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[pfm555]

How do i have the output process the same as the input. i have tried changing from WASAPI and Direct. WASAPI says (padded) 2 channel using WASAPI (not using  enough bits to output the input directly) for Direct it says using direct sound (not a direct connection)

[wer]

First, you have to establish that your audio device and output supports 32bit audio. Many sound cards support a max of 24bits. If you are outputting over HDMI, that allows a max of 24bits. If you are outputting over USB to a DAC, then the DAC must support 32bit audio.

Check your specs and let us know exactly what equipment you are using and what it supports.

WASAPI is what you should use, not DirectSound.

[pfm555]

thanks for the clarification. i am outputting over hdmi and i will use WASAPI going forward.

Another question , i set up a zone for my music. in configuring the zone and zone switch i set up audio and playlists as the media file types. in dsp studio i have only checked output format and have two channel (stereo) selected and saved . i did this because the audio path was taking the 2 channel audio and converting to 5.1. before creating the zone. Is this zone set up the correct/best way to achieve the audio path to stay two channel from input to output. zone switch is set to play audio and playlists to music zone and not to player. if the zone set up is the correct/best way should i create a video zone for movies or will they play thru player without any need for a video zone.

[wer]

Glad to help.

Don't take offense, but I can tell from your question, and inclusions like "converting to 5.1 before creating the zone" that you do not really understand zones.

My suggestion to you is that you start a new thread titled something like "Help with Zones and Zoneswitch" (that will help other people who are searching) and rephrase your question.

You should explain exactly what you want to accomplish, in terms of music playback, and definitely post screenshots showing how you have configured things so far.  Start from basics.  I'm not sure from your question if zoneswitch is even what you need.  So that's why I say when you rephrase your question, start from basics: don't assume what you've done so far is mostly correct and you just need a small tweak. You might have been going in the wrong direction entirely.

Best to take a fresh look...

[pfm555]

thanks no offense taken. even though i have had JRiver since version 18 i have wondered if i am or have utilized JRiver to its best capabilities. you are correct in that i don't fully understand zones or zoneswitch. i will start a new thread and thanks again.

[David Sydney]

thanks no offense taken. even though i have had JRiver since version 18 i have wondered if i am or have utilized JRiver to its best capabilities. you are correct in that i don't fully understand zones or zoneswitch. i will start a new thread and thanks again.

Hi pfm555. I was going through a similar journey of discovery a couple of months ago trying to get 5.1/7.1 sound out of my PC. Not sure if it helps but experiment also with the bitstreaming setting in Audio settings. It may depend on your connection and setup that may need matching up. Mine works as expected after I lined this up with my SPDIF connection.

[wer]

Pfm555 is outputting via HDMI, which is capable of uncompressed multichannel audio. Bitstreaming would not be appropriate in most use cases with this configuration.

[David Sydney]

Thanks Wer - so then under what cirscumstances is the 'Audio / Bitstreaming / HDMI' option used for, or why does it exist?

[wer]

If you google "jriver bitstreaming" you'll see that questions like that have been asked countless times.  I'll try to give a short, simplified explanation, but do more research there if you want to know more.

Simply put, Bitstreaming lets JRiver output encoded audio without decoding it first.  This would make no sense at all if you're talking about 2-channel PCM, which is what is on a CD.  It only makes sense if you're talking about an encoded format; Dolby Digital or DTS, or Dolby Atmos, would be examples.

Usually it it is best to let MC do the decoding. It then outputs the signal as multi-channel PCM. This requires your connection support that. A TOSLINK or S/PDIF optical connection supports 2-channel audio, period. It cannot transmit multi-channel (more than 2 channel audio).  So formats like DTS exist that take 5.1 channel audio, and mathematically encode it into a 2-channel PCM stream that S/PDIF can physically carry. Then your receiver decodes it back into 5.1 channel audio.

So Bitstreaming sends the encoded data, without decoding it.  Why would you want to do this?  Well, over HDMI, you usually wouldn't, because HDMI can support multichannel PCM audio.  But there are still a couple of cases where you might:
- Dolby Atmos: Only hardware receivers licensed by Dolby can fully decode Atmos with all the object coordinate data; so to get the full Atmos experience, you have to bitstream it.

- Metadata preservation: Other formats, like DTS and DD, contain metadata about the audio stream that some processors can use to better manipulate the signal. (For example, some processors, like Yamaha, use volume metadata to provide very sophisticated volume normalization and dynamic range compression, far superior to what MC does.) Decoding in MC and outputting as PCM would strip and destroy this metadata. Bitstreaming preserves it.  So now your receiver can act on it, but MC cannot. It's a trade-off.

And if you're NOT using HDMI, you would use bitstreaming to send encoded 5.1 audio over an S/PDIF connection.

Atmos and multi-channel over S/PDIF would be the most common use cases by far.

Except for these very specific use cases, it is better to let MC decode the audio. Then you have access to the full MC feature set, like all the audio processing it can do: equalization, room correction, , mixing, effects, etc. MC can do none of those things to a bitstreamed signal.

That's not as simple an answer as I'd hoped, but there is a certain amount of irreducible complexity in the topic.  I hope this helped.