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[Cazzesman]

Hi all,   Just getting into the whole HiRez audio via the PC road and of course I am looking strongly at JRiver to drive the bus.    Who wouldn't :-)

Here is what I have at the moment

Windows 7
Motherboard EX58-UD3R
CPU i7 - 920@2.67ghz
3 x 2gb RAM
2 x 600gb HDD
Nividia Geforce GTX260
Realtek HD Audio 7.1    It handles everything up to 24/192

http://www.realtek.com.tw/products/productsView.aspx?Langid=1&PFid=28&Level=5&Conn=4&ProdID=135

Generally I listen to all music in Stereo 'Direct' mode.   I have L, R and Centre speakers but the Centre is for TV/Movie/Divx viewing or DTS Music videos from time to time.  

I use a hard wired Popcorn Hour 110 (No hard drive) to get any format of video from the PC to the TV & Amp.    The Popcorn will play audio but I use the Toslink direct to the Amp.
 
I currently run a toslink (Non glass) 10 metres from the PC to the Yamaha RX-v1900 HT 6.1 that I use as a preamp for a 5 Ch power amp (140 x 5)      The Yamaha is fitted with the 24/192 Burr-Brown PCM-1791 DAC's

At the moment I use Cowon MC (99%) or VLC to play any audio via the toslink.    300 gig of Digital music is 80% 16/44.1 flac with some 24/96 flac stuff.  

So having set the scene here are my questions.  Bare with me if I am confused here because 2 weeks of research has my head spinning ;-P

If I instal JRiver and set it up to run bit perfect it is best if I use ASIO or WASAPI Event.  By setting either of these I take it the audio data will bypass the PC DAC and Realtek HD Audio and head straight down the toslink to the Yamaha amp where the Amps DAC's with do their thing and give me sound.  

Do I have this right?

If the answer is Yes, then if I get a CI Audio VDA2 dac (In the future) the audio data will go direct, bit perfect, to the VDA2 via the toslink and then on to Nirvana.    For argument sake I'm not going down the USB/DAC route just yet.  

My aim is simply to get the audio data in its purest form to the Amps DAC's at this stage.

Thanks for any help you can give.

Regards Cazzesman


.  
 

[Matt]

It sounds to me like you've got your head around it pretty well.

If you do S/PDIF output, you'll use the DAC in your receiver.

The one downside to S/PDIF is that it's not well suited for sending 5.1 / 7.1.  You can do it, but you have to encode as Dolby Digital.  So if 5.1/7.1 is in your future, you might explore HDMI or high-quality analog connections.

[Cazzesman]

Thanks for the prompt reply Matt.    Now the dam has burst  

Re the WASAPI - Event Style

Wiki states :

    * It lets the audio subsystem pull data (when events are set) instead of pushing data to the system.

I take it in my system that would refers to the Realtek sound card doing the 'pulling' before sending it to the toslink and on to the Yamaha Amp Dac's?

Also where do I find out if my current system is running ASIO drivers.   I search through the control panel but nothing jumps out.

Regards Cazzesman

[JimH]

Any ASIO driver should have come with your equipment.  You could check with the manufacturer.

[craigmcg]

It looks like you are using the onboard audio on your motherboard. I did a quick google (ALC 888 and ASIO) and it looks like the best option is to use ASIO4All if you want to use ASIO instead of WASAPI event style.

Craig

[Cazzesman]

I have downloaded MC 16 and so far so good.  Wasapi Event is working through my PC speakers so I guess that is a start.       I will play some more tomorrow with the toslink to the Home stereo.. 1/2 past midnight here in Oz so going to bed.   Thanks for the reply's folks.

Regards Cazzesman

PS. On first impressions it looks/sounds COOL 

[Matt]

With onboard sound, use WASAPI (event style if it works).  ASIO4All is not recommended.  More here:
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Audio_Output_Modes

We recommend v17 over v16.

[mbagge]

Having read your impressive specs on your hardware, I guess you really want to have the music/bits arrive at your Yamaha's DAC as untouched as possible from all the drivers, electrical/optical converters and DSP's that sits between your flac files and your Yamaha.

What I am trying to say is that I think that a 'weak' link is your s/pdif-toslink connection.
The toslink output in your PC is controlled by the Realtek chip and that is probably not a bad thing. You write that the audio data will bypass the Realtek HD, I think not.

You might consider to give Matt's advice on trying the HDMI connection a chance. Although this output also is controlled by the Realtek chip and that might not be bad either, I think chances to have your audio bits travel 10m through an HDMI connection might generate less jitter than it does in the toslink.
To my knowledge you only want to use toslink connections if you want to electrically isolate devices.

