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[Bjorn]

Any possibility of integrating the streaming service Qobuz? You can stream music in flac and 320 kbps with Qobuz.
http://www.qobuz.com/

[Bjorn]

Bumb 

[abrise]

I also use Qobuz which is probably one of the best audio supplier for classical music. Here is how I integrate it into Jriver18 :
-Select Chromium into Option , Tree and View, Web Browser, Engine
-add a connected media, Name : Qobuz         Url: player.qobuz.com
-Select another Output for the default Windows Output that the one you use for JRiver.
-Select File, Open URL, type live://loopback

Your Qobuz music can then be opened into JRiver and  is using the JRiver DSP studio engine.

[Bjorn]

Thank you abrise.
I actually stopped my subscription a little while ago. Main reason was that I was having problems with the audio settings in the Qobuz player. If I can it it to work in JRiver however, I would consider continue. What from you're writing I understand this is implementing only the browser version. It's limited too 320 kbps. Of course MP3 in 320 kbps are in most cases not audible inferiour to lossless, but I do believe it can be sometimes with a great record and setup.

[abrise]

My own ABX test had shown me that I cannot discriminate a mp3 220kb/s variable bit rate file from a flac file. I have spent a 100 hours or more to make this ABX test ! That is why I am satisfied with a Qobuz basic  subscription at 320kb/s although I have ripped all my cd's in flac and although I would always buy a new album in the flac format.
Anyhow if your purpose is to use JRiver in order to get it's dsp machine for loudspeaker or  room correction for instance you can pass all other application output-including qobuz player- to JRiver using the loopback function as described above.

[Oldu]

I also use Qobuz which is probably one of the best audio supplier for classical music. Here is how I integrate it into Jriver18 :
-Select Chromium into Option , Tree and View, Web Browser, Engine
-add a connected media, Name : Qobuz         Url: player.qobuz.com
-Select another Output for the default Windows Output that the one you use for JRiver.
-Select File, Open URL, type live://loopback

Your Qobuz music can then be opened into JRiver and  is using the JRiver DSP studio engine.

Hello, thank's for the tip ; but I don't understand "select another output ...." and the following. Would you explain it ?
I can use qobuz in JRiver with the pc player, but actually, I would use the stream with a DNLA device .... and it don't work

Thank's

[ragman70]

I also use Qobuz which is probably one of the best audio supplier for classical music. Here is how I integrate it into Jriver18 :
-Select Chromium into Option , Tree and View, Web Browser, Engine
-add a connected media, Name : Qobuz         Url: player.qobuz.com
-Select another Output for the default Windows Output that the one you use for JRiver.
-Select File, Open URL, type live://loopback

Your Qobuz music can then be opened into JRiver and  is using the JRiver DSP studio engine.

Hi,

how to do
-add a connected media, Name : Qobuz         Url: player.qobuz.com

[Arindelle]

Basically you can get it to work as abrise said above.

HOWEVER you cannot use either the jriver engine nor, the most important part, stream in flac -- the reason to use this service personally. If you have a DAC that can show the sample rate you will see that the stream is actually 320kbs

You must be running their desktop player to stream in flac which means also that you can't stream to flac through a portable device like an iPad which frankly sucks too.

Be that as it may, I am working on this from Paris "directly" - let's just say, euh ....,  that there might be a workaround . I'll keep you posted, don't hold your breath until at least January.

[Stopeter44]

Basically you can get it to work as abrise said above.

You must be running their desktop player to stream in flac which means also that you can't stream to flac through a portable device like an iPad which frankly sucks too.

Be that as it may, I am working on this from Paris "directly" - let's just say, euh ....,  that there might be a workaround . I'll keep you posted, don't hold your breath until at least January.

Are you working "Im Haus" (comme dirait nos amis allemands) on this ?

[Arindelle]

Are you working "Im Haus" (comme dirait nos amis allemands) on this ?

