lay.

[Blaine78]

This kind of discussions gives me a smile each and every time

I'm more of a video kind of guy my self, so I do not have much experience in good sound at all. I had a top of the line Yamaha Receiver once. That's about it! I can not help my self thinking that most of this is purely a placebo effect, and if there is any changes at ALL, it is highly likely to be so small that not even a bio mechanical super ear from 1000 years in the future would hear any difference. But as other have said; if it sounds better to YOU, then fine. Go for it! As long as all of this seemingly "nonsense" changes in MC does not take up to much of the development time, and takes the focus away from other changes that we KNOW will make a huge impact to the better for many.

I think it's good to know that MC is targeted towards Audiophiles as well. That it has some really great sound features. It makes my job of selling it to such people that much easier

it's these suggestions that will bring in the audiophiles, not really a loss, i know it'll help make my decision easier to hand over cash for MC versions.

[Vincent Kars]

Many of the audiophile suggestions are valuable, but some are not.  I don't want to lend our credibility to the ones that aren't.

I agree, in fact I do think that it is often “not”.
But this raises the question why you implemented Memory Playback at all.
I’m afraid for pure opportunistic reasons.
Something quick and dirty allowing you to say “we have memory playback”.

Why is it limited to 256?
I do have tracks in my collection > 256 (modern classical)
Why not make it a user configurable parameter?
Current implementation doesn’t do much, it only eliminates head movements.
Does that improve the credibility in the audiophile community?
In other words, if you go the audiophile way, go all the way.

BTW: I use memory playback simply because my HD is a bit noisy.

http://www.thewelltemperedcomputer.com/SW/Players/MC14/MC14_Memory.htm

[Listener]

This graph shows the difference in jitter level between playback and stopped mode.
Looks like there is a relation between electrical activity of the system and jitter level

I've seen that graph many times in your posts.

I believe that the graph shows output from a DVD player rather than from a computer based device. The clock output in a DVD player may be controlled differently when the player is stopped than when playback is in progress.  (Other devices stop the SPDIF output when playback stops.)  I think that your graph suggests a hypothesis but it doesn't prove anything beyond how that one device works when playback is topped. 

Bill

[Listener]

This suggestion by Blaine78 is one of many in recent days that suggest that JRiver spend development time to pursue something that someone feels might make a difference.

I would hate to see JRiver be turned into a playpen where subjectivists hijack JRiver's development efforts to satisfy their theories about how audio playback works.

Bill

[DarkPenguin]

Sooo....

How is this implemented?  A long wait between tracks for each song to be decoded and crammed into memory?  (So much for gapless.)  Or does it decode the entire playlist and cram it into memory?  Otherwise you're decoding another track while playing the current one.

[DarkPenguin]

I am so going to make some cables that look like that!

[JimH]

I would hate to see JRiver be turned into a playpen where subjectivists hijack JRiver's development efforts to satisfy their theories about how audio playback works.

That won't happen, but all ideas deserve consideration.  If there isn't agreement on the facts involved, the discussion tends to spin out of control.  It can be pretty entertaining at times.

[Sandy B Ridge]

I'm sorry, but I may have misled you on the cable above. It is just over 10% sonically better than I thought. I just checked the dollar price. It comes in at $4457.37!

Kudos to Russ Andrews

http://www.russandrews.com/product-Silver-SuperKord-Signature-SD-II-1564.htm

My learned friend tells me that there is a well used phrase on UK forums about something a bit OTT: 'That's a bit Russ Andrews!'

So no need to build your own DarkPenguin! It'll be in the mail in 4 days.

SBR

[Sandy B Ridge]

Just had a little browse! Cables on the left $70/m, on the right $1600/m!!!!

SBR

Edit: sorry, I'm getting a little carried away and going waaaaay off topic. My humble apologies. I promise it won't happen again!

[Vincent Kars]

$1600/m expensive?



This is from the 2007 Transparent Cables price list.
The number after OMM is the length in feet.
The numbers in the right column the retail price in USD.

Now what about bi-wiring?

[Blaine78]

Sooo....

How is this implemented?  A long wait between tracks for each song to be decoded and crammed into memory?  (So much for gapless.)  Or does it decode the entire playlist and cram it into memory?  Otherwise you're decoding another track while playing the current one.

decompress Flac track into memory. it would work with the pre buffer and memory playback you set in options. if you set your pre buffer to 6 seconds, then the last 6 seconds of the current track played, j river would uncompress the next flac track from your media hard drive and lay it in memory ready to play. decompressing a track would take less than a second, plenty of time before next track to play. it hurts nothing to do this, there would be no change to user operation.

[glynor]

This graph shows the difference in jitter level between playback and stopped mode.
Looks like there is a relation between electrical activity of the system and jitter level

I'm curious about this graph, and ones like it, as well.  How exactly is the scale on the left defined?

Since the standard duration of a second is 9,192,631,770 pulses of radiation from the caesium 133 atom, and a picosecond is one trillionth of a second, it would stand to reason that no truly accurate clocks exist that can resolve time below 1 atomic clock cycle.

Since one picosecond is 0.00919263177 of a single atomic clock cycle, then how is your clock in that application (short of having a bit of caesium 133) capable of resolving timings that low?

