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Yes

15 (15.5%)

Maybe

23 (23.7%)

No

59 (60.8%)

Total Members Voted: 96

[Mike48]

Hi Jim,

I am very interested in highest-quality audio. YES, I would consider it strongly. I have tried some of the current high-end renderers, and many are annoyingly buggy. Compared to what you propose, they are two, three, or four times the price. It's hard to see why something so relatively simple should cost so much.

For me, the following would be MUSTS:

• Must work with a standard DLNA control point. Of the ones I've tried for Android, BubblePnP has been the best for quite a while.
• Must support gapless playback flawlessly, along with pause and resume, seek within track, etc.
• Must have S/PDIF or AES-EBU digital out at up to 192/24. I would be less inclined to buy something with only USB out, as many excellent older DACs don't accept  USB. Almost no audiophile DACs have HDMI inputs.
• It must be SILENT. No fan, no transformer hum, and so on.
• Must support Ethernet. Wifi is optional.

It would be great to see a true audiophile product at a reasonable price.

Mike

[pcstockton]

HDMI and S/PDIF aren't ideal for DACs. Both have problems with clocking (and jitter). If you are looking for a high quality, well engineered audio solution, you need an interface that has the master clock on the DAC.

There are no absolutes with respect to the best DAC configurations.

http://www.naimaudio.com/sites/default/files/products/downloads/files/naim_dac_august_2009.pdf

I am fine without a USB DAC.  Just fine.

-p

[Samson]

They're also not audiophile quality.

apologies if going over old ground.......for me, a no vote. the devil here is in the word "audiophile" ...I would be expecting something more along a CAPS server design if it is marketed as playing audiophile quality music ( whether rendering or serving music it still has to play audiophile quality). Your audiophiles will want better attention to power (emi noise) isolation and clocking with attention to the implementations for usb and coax/optical spdif (or aes/ebu) digital interfaces. This is not a subjectivist/objectivist debate , just a marketing one. Your videophiles are going to want more grunt for madvr rendering. Maybe pitching it as a bit perfect media player ? But I would rather have a cheaper dlna renderer and tweak any incompatibilities...or just re-purpose an old laptop (with windows)... where audiophile quality is not required.

[Mark Powell]

Yes please. Provided you will ship to the UK (guoted price plus shipping charge) and it will work on UK/Europe/most other places voltage.

A bit is a bit. If it is 'bit perfect' it will be as 'audiophile' as anything else. Don't include a DAC, I will use my existing $12,000 one. Video is not important.

[Samson]

A bit is a bit. If it is 'bit perfect' it will be as 'audiophile' as anything else. Don't include a DAC, I will use my existing $12,000 one. Video is not important.

Ouch ! You can get a bit perfect DAC for around $395 ....only audiophile Dacs cost $12k ;-)

[oldzorki]

HDMI and S/PDIF aren't ideal for DACs. Both have problems with clocking (and jitter). If you are looking for a high quality, well engineered audio solution, you need an interface that has the master clock on the DAC.

I2S probbaly will be ideal out for some high-end DACs.

[davide256]

I don't see a value at that price point... the Oppo 103 is only $100 more and plays discs as well as being a DLNA controller and renderer.

[Samson]

Something along the lines of a Brix pro would be interesting, admitedly more of a server. My undestanding (rightly or wrongly) is that you can not acquire boards with crystal well HD5200 Gt3e Iris Pro integrated graphics. I gather they are soldered onto the board and sold as "trays" to OEM vendors. If JRiver qualified as a vendor it could produce a low powered NUC or small HTPC based on one of these Haswell/crystal wells. The unit could come with MC preinstalled on windows or mac. This would cover most (not all) video needs without the need for a large, noisy, power consuming video card.Optional USB host card could be added for audiophiles.

[Mark Powell]

Ouch ! You can get a bit perfect DAC for around $395 ....only audiophile Dacs cost $12k ;-)

I know. But I try to do my 'audiophile' stuff in the right places  

And that starts at the DAC as you can't do better than 'bit perfect' from the source. Which is why some of these 'unapproved' JRiver plug ins are a waste of money, mentioning no names. Then speakers. Amplifiers (I use Naim) don't matter too much as any half-decent amp will distort much less than the DAC or speakers (the speakers distort most of all). After 35 years in the computer industry I know how computers work, unlike so many 'experts' I see on one particular forum. If they knew how they worked too we would not see all this nonsense about trigger reference level voltage, leading edge slope, linear power supplies, and stuff. Maybe  jitter and clocking is nonsense  too. A decent DAC can deal with all that,  most of which does not occur anyway. The 'experts' all seem to forget that the 0 or the 1 is detected in the middle of the pulse, both vertically and horizontally, so such things don't matter at all.  Such people are not 'experts' in any way. For example 'leading edge slope' doesn't happen on USB as many  of the pulses don't have leading edges anyway due to the NRZI coding USB uses. You don't need a fancy high priced source.

The one thing I won't buy is a DAC that needs the +5 volts from the source for its USB connection. That can inject noise straight into the DAC. Not even my earlier $300 Cambridge Audo Dacmagic needed that but amazingly some of the expensive ones still do.  But my dCS doesn't.

So JRiver's simple box would do me fine  .  JRiver Media Centre is as good as any other software player, maybe better than most, and hopefully this little box will be the same.

[Beamer]

I2S probbaly will be ideal out for some high-end DACs.

Why build something that most members of this forum know how to build themselves of for that matter buy in a fan less case?

The NUC loaded with JRiver is easy to build, be it Windows or Linux. The more specialised job in HARDWARE is getting the audio cleanly to the DAC or converted to analogue within the 'box'.  Since we are reaching for audiophile quality IMHO a high end USB/SPDIF bridge would be needed unless you go the whole hog and include a high end DAC.

Given enough demand ~$400 could might be enough to cover the bridge option!

[Mike48]

I don't see a value at that price point... the Oppo 103 is only $100 more and plays discs as well as being a DLNA controller and renderer.

Well, the Oppo doesn't do gapless rendering, a big problem if you like anything that is produced that way. That would include concert recordings, opera, much classical music, and many "concept" rock albums.

[oldzorki]

Well, the Oppo doesn't do gapless rendering, a big problem if you like anything that is produced that way. That would include concert recordings, opera, much classical music, and many "concept" rock albums.

That is a very good point and so far my biggest disappointment with BDP-105 (there is a workaround by pulling from DLNA or media storage using OPPO interface - but it is not perfect solution). I would consider adding separate streamer-renderer just to solve that, but not at a very high price. My wife also streams a lot of movies (I am in process of digitizing my video library), but OPPO is fine for that.

[JimH]

The name changed to JRiver Id.  Here's a new thread:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=89084.0

[JimH]

The name changed to JRiver Id.  Here's a new thread:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=89084.0

And the Id is shipping now.

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