"Im Haus"? ist mir völlig unverständlich! Let's just say "motus et bouche cousue" (comme dirait nos potes français) 

[Sheriff1972]

+1 please

[tizul91]

Any possibility of integrating the streaming service Qobuz? You can stream music in flac and 320 kbps with Qobuz.
http://www.qobuz.com/

I would be interested too, with a high sound quality (>= 44,1 Khz, 16bit) of Qobuz within JRiver, whatever the integration mode.
I'm not interested in MP3, even at 320 (a 20  sec listening comparison is enough on my system to make that clear).

Keep up the good work guys   

[busa]

1+

Full integration would be great! Best if it would be controllable trough JRemote  Cool

Thanks!

[Stopeter44]

I would be interested too, with a high sound quality (>= 44,1 Khz, 16bit) of Qobuz within JRiver, whatever the integration mode.
I'm not interested in MP3, even at 320 (a 20  sec listening comparison is enough on my system to make that clear).

Keep up the good work guys   

I just got the Qobuz desktop output to run through JRiver. Sad part is, not sure exactly how I did it.

• Set up Virtual Sound Card as "default" device, and set Qobuz output to it
• Opened URL live://loopback

Qobuz was already playing, but I had no sound.

I then clicked on file > Open Live, and closed it and it started working.

Maybe somebody else will figure out what I did ?

[Stopeter44]

Tried it for an hour, but a bit too much ticks and pops, maybe need to adjust, somewhere ?

[skyrider]

I would like to be able to send the 16/44.1 music stream through my network to my hi-fi system.

Any suggestions please?

Thanks...

[soundgals]

I've just joined; but been using j river for years.

I subscribe to Qobuz flac service and here's how I got it working through j river.

1/ Installed xbmc
2/ Installed the QobuzXBMC add on within XBMC from XBMC.org add-ons.
3/ Set the XBMC audio output device to the PC's built in sound card using the option "Direct Sound SPDIF"  and analog output 2 channel. This output device must be different to the one used by j river.
4/ Set the above output device to be used as the default by windows.
5/ Choose j river's live playback menu item and select the wasapi option.

Open a Qobuz stream from within XBMC using the QobuzXBMC add on.

Your Qobuz stream should now play through j river using the output device you set up in j river.

This has the added bonus of being able to interact with Qobuz using the free remote app for XBMC, available for IOS and android.

I also find this method is more responsive than the Qobuz desktop app, which seems to be bogged down by too many features and publicity.

You will be able to take advantage of j river DSP studio options, such as plug-ins for room correction, the up-sampling features; etc.

To what extent you'll be able to do this will depend on the specs of your PC, obviously, as well as how many DSP features you attempt to use together. If playback becomes unreliable, try backing off on the DSP. For example, if you are up-sampling try doing it at a lower rate if you experience unreliable playback.

This same method can be used for any audio and audio add-ons supported by XBMC, including access to internet radio stations; etc.

Hope it helps!

geoff

[skyrider]

Hi Geoff,

Many thanks for your input.

I tried the XBMC option but had a few problems with it, such as 'script error' messages. Eventually I got it to work, but it seems that I am restricted to streaming via USB or S/PIDF, whereas what I'm really trying to achieve is to feed this through my Ethernet cables to my hifi system.

I have found a way of doing this using the Qobuz app for iPad, simply using the JRiver media server facility. This works pretty well, all the room correction etc. can be achieved through my amp's setup. I agree that the desktop app is a bit clunky!

[soundgals]

That's interesting. I will give your method a try. What I would really like is to use the convert to DSD option in DSP studio; but that doesn't work reliably with my XBMC method.

I guess your ethernet cable output doesn't show up as an audio interface under XBMC - System - Settings?

There is another way of using XBMC and that is to define j river as an external player for XBMC. That way it probably doesn't matter which audio interface is chosen in System - Settings.

So far I only got this to work playing one track at a time; but it did allow me to apply convert to DSD with reliable playback (for that single track).

If anyone has any experience of getting j river to work as an external player for XBMC, I'd be very grateful if they post it hear. If that option could work 100% it would be awesome!

geoff

[skyrider]

That's correct: there is no option to output the audio through the Ethernet connection.