Taking into consideration that the s/pdif is as old as the cdrom drive and is a crude and unforgiving way of transporting our audio bits, we should be extremely carefull when using this. It has no error correction at all and the receiving end has to guess the frequency the sender is using, not to mention what is happening in the coax/optical cables.

Did you try to stream the audio with dlna to the Popcorn and go s/pdif from there to the Yamaha ? Does the sound get better/worse ? (I am trying to shorten the cable length).

Maybe the route to Nirvana has to pass through usb. 


I wish you many satisfying hours listening to all your favorite music.

[JimH]

What I am trying to say is that I think that a 'weak' link is your s/pdif-toslink connection.
The toslink output in your PC is controlled by the Realtek chip and that is probably not a bad thing. You write that the audio data will bypass the Realtek HD, I think not.

You might consider to give Matt's advice on trying the HDMI connection a chance. Although this output also is controlled by the Realtek chip and that might not be bad either, I think chances to have your audio bits travel 10m through an HDMI connection might generate less jitter than it does in the toslink.
To my knowledge you only want to use toslink connections if you want to electrically isolate devices.

Taking into consideration that the s/pdif is as old as the cdrom drive and is a crude and unforgiving way of transporting our audio bits, we should be extremely carefull when using this.

I agree that HDMI would be better, but S/PDIF should be fine, too.

I wouldn't introduce DLNA unless there's a good reason.

[Cazzesman]

Hi folks and thanks for the interest mbagge.   So far so good.  Had a quick play this afternoon sending 0 and 1's to the Yamaha Amp.   No love with the Wasapi Event but the Wasapi appears to be working fine.    Playing some 24/41.1, 24/96 and 24/192 and all bought a smile to my face.   

Each time I played a track with a different sample rate the sample rate on the Yamaha menu screen displaying the signal info changed right along.   I adjusted the various settings on the realtek HD audio while the songs were playing and it had no effect at all so I can only presume I am bypassing it all for the most part.    Some 'Porcupine Tree' Blackest Eyes at 24/192 nailed me to the wall 

I have a 10 metre HDMI cable so I was going to have a play over the weekend.   Now that I know the simple things work well I have a base to work from.  If the HDMI goes well then the Popcorn hour might get relegated.    Certainly the MC playback for the video files I have look grand on the 1080p PC monitor I use. 

mbagge in relation to the dlna and the short cable via the popcorn I see where you are coming from.   It is all worth a try and try I will.    The Plan is to work up to various changes and tweaks.    History has shown me that if I go to hard to early the money isn't spent as wisely as it could have been.       

1st step was to get the HiRez Audio data cleanly and simply to the Amp Dac's.  (Thanks MC for that easy step)
2nd step is a quality Dac (CI Audio DVA2 (Non usb) to start with.  Then maybe an Audiophilleo2 USB-SPDIF transport between PC and DAC. 
3rd step is probably a media server if finances permit.

In relation to starting with version 16 or 17, I chose the trial of 16 because it was obviously done and dusted and working fine.   Once I get my head into the nitty gritty of how I can fine tune stuff I will see about advancing to JR17 when it comes to $ day.    Seems a bargain to me so far and I have only had it 5 minutes.

Thanks again to all who have shown a very prompt and informative response to my first few posts.

Regards Cazzesman

 

[SamuelMaki]

With onboard sound, use WASAPI (event style if it works).  ASIO4All is not recommended.  More here:
http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Audio_Output_Modes

We recommend v17 over v16.

I use ASIO4ALL (instead of event style WASAPI) because I could not get my CD´s play 5.1/44.1khz. When using WASAPI I needed to upsample audio to 48/96/192khz to get "surround" sound work with audio CD´s... With ASIO4ALL I can get 44.1khz and 5.1 playback at the same time...

Is there any reason to use upsampling+WASAPI instead of orginal frequency+ASIO4ALL? I have thought that WASAPI and ASIO(4ALL) are "lossless" methods (like .ape vs .flac?) and should not do any harm to output quality. I use HDMI connection throught radeon mobility 5650 to my receiver (yamaha rx-v3900)...

[jesseinsf]

I agree that HDMI would be better, but S/PDIF should be fine, too.

I wouldn't introduce DLNA unless there's a good reason.

HDMI that is not a part of the video card (Unless there is a sound card connection on the Video card) can not have a sample rate higher than 48Khz. No issue as I understand if the audio comes from the sound card to the Vid card's HDMI output.