[Vincent Kars]

It is probably a frequency sweep but I must admit I don’t know the in en outs of the Audio Precision jitter test suite.
http://ap.com/

As far as I know, in general the clock is generated using a XO and put a voltage on it.
This is not tied to a atomic clock so one could run any frequency one wants.
Good clocks run indeed with an incredible low intrinsic jitter of 2 ps.
http://thewelltemperedcomputer.com/KB/Clock.htm

The funny thing is that although the clock jitter is incredibly low, it is not enough to play 192 kHz at the right sample rate
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?4402-Timing-is-everything

[glynor]

This is not tied to a atomic clock so one could run any frequency one wants.
Good clocks run indeed with an incredible low intrinsic jitter of 2 ps.
http://thewelltemperedcomputer.com/KB/Clock.htm

I'm not a nuclear physicist, just a lowly video editor, so I could totally be wrong, but... Everything I read shows that actually even measuring 1 picosecond (roughly the half-life of a bottom quark, which cannot be directly observed) is a serious engineering challenge.  A single clock cycle of a modern, high-end CPU is several hundred picoseconds, for example.  Apparently there are laser systems in laboratories that can operate on frequencies that high, timed at over 1THz, but it didn't look like (in my brief searching) that the systems used for timings that low were available or practical for consumer use.

Color me skeptical.

[Matt]

thank you anonymous person

That's nevcairiel.  He's one of the brightest minds in digital media.  I have a world of respect for him.

As for the original topic:

JRiver believes, based on our considerable experience, that smooth processing and I/O is better for performance and sound quality.  This means that a burst of processing and I/O to pre-buffer, pre-decode, or whatever is not a good approach if you are looking for the best sonic quality.

And if you believe that FLAC or APE sounds worse than WAV, you are not on the side of science.  If you still believe it, just use WAV.  No feature additions will change your mind.

[BryanC]

The audiophile community is a poison. Please do not let it distract you.

I've seen them ruin numerous online communities in the past (namely myce, cdfreaks, hydrogenaudio circa 2007, foobar forums, abi, doom9).

I've been as disparagingly cordial as possible up until this point, but this nonsense needs to end. It's partially the community's fault (mine included) for entertaining this diatribe over the past few weeks.

[JimH]

I'm thinking about starting a "Speakers' Corner" board here for the threads that launch off into the Great Beyond.

[mark_h]

The audiophile community is a poison.

Nobody else find that comment offensive?

[glynor]

Nobody else find that comment offensive?

I certainly don't find it very helpful or friendly.

[BryanC]

Nobody else find that comment offensive?

Discussing wooden cables and the sound differences between FLAC and WAV is offensive.

[DarkPenguin]

Discussing wooden cables and the sound differences between FLAC and WAV is offensive.

They aren't wooden cables.  They're perfectly normal $4400 cables with wooden doohickeys on them.  They may or may not have sonic properties but I can tell you that since they arrived squirrel attacks on my interconnects have dropped to almost 0.

I don't think this is an offensive conversation but I will say that there should be an obvious deficiency before a solution is requested.

[craigmcg]

I think that a "Speakers Corner" category would be a good thing. I also think that FLAC is not the only thing that could benefit from some decompression. Interact is a friendly place where we can all agree to disagree.

I hope you're all enjoying your weekends,Thanksgiving, beginning of Advent, or not. My wife and  I are celebrating here by watching some great Blu-ray content in our basement home theatre when we're not listening to great FLAC Christmas music through the whole house.

Cheers!

[glynor]

They aren't wooden cables.  They're perfectly normal $4400 cables with wooden doohickeys on them.  They may or may not have sonic properties but I can tell you that since they arrived squirrel attacks on my interconnects have dropped to almost 0.

Now, see... That is helpful.  Squirrel attacks are such a blight for those of us who live way up here in the woods, like me.

If only they had something to help with the bears too...

[JimH]

I think that a "Speakers Corner" category would be a good thing. I also think that FLAC is not the only thing that could benefit from some decompression. Interact is a friendly place where we can all agree to disagree.

I hope you're all enjoying your weekends,Thanksgiving, beginning of Advent, or not. My wife and  I are celebrating here by watching some great Blu-ray content in our basement home theatre when we're not listening to great FLAC Christmas music through the whole house.

Cheers!

Well said.  Thanks.

[Matt]

I've been attacked by a squirrel.

I was hand-feeding a cute little guy some licorice.

Then he climbed my bare arm like a tree. 

I freaked out, shook my arm, and catapulted the squirrel about 50 yards.

I was pretty cut up.

This type of thing is normal in Waseca (the rural farming community I grew up in).

[DarkPenguin]

I've been attacked by a squirrel.

I was hand-feeding a cute little guy some licorice.

Then he climbed my bare arm like a tree. 

I freaked out, shook my arm, and catapulted the squirrel about 50 yards.

I was pretty cut up.

This type of thing is normal in Waseca (the rural farming community I grew up in).

Didn't Fritz have the same thing happen at the U?

[Blaine78]

i still hold to my guns, wav sounds better. if FLAC decompression before sent to memory is not a feature to be added, then i will have to use WAV at the cost of hard drive space.
there is perfect sense in these requests, and there are audible difference on my computer and hifi. my equipment is very sensitive and so are my ears. CPU activity, does have impact. i trust my ears more than science, to ignore that, is just stupid.
The effects are subtle, but enough for me.

[MrHaugen]

I dare you to do that in a blind test on the same equipment Blaine. Have some buddies play wav and flac versions randomly, and then you spot the differences. I'd be more than impressed if you manage to reliably point out the wav playback

[wig]

i still hold to my guns, wav sounds better.

If that's the case, why even mess with flac at all? Hard drive space is ridiculously cheap, it's probably a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of the rest of your kit.