I think you're reporting three problems:
1) Buffering / performance issues
2) Room Correction not redirecting bass
3) JRSS distortion
Let's focus on #1 first.
What is your JRMark (Help > Benchmark)?
Does adjusting ASIO settings / buffering in Options > Audio > Output mode settings... help?
Are you playing from a slow source, like a NAS? What if you try from the C:\ drive?
Like I said in my post, the buffering/performance issue seems to get corrected after restarting MC17, but it would be great if we can find a fix so it never happens.
When I first noticed the problem, I was playing a track from Miles Davis - Bitches Brew. This is a quadraphonic recording, ripped from a DVD-A and converted to a 4-channel FLAC. The bitrate of this track is about 6000. While I type this message, I am playing the 1st track and it is performing poorly. Lots of buffering, etc. After I let it play for about 30 seconds, it seems to play without all the buffering, but it took a long time for it to settle down.
My benchmarks:
=== Running Benchmarks (please do not interrupt) ===
Running 'Math' benchmark...
Single-threaded integer math... 4.477 seconds
Single-threaded floating point math... 2.652 seconds
Multi-threaded integer math... 2.278 seconds
Multi-threaded mixed math... 1.448 seconds
Score: 1750
Running 'Image' benchmark...
Image creation / destruction... 2.164 seconds
Flood filling... 1.180 seconds
Direct copying... 3.154 seconds
Small renders... 3.152 seconds
Bilinear rendering... 1.890 seconds
Bicubic rendering... 1.725 seconds
Score: 1659
Running 'Database' benchmark...
Create database... 0.826 seconds
Populate database... 3.603 seconds
Save database... 1.256 seconds
Reload database... 0.195 seconds
Search database... 2.358 seconds
Sort database... 1.825 seconds
Group database... 1.058 seconds
Score: 1934
JRMark (version 17.0.68): 1781
I tried adjusting the ASIO settings and it doesn't make a difference when I increase the buffering length. The exact same settings don't cause any unusual buffering with MC15.
All of my media is stored on a media server (an unRaid server). I have your basic gigabit network (Asus gigabit router, Netgear gigabit switches, etc.). I haven't had any performance problems over the network, including playing recorded HDTV, DVDs, Blu-rays and any music tracks using JRMC15, W7 Media Center, foobar2000, MPC Home Cinema, etc. I have an HDHomeRun and HDHormeRun Prime and am able to watch and record several HDTV programs simultaneously to different computers on the network. The drives on my unRaid server spin down after a period of inactivity, so they may have just spun up when I started playing the 1st track. However, I've never noticed this performance problem with MC15.