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Author Topic: Mac Audio Midi sets bit rate, JRiver Media Center sets sample rate?  (Read 3374 times)

Daverich4

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I'm have two Macs with El Capitan running JRiver Media Center. The DAC connected to one of them doesn't have any display at all and the DAC connected to the second one has a display so small you have to get right up to it to see what it says. For that reason I don't normally know what file is actually getting to the DAC. Recently I happened to have Audio Midi Setup open while playing a 24/96 aif file and noticed that it said it was 16/96. I double checked on the DAC with the display and it said the same thing. With a little experimentation I discovered that all of my files are playing at the bit depth set in Audio Midi regardless of what bit depth the file actually is. That is, if Audio Midi is set to 24 bit my 16/44 cd rips play as if they were 24/44 files. The frequency plays as whatever is correct for the file and it automatically changes in Audio Midi depending on what is being played without any intervention on my part. Is this correct? I've tried with exclusive access checked and not checked and it doesn't seem to make a difference. It's not a big deal as I could just set Audio Midi to 24 bit and be done with it but my preference would be to have the files play at their native resolution. I haven't found anything similar searching the forum so i suspect I've boogered up a setting somewhere or it's also possible my impression that JRiver Media Center overrides the Audio Midi Settings is not correct. Has anyone else run into this? Thanks.
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RunHomeSlow

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Re: Mac Audio Midi sets bit rate, JRiver Media Center sets sample rate?
« Reply #1 on: April 25, 2016, 03:33:14 pm »

Hello,  your DAC is probably 24bits...
mine is 32/384 and if i set JRiver to do nothing to 16/44 files it will go out of DAC at 32/44...
files at 24/96 native, will go out at 32/96...
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Daverich4

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Re: Mac Audio Midi sets bit rate, JRiver Media Center sets sample rate?
« Reply #2 on: April 25, 2016, 04:15:59 pm »

Hello,  your DAC is probably 24bits...
mine is 32/384 and if i set JRiver to do nothing to 16/44 files it will go out of DAC at 32/44...
files at 24/96 native, will go out at 32/96...

Thanks for the reply but when I play my music from other software the DAC's output whatever is sent to them as it is sent. Apparently other programs don't use the Audio Midi settings at all. With JRiver however, if I set Audio Midi to 16 bit, that is how all files play, even if they're actually 24 bit files. If I set it to 24 bit, that is how all files play, even if they're actually 16 bit files. I don't think that's how it's supposed to work.
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blgentry

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Re: Mac Audio Midi sets bit rate, JRiver Media Center sets sample rate?
« Reply #3 on: April 25, 2016, 04:25:18 pm »

I just did a few short experiments.  You appear to be correct.

I recommend that you set Audio MIDI to 24bit and just leave it there.  If your DAC is 24 bit internally, then sending it 16 bit data means that the DAC is going to add 8 zeros to the end of every 16 bit sample.  Guess what JRiver does when it sends 16 bit audio to Audio MIDI set at 24 bit?  It adds 8 zeros.  So your 16 bit audio is going to end up zero padded in either case.

Brian.
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Daverich4

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Re: Mac Audio Midi sets bit rate, JRiver Media Center sets sample rate?
« Reply #4 on: April 25, 2016, 04:44:14 pm »

I just did a few short experiments.  You appear to be correct.

I recommend that you set Audio MIDI to 24bit and just leave it there.  If your DAC is 24 bit internally, then sending it 16 bit data means that the DAC is going to add 8 zeros to the end of every 16 bit sample.  Guess what JRiver does when it sends 16 bit audio to Audio MIDI set at 24 bit?  It adds 8 zeros.  So your 16 bit audio is going to end up zero padded in either case.

Brian.

Hey Brian, thanks for the response. 24 bit it is then. Once again, I appreciate your help.
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