Hi Folks - I'm new to JRiver and computer audio in general and fairly technically challenged, so would really appreciate a couple of pointers on setting up JRiver for optimal sound. Up to date I've always burned the flacs and played them on my CDP, but have decided to go with a computer-based system as a back up and for convenience.
I have downloaded MC 19 to manage a couple of thousand flac files and a handful of sacd-r's on my external hard drive. The flacs are alsmost all 16 bit, but I do have a few 24 bit flacs files. I don't have any mp3's. The computer is wired via ethernet from my router into a Marantz NA7004 I just picked up. The computer/hard drive are on opposite sides of the house from the stereo system. The Marantz is hooked into my tube preamp via analogue rca's and them out to my monoblocks. I downloaded the Marantz app, but its horrible, so am using My River to push the music to my Marantz.
I have the system working, but do not think I've got it set up optimally for best sound. I have searched this forum and the web for a guide on how to properly configure JRiver, but keep seeing references to options I don't see - perhaps from earlier versions. Here are my current settings:
Under Options -> Media Network -> Add or Config DLNA Servers, I'm using a Generic DLNA. My Audio Mode under that same setting is Specified output format and my Audio Format setting is PCM L16 No heading.
Under this same menu, Client Options -> Audio Conversion, my Conversion is set to Don't convert audio and Encoder is set to PCM 16 Bit.
Under Options -> Audio, I kept reading to avoid the default Direct Sound and use Wasapi, but the only options I have are either Default Audio Device (Direct Sound) or Headphones (SigmaTel High Definition Audio CODEC)[WASAPI]. I have it on the Headphones option.
Are these the right settings? Are there other settings I should have impemented? Is there a simple guide somewhere someone can point me to for the best settings - I haven't been able to find one yet and the various wiki pages sometimes don't make sense to me (did I say this is all new to me?)
Finally, I am reading that if I pull from my Marantz, I can experience gapless playback, but pushing from JRiver to the Marantz using My River will leave me with gaps. Does that mean if I play a file that I want to be gapless I'll need to use either the Marantz remote or the Marantz App to pull that particular file.
Again, sorry for all the noobness here. Its been a lifetime of vinyl and cd's for me and I'm struggling to get a minimal grasp on computer audio, but not making a very good show of it, I'm afraid. Thanks in advance for any help.