I understand that Qobuz are slowly reaching agreement with various hardware & software manufacturers to include Qobuz in their products: let's hope that JRiver is one of them...

[soundgals]

That would certainly be the optimum solution for Qobuz. I agree!

Geoff

[soundgals]

Hi Skyrider,

Yesterday I suddenly realised where I think you went wrong with your XBMC set-up. In XBMC you don't want the Audio output to be sent to the Audio interface used by J River (The Ethernet output in your case).

You tell XBMC to output direct sound s/pdif to any other audio device. Could be your internal sound card. You set that as the default device for sound output in Windows.

Then you use J River's liveplay(or loopback) feature. This causes J River to grab the audio being sent from XBMC to that default sound card, route it through its audio engine and DSP studio, then output the sound to the audio device you actually want to play through. Again ethernet in your case. You might want to try this again as sending audio from the Qobuz app on your iPad might not be the best solution in the long term. Since I have a lot of large playlists in Qobuz it can be slow.

Having said all that, a better solution by far is to define J River as an external player. You do this by adding an .xml file called playercorefactory. This goes in your userdata folder within users - you - appdata - roaming - XBMC.

Here is my playercorefactory factor file as an example:

<playercorefactory>
<players>
<player name="Media Center 19" type="ExternalPlayer" audio="true" video="false">
<filename>C:\windows\system32\mc19.exe</filename>
<args>"{1}"</args>
<hidexbmc>false</hidexbmc>
<hideconsole>false</hideconsole>
<warpcursor>false</warpcursor>
</player>
</players>
</playercorefactory>

If you try this you might want to indicate that J River is your default player for XBMC in the advanced settings file in the same folder.

This method allows me to use J River's DSP to convert the Qobuz stream to DSD on the fly, which is what I want and couldn't achieve reliably with the loopback method above.

The only problem with this method is that it will only play one track from a playlist at a time. As soon as a track starts to play I get the message "XBMC External Player Active Click OK when playback has ended"

I have to wait until each track has played then click OK and the next track immediately starts to play. Or I click OK if I want to skip straight to the next track in the middle of the track that's playing.

What I want is for an entire playlist or album to continue playing until I tell it to stop. While a track is playing I get no progress indication in XBMC; but that doesn't bother me as I can see the progress in J River MC.

I just want continuous playback of the currently queued Qobuz album or playlist.

Any help anyone can offer on this will be greatly appreciated. I'm sure the problem lies with XBMC though and I have posted this on their forum.

Thanks in advance!

[skyrider]

Hi Geoff,

Wow, this is all getting very technical!

I'm not sure if you are correct about my previous setup, but you could be.

I will give it another go, as per your suggestion, when I have a bit of time to do so. In the meantime, running it from the iPad works well, it's very stable & responsive. But it would probably be nice to cut out the middleman & have the audio outputted directly from the PC to the hifi.

Although this is becoming less of an issue as I may not stick with Qobuz: I'm coming to the end of a free trial of the hifi service & I'm finding that I'm not using it that much. I only use these sites to check out new albums which I'm potentially interested in buying on CD, rather than as a primary source of listening.

I had been considering abandoning my CD player for computer-based music, but so far I have not achieved sufficient sound quality when streaming over USB or Ethernet, but that's another can of worms you don't want to open 

[soundgals]

Sorry if I blinded you with science 

The last thing I would do is give up on Qobuz. I've also ripped all my CD's with EAC or XLD to my hard drive and prefer the error corrected files to a CD player. Especially with the new options in J River to convert standard CD sound to DSD X 2 on the fly. If you don't have a DSD capable DAC, you wouldn't be able to take advantage of this. I have CD players here costing between €3000 and €10000 and though they're all very good, I now prefer computer audio playback.

I just realised though, I haven't a clue how you're streaming from your iPad to J River.

Would you mind explaining it to me in detail?

