INTERACT FORUM
More => Old Versions => Media Center 16 (Development Ended) => Topic started by: yukibarr on August 15, 2011, 06:27:49 pm
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Hi all. Can someone confirm whether upgrading MC 15 to MC16 will offer any sonic benefits? My OS is Windows 7 64bit
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I wonder whether the lack of reply from any of the moderators means that upgrading to MC16 from MC15 doesn't offer sonic improvement. Am I right?
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You can be the judge:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=62033.0 (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=62033.0)
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You can be the judge:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=62033.0 (http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=62033.0)
Thanks for your reply MrC. The link you provided lists MC16's list of new features. The additional functionality in MC16 is impressive but this isn't what I was asking about. I want to know whether upgrading from MC15 will make my flac stereo music files sound better. I would appreciate a straight answer. Thanks.
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I don't know specifically about Flac, but MrC's linked list includes higer quality mp3 decoding. Also IIRC, there are more DSP features in general, and some have been improved over MC15. I don't remember if room correction was improved over MC15 in MC16 either, but I think it has been tweaked recently.
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Not to sound glib, but this gets towards audiophile issues, and it seems there is a very large pit one may stumble into when attempting to provide definitive answers for another user's subjective and discriminating ears. You can download and try out the trial for free and let your own ears decide. MC continues to push the envelope with quality.
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I would say there is no real way to answer your question. It is subjective, like already mentioned the mp3 decoder was tweaked and is now 64bit float, which on paper makes a difference but if those differences are noticeable will vary from one user to the next. I don't believe anything has changed in the flac decoder though.
I think there's been changes to some of the dsp's but if by sonic improvements you mean the most transparent to the original then you want to setup MC to output bit perfect in which case you don't want to use any dsp effect.
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I am using this small list of main considerations
- Secure rip CDs
To ensure that all the bits are read correctly (the way music are stored on a CD (Redbook format) does not always guarantee that - Store in a lossless format
eg. FLAC format. One cannot argue audiophile if significant amounts of 'audio bits' is thrown away - Where is digital to analog conversion done
In my experience it should be done as close/integrated to the power amplifiers as possible - Connection from pc to power amplifier
If using an s/pdif or digital connection (coax or toslink) the worst enemy is jitter
I choose to upgrade because MC16 supported the wasapi interface in windows 7. This was my chance to bypass as much of windows mixers and drivers as possible.
My biggest audio improvement came when I got rid of the digital connection between my pc and the amplifier. My amplifier and my pc obviously did not use the exactly same frequencies on the s/pdif connection.
There is dlna support in my amplifier and MC16 can stream music over the network and I can be sure that all the bits arrive untouched because there is an protocol (tcp/ip) on the network to insure that. S/pdif is a "hear me if you can" datastream and if the frequencies are the slightest different, a one-bit can become a zero-bit and you get audio distortion as a result.
And where does this fit into your question about to upgrade or not.
In fact most of the audio improvements are outside MC but do it anyway and enjoy all the new exiting stuff, DLNA support, database speed improvements, Theater View and most of all Red October.
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The only technical difference I know of is that MC16 offers 64bit audio stream and processing, while 15 did everything in 32 bit (right?). I cannot answer in general, but for my ears listening to stereo playback, there is no sonic difference between 15 and 16. ASIO transport to my soundcard is the same, the bit perfect rips to flacs are the same, as is the rest of the signal chain (except my ears, who aged 1 year from MC15 to MC16, and which may be of significance...).
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Not to sound glib, but this gets towards audiophile issues, and it seems there is a very large pit one may stumble into when attempting to provide definitive answers for another user's subjective and discriminating ears. You can download and try out the trial for free and let your own ears decide. MC continues to push the envelope with quality.
Unfortunately, I downloaded MC16 and the trial ran out before I had a chance to test it. Is there a way of extending the trial version of MC16 for a few days?
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You could try it on another computer.
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You could try it on another computer.
I've got only one computer connected to my hifi system. I use a PC with specialist low noise psu and a Lynx sound card. installing MC16 on another computer isn't going to enable a useful comparison. I could install MC 15 and 16 on my office computer and listen with a pair of headphones. but the headphones aren't revealing enough to spot any differences between MC15 and MC16
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I've got only one computer connected to my hifi system. I use a PC with specialist low noise psu and a Lynx sound card. installing MC16 on another computer isn't going to enable a useful comparison. I could install MC 15 and 16 on my office computer and listen with a pair of headphones. but the headphones aren't revealing enough to spot any differences between MC15 and MC16
Off topic: What PSU are you using?
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Hi all. Can someone confirm whether upgrading MC 15 to MC16 will offer any sonic benefits? My OS is Windows 7 64bit
I use(d) MC15 and now have upgraded to MC16.
I run it on two computers, primary being used for MC FLAC playback (up to 192khz) Kernel Streaming, Win7 64 USB to W4S DAC-2.
On the above mentioned computer as well as another using simply SPDIF optical to Emotiva DAC (same FLAC library) I noticed zero change in overall sound quality from MC15 to 16.
Now having said that, if one goes to W4S site, it's suggested that setting MC to play from RAM vs off disk, improves the sound quality.
...but at that point we are getting into Audiophile superstitionville in my opinion.
I cannot comment on any other formats, as I use FLAC only either ripped from CD or downloaded from various hi-rez audio sites.