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[jros]

Hello,

I am trying out JRiver MC, and having problems playing back DSD files which I compressed with WavPack. They play very slowly, and the pitch is lowered accordingly. On top of that, there's a lot of hiss being added to the sound. I have the DSD bitstreaming mode enabled.
Basically, I'm having the exact same problem as this user posted: https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,116193.msg803045.html . Unfortunately, in contrast to that user I AM using a Windows build, and these files do not play back fine in my case.
I have used wvunpack.exe to extract a WavPack DSD file back to a DSF file, and the DSF works well. It plays back normally. Furthermore, if I enable output encoding into DSD, thereby converting all output to DSD, my DAC receives everything as DSD and plays it back normally, except the Wavpack files. These are still distorted, but at least it's clear that JRiver can work with DSD and my DAC can decode it. A regular PCM Wavpack file always plays back normally: no problems there.

So, in short:
DSD WavPack file output as 352.8 kHz PCM stream: works.
Regular flac/mp3/m4a/whatever output as PCM stream: works.
PCM WavPack file output as PCM stream: works.
With DSD bitstreaming enabled, DSF file output as DSD stream: works (DAC receives DSD).
With DSD bitstreaming enabled, playing back regular PCM files: works (DAC receives PCM).
With DSD bitstreaming enabled, and output encoding to DSD stream enabled, playing back flac/mp3/PCM WavPack/etc.: works (DAC receives DSD).
With DSD bitstreaming enabled, playing back a DSD WavPack file as DSD stream: does not work.
With DSD bitstreaming enabled, and output encoding to DSD stream enabled, playing back a DSD WavPack file as DSD stream: does not work. (as expected)
Conclusion: there must be a bug in JRiver's WavPack decoder.

Also, the WavPack DSD files work as intended in foobar2000, both when using a PCM output or a DSD output to the DAC. The fact that I can succesfully extract the WavPack file back to DSF, which then plays normally, further proves that the files are not corrupted.

JRiver version: 24.0.75
OS: Windows 10 1809
DAC: Grace Design m9xx (DSD capable. WASAPI or ASIO mode does not matter: problem is the same. Latest official XMOS driver installed.)

According to this thread this should have been working since version 23.

By the way, I have also noticed that JRiver does not read WavPack's APEv2 tags correctly. Only ARTIST, TITLE, ALBUM and ALBUM ARTIST are read correctly as far as I can tell. TRACKNUMBER and TOTALTRACKS are ignored, and DATE is interpreted in a strange way. For example, a track that has DATE set to 1999, JRiver shows in the playlist column as 1905-06-21. In the sidebar, the date is shown erroneously under "General", but under "Tag Dump" everything is shown normally. Tag Dump also shows TRACKNUMBER and TOTALTRACKS, yet their values aren't displayed in their respective playlist columns. These tags were set by foobar2000, and wvtag.exe correctly displays what was set in foobar2000. Once again, I don't think the files are at fault here.

Are there any solutions to these problems available? Or are these problems known and being fixed? Many thanks in advance for any assistance!
Unfortunately JRiver Media Center is unusable in the current state. I really want to like it, especially because it would allow me to use it on both Windows and Linux!

[Matt]

Do you have non-Wavpack DSD files you could test?  It's possible there's just a problem bitstreaming in your system for some reason.

Because you said playing as PCM is working properly.  That sort of means we are decoding the file right.

Thanks.

[jros]

Yes, I extracted one of the WavPack files back to a DSF file. That file worked normally. The bitstreaming works. All means other than WavPack of playing DSD seem to work. The DSD WavPack file can be decoded to PCM, but something goes wrong when the DSD file is decompressed and that decompressed stream sent to the DAC.

[Matt]

Would you be willing to email me one of the files to test?  I'm matt at jriver.

Or upload to Dropbox or similar and send me the invitation.

We can try here and see if we can reproduce.  Since it works as PCM and not bitstreaming, hopefully we can test that exact thing.

Thanks.

[jros]

I have sent a file via wetransfer. I hope I interpreted your email address correctly. Please keep me posted.

[Matt]

Thank you for the file!

I reproduced and fixed the issue.

It's a little bit of a mystery why we were dividing the sample rate by two for DoP playback, but I've removed it and playback is then correct.  We'll just see if anything new falls out.

Thanks again.

[jros]

That's great to hear! Thank you very much.

Perhaps, while you're at it, you could also take a look at the tagging issue I also mentioned in the original post..?  The same test file should show you immediately what I mean, if you put it in a standard playlist and look in the Date and Track # columns.

[Matt]

That's great to hear! Thank you very much.

Perhaps, while you're at it, you could also take a look at the tagging issue I also mentioned in the original post..?  The same test file should show you immediately what I mean, if you put it in a standard playlist and look in the Date and Track # columns.

I've fixed the track number and date as well.  Thanks!