It'll be a chance for you to get your own back 

[skyrider]

Sounds like you have some nice kit to play with  

I am currently using Cyrus equipment, I suppose the value of the transport + DAC + power supplies is in the region of 5000 Euros. The DAC is the DAC X Signature, I don't know if it supports DSD or not:

http://www.cyrusaudio.com/product/pre-amplifiers/dac-x-signature-1

Pardon my ignorance, but what is the advantage of converting to DSD, or any other format, for that matter? I have always thought that you can't get any more information than there is to start with. In other words, how can you get better than CD quality from the original CD?

Just to clarify what I have been doing with the iPad:

1. When I want to access my (few) music files which currently reside on my PC: launch JRiver on the PC & enable the media server function. Launch the JRemote app on the iPad & select my amp (not the iPad) as the player. In JRemote I can see the media on the PC, so I then select what I want to listen to & bingo, the audio goes through my hifi system.

2. If I want to listen to Qobuz, JRiver is not used. I launch the Qobuz app in the iPad, select the amp as the player as before. Then sign in & choose something to listen to, which then plays through the hifi, not the iPad.

I'm guessing that in each case the music routes through the iPad, then wirelessly to the router, then down the Ethernet cable to the amp, which has a network connection.

EDIT: I think I misled you slightly: although my preferred DAC is the Cyrus, it does not have a network input, so I'm currently networking through a Pioneer AVR which has ESS Sabre DACS. I've just tried playing a DSD file through this AVR, but it will not play, so I guess this one does not support those files.

I have a Cyrus streamer on the way, this will allow me to network through the Cyrus DAC, so will give it another try when the streamer arrives...

 

[soundgals]

Thanks for explaining your method. It wouldn't help me because for both Qobuz and the files on my Hard Drive I want to convert to DSD and here's the reason why:

All digital music requires filtering out unwanted noise which occurs in the higher frequencies. When CD's were first introduced they employed a "brick wall" filter for this, which is as brutal as it's name suggests. The filters are not gentle and the filtration occurs within the range of human hearing. It's what caused people to refer to early CD sound as "glassy". This also reduced the finer details in the upper frequencies, which included the sense of ambience of the recorded space. Gradually the filters got better. By employing up-sampling from the 44.1khz CD rate to as many times that as possible 4x, 8x; etc. gentler filters could be used and the filtration takes place at a level way above the human hearing threshold.

Some of us believe we get better results if the up sampling is done in software rather than the DAC. J River has had the ability to do this in DSP Studio for a long time and can upsample PCM audio to the max your DAC will support.

So you're quite right that information can't be put there that wasn't there in the first place; but some of that information was masked by the filtering. So the filtering is the most important thing.

Now with the ability to convert to DSD on the fly and with a DSD capable DAC, to my ears the filtration performed on the converted DSD file is much better than PCM up-sampled filtration.

Music has a sense of ease and natural flow that I previously only experienced with analogue.

You do need a DSD capable DAC though and neither of your current DACs appear to be.

It's a worthwhile investment I promise you. Several friends have reacted the same way when I compared up sampled PCM with DSD via J River on the same music. My Antelope Zodiac Platinum DAC allows me to do this. The difference is obvious to everyone. One of my friends said the PCM up sampled sounds like an excellent recording; but when converted to DSD it sounds like the instruments themselves, not a recording of them …and you can't get higher praise than that. Do yourself a favour and invest in a DSD capable DAC and try it. There are some affordable ones on the market right now. Just make sure it supports 2 X DSD (DSD128).

geoff

[skyrider]

Thanks for your detailed explanation: I had some understanding of filtering issues, but you've explained it quite well.

I've found that the Pioneer AVR does, in fact, support DSD: I've just converted a WAVE file to DSD, (using JRiver), put it on a USB flash drive & plugged it into the AVR & it works fine. I need to compare it with the WAVE version to see if I can spot the difference. Not sure why it didn't work before, perhaps the iPad didn't like it for some reason. Shame I can't run it through the Cyrus DAC, which I believe to be superior to the Pio.

Anyway, are you saying that, rather than converting the file as I have just done, it is better to have the conversion done when actually playing the original file, either through JRiver or a suitable DAC? Are you sending the Antelope a standard signal & having it do the conversion? That sounds like a mighty beast, a little out of reach at the moment, but it gives me something to aspire to!

 

[soundgals]

I'm not saying it's better to do the conversion while the file is playing; but it's more practical than converting all the files. The result is also so good that I can't see any advantage to converting offline before playing as DSD.

My Antelope DAC accepts the signal as DSD resulting in the real-time conversion from J River. It then further up-samples to DSD256. That is the advantage of this DAC. It improves the sound even further and to my knowledge this is the only DAC in the world currently capable of doing this.

It also supports PCM up to 384khz, so if you find you prefer some music as PCM and other as DSD you have the option, which you wouldn't have with a DSD only DAC. Having said that, I'm preferring all my music converted to DSD right now.

geoff

[skyrider]

I'm glad you said that: converting to DSD makes for some pretty big file sizes!

If I understand you correctly, you have done the following:

1. Ripped your CDs to some sort of format at CD quality,
2. Play these through JRiver, which sends them out in DSD format,
3. Your DAC accepts the DSD files, further upsamples them, then converts to analog...

I'd like to try that with the Pio, through the network: I know how to enable the media server in JRiver,  but can't see how to get JRiver to send the music out in DSD format. Could you point me in the right direction please?

Were you also implying that any upsampling is better than none? (Even if not as good as DSD).

Thanks,

Doug

[soundgals]

Yes, you've understood correctly.

Where you choose your DAC in J River for sound output, there is an option named bistreaming. By default it is set to "none" (recommended). Choose DSD under this. This is only when the selected DAC is DSD capable of course.

The DAC must also be connected by USB and support the DOP option (DSD over PCM). It uses PCM headers to contain the DSD.

Then under DSP Studio "Output Encoding" where it says "none" Choose "DSD over DOP".

There is also a DSD via ASIO option; but none of my DACS seem to support this.

There are arguments for and against upsampling. I think it depends on how the upsampling is done. If you can't get the DSD option to work, you might want to try upsampling the PCM to the highest value your DAC can support. or try power of two upsampling and see which you prefer 2x 88.3, 4x 176.4; etc.

...and imagine how awesome it would be to get this working for Qobuz streams!

[skyrider]

Thanks for that.

As I am sending audio out over the network, (Ethernet), I got redirected to the 'Media Network' section where there are similar options.

Can't really tell what is being output: the display at the top of JRiver MC shows the original format & the DAC/amp are only showing the track title.

Thanks for your advice in general, much appreciated.

Yes, it would be rather good to achieve this with Qobuz!

[soundgals]

You're welcome. I'm not familiar with the Media Network section, I'm afraid. If you still have the DSP studio icon displaying in the top right hand corner, if you click on this it should tell you what J River is sending out.

geoff

[skyrider]

It says "not using JRiver audio engine'!

[soundgals]

Then it can't be converting to DSD 

[skyrider]

I guess not; I was afraid of that 

Never mind, I will try some other options...

[yetirider]

Sounds like you have some nice kit to play with  

2. If I want to listen to Qobuz, JRiver is not used. I launch the Qobuz app in the iPad, select the amp as the player as before. Then sign in & choose something to listen to, which then plays through the hifi, not the iPad.

How are you doing this?
I can see any options on the iPad app to select the source......

Many Thanks Phil

[skyrider]

Hi Phil,

I've since cancelled my subscription to Qobuz, so I am unable to verify the exact steps; however, from memory, I think you need a paid-up subscription, plus, of course, the app itself.

I then had my AVR connected to my network, with the 'network' input selected on the AVR. When I ran the Qobuz app on the iPad, I could choose the player (iPad/AVR) from the preferences icon at bottom left of the app. Can't say for sure, but I might also have been able to choose the AVR as the player from the Qobuz PC desktop app.

I was able to do the same thing with Napster when I had the unlimited subscription. But now I only have a basic subscription I can only play it through my PC.

Sorry to be a bit vague, but it did work for me.