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[Foxman50]

I was wondering if there are any audio plugins for JRiver on Mac to improve audio performance. I'm led to believe that JRiver uses the internal Mac Core Audio, and that this is left wanting compared with some others.

I have just tried iTunes with Pure Music and it seems to have a different sound, good or bad can't say as the interface is not for me so gave up with that.

Anyway i would like to try some options if anyone knows what they may be.

Graeme

[blgentry]

I was wondering if there are any audio plugins for JRiver on Mac to improve audio performance. I'm led to believe that JRiver uses the internal Mac Core Audio, and that this is left wanting compared with some others

I'm not sure what others are "wanting" from JRiver's sound that it doesn't have.  JRiver is considered to be one of the best sounding players around by many.  I've seen a comparison a while back of JRiver on PC versus JRiver on Mac and the sound was measured to be identical.  They did this by capturing the output of each system and digitally comparing the two.  The results were identical.  Listening tests also confirmed that there was no audible difference.

Here's JRiver's blurb on it's "audiophile features":

http://www.jriver.com/audiophile.html

To me, the most important of these are:

64 bit processing internally.  This means that JRiver has essentially a perfect digital volume control.  It also means that all DSP processing, Source Rate Conversion, etