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[phusis]

A friend of mine uses JRiver MC16 for 2-channel music playback only, and asked me whether upgrading to MC18 would bring with it any noticable improvement in 2-channel sound quality? If not he saw no reason to pay for an upgrade.

In the same token I'd ask(even though I've upgraded to MC18 already): will the MC18 upgrade - either upon its imminent release or later in the developement process - bring with it any initiatives that will improve upon 2-channel music playback sound quality compared to MC17?

[Matt]

A friend of mine uses JRiver MC16 for 2-channel music playback only, and asked me whether upgrading to MC18 would bring with it any noticable improvement in 2-channel sound quality? If not he saw no reason to pay for an upgrade.

In the same token I'd ask(even though I've upgraded to MC18 already): will the MC18 upgrade - either upon its imminent release or later in the developement process - bring with it any initiatives that will improve upon 2-channel music playback sound quality compared to MC17?

I could answer better if you could describe the specific improvements you're looking for.

In general, each new version runs faster, looks better, is easier to use and control, networks better, supports more formats, improves DSP support, etc.

For me, all of these things come together to help me enjoy my media.

With that said, even v1 played music.  So I suppose it comes down to a personal decision.

For what it's worth, I sincerely appreciate everyone that does support development by upgrading.  Thanks to all of you.

[GrowlHowell]

Really looking forward to the new version, guys!

[Trumpetguy]

I could answer better if you could describe the specific improvements you're looking for.

In general, each new version runs faster, looks better, is easier to use and control, networks better, supports more formats, improves DSP support, etc.

For me, all of these things come together to help me enjoy my media.

With that said, even v1 played music.  So I suppose it comes down to a personal decision.

For what it's worth, I sincerely appreciate everyone that does support development by upgrading.  Thanks to all of you.

You could mention 64bit signal path :-)

[phusis]

I could answer better if you could describe the specific improvements you're looking for.

In general, each new version runs faster, looks better, is easier to use and control, networks better, supports more formats, improves DSP support, etc.

For me, all of these things come together to help me enjoy my media.

With that said, even v1 played music.  So I suppose it comes down to a personal decision.

For what it's worth, I sincerely appreciate everyone that does support development by upgrading.  Thanks to all of you.

I believe I've stated quite specifically what I'm hoping could be improved upon even further: raw 2-channel sound quality. I wish I could pinpoint in detail the areas needed to be looked at to achieve this goal, but sadly I'm not a software developer; you guys are.

For what it's worth though: some have mentioned that the potential of memory playback has yet to be fully attained by JRiver, and that this could be at least partially achieved via larger file size allocations(i.e.: whole albums). I know this has been a hotly debated topic, and likely still is, both on a purely theoretical/measurement level and with regard to theory vs. listening impressions(where many other factors than file size allocation may "come into play"). My interest is what is actually audible..

Possibly even more important would be isolating, somehow, the JRiver programme more or less completely from most of the activities on ones (HT)PC, perhaps via a feature that "kills-off" any or most of the Windows/Mac activities except JRiver MC itself. I firmly believe this would make a heck of a difference in providing even better sound quality, and I'm guessing it's the sole most important aspect to attain this - at least in view of the quality level of JRiver playback as is.

From my point of view some of the discussions on sound quality, and how to improve on it, has not only bordered on arrogance and stubbornness on the side of some of the developers and meta-testers, to the point even where any discussion on this topic seems blacklisted. That's unfortunate. For a mostly "meat and potatoes" user of the JRiver application like myself where 2-channel sound and picture quality over my main audio/video setup is paramount, improvements in these core areas is what I'm looking for the most - not that all the other developements/features/improvements are not appreciated.

To sum up: with regard to image quality via Blu-ray playback, I couldn't put a finger on it(though admittedly I'm less the videophile than audiophile). 2-channel Blu-ray sound, when downmixed(i.e.: not PCM or other lossless 2.0), I still got the occasional clipping at max source level on some discs(maybe there're some settings I'm not applying properly), but other than that the 2-channel downmix quality is very satisfying - also in retaining the full bitdepth and sample rate(where TotalMediaTheatre's dts.dll file is used, which it is in my case). 2-channel sound quality via music playback is extremely good, though I've heard two other applications that improves upon JRiver here - and they share being rather simple/small programmes with a lot of attention paid on making the Windows platform less influential, as well as having a keen eye on the importance of memory(RAM) playback.  

Thanks for a great programme which I've enjoyed immensely for some years now. I'm looking forward to MC18!

[MetalHOE]

I believe I've stated quite specifically what I'm hoping could be improved upon even further: raw 2-channel sound quality. I wish I could pinpoint in detail the areas needed to be looked at to achieve this goal, but sadly I'm not a software developer; you guys are.

For what it's worth though: some have mentioned that the potential of memory playback has yet to be fully attained by JRiver, and that this could be at least partially achieved via larger file size allocations(i.e.: whole albums). I know this has been a hotly debated topic, and likely still is, both on a purely theoretical/measurement level and with regard to theory vs. listening impressions(where many other factors than file size allocation may "come into play"). My interest is what is actually audible..

Possibly even more important would be isolating, somehow, the JRiver programme more or less completely from most of the activities on ones (HT)PC, perhaps via a feature that "kills-off" any or most of the Windows/Mac activities except JRiver MC itself. I firmly believe this would make a heck of a difference in providing even better sound quality, and I'm guessing it's the sole most important aspect to attain this - at least in view of the quality level of JRiver playback as is.

From my point of view some of the discussions on sound quality, and how to improve on it, has not only bordered on arrogance and stubbornness on the side of some of the developers and meta-testers, to the point even where any discussion on this topic seems blacklisted. That's unfortunate. For a mostly "meat and potatoes" user of the JRiver application like myself where 2-channel sound and picture quality over my main audio/video setup is paramount, improvements in these core areas is what I'm looking for the most - not that all the other developements/features/improvements are not appreciated.

To sum up: with regard to image quality via Blu-ray playback, I couldn't put a finger on it(though admittedly I'm less the videophile than audiophile). 2-channel Blu-ray sound, when downmixed(i.e.: not PCM or other lossless 2.0), I still got the occasional clipping at max source level on some discs(maybe there're some settings I'm not applying properly), but other than that the 2-channel downmix quality is very satisfying - also in retaining the full bitdepth and sample rate(where TotalMediaTheatre's dts.dll file is used, which it is in my case). 2-channel sound quality via music playback is extremely good, though I've heard two other applications that improves upon JRiver here - and they share being rather simple/small programmes with a lot of attention paid on making the Windows platform less influential, as well as having a keen eye on the importance of memory(RAM) playback.  

Thanks for a great programme which I've enjoyed immensely for some years now. I'm looking forward to MC18!

 -  +1 for raw 2-channel sound quality TOGETHER with great DSP support (even better than now)! :-)
 -  +1 for more memory playback options (whole albums or size of memory reserved for JRiver exclusively)
 -  Isolating is not an issue since "Fidelizer" exists -> just use it in "Audiophile" mode and you are (almost) perfectly set with your PC for great clean playback.

 -  What about to add info about each of used VST plugin when tweaking in DSP manager? It would be useful to be sure which supports 64bit and which works in 16/32bit only...
 -  DSP profiles according to genre or file-type is an absolutely great feature!
 -  It would be nice to have an option to add Artists/Bands images and then to have a special kind of view profile where only those images are displayed instead of album covers of those artists so you can scroll down and choose which are you going to play now :-) ... Or even better, it would be nice to even see the artist's/band's image as well when listing all OR every single album made by them... OR EVEN BETTER, those artists image could be loaded in a slideshow from internet as it works in Theater mode, that would be lovely!!!

[MetalHOE]

*double post

[phusis]

-  +1 for raw 2-channel sound quality TOGETHER with great DSP support (even better than now)! :-)
 -  +1 for more memory playback options (whole albums or size of memory reserved for JRiver exclusively)
-  Isolating is not an issue since "Fidelizer" exists -> just use it in "Audiophile" mode and you are (almost) perfectly set with your PC for great clean playback.

 -  What about to add info about each of used VST plugin when tweaking in DSP manager? It would be useful to be sure which supports 64bit and which works in 16/32bit only...
 -  DSP profiles according to genre or file-type is an absolutely great feature!
 -  It would be nice to have an option to add Artists/Bands images and then to have a special kind of view profile where only those images are displayed instead of album covers of those artists so you can scroll down and choose which are you going to play now :-) ... Or even better, it would be nice to even see the artist's/band's image as well when listing all OR every single album made by them...

MetalHOE --

Great, thanks for letting me know about Fidelizer!   Anything particular I should know about using/installing Fidelizer, apart from using it in "Audiophile" mode?

[JimH]

Please don't start up a new thread about the long list of possible computer tweaks that "improve" the sound.  

We take audio quality extremely seriously, and we constantly work to improve it, but there is a lot of mis-information passed around in this area.  You may think we're being stubborn if we don't go chasing the latest speculative "improvement".  To do so would be to abandon our knowledge of computing as well as our integrity integrity.

Hydrogenaudio.org would be a good place to discuss these.  You will have to prove any claims you make.

Closing this now.

[Matt]

[I posted at the same time as Jim, so this is a bit redudant.  I'll let it sit anyway.]

From my point of view some of the discussions on sound quality, and how to improve on it, has not only bordered on arrogance and stubbornness on the side of some of the developers and meta-testers, to the point even where any discussion on this topic seems blacklisted.

We're completely dedicated to providing the best sound quality.

But we also owe it to our users to focus on things that really make a difference, and not try to sell them things that don't.

2-channel Blu-ray sound, when downmixed(i.e.: not PCM or other lossless 2.0), I still got the occasional clipping at max source level on some discs(maybe there're some settings I'm not applying properly)

To downmix in such a way that there's no chance of a perfect storm clipping requires way too low of a volume for most equipment.  So the level is a compromise, tuned from real world testing and user feedback.

But there's a simple solution with good hardware: use Internal Volume.  It gives you extra internal headroom to avoid clipping during those 'perfect storm' type mixing conditions:
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Volume#Internal_Volume_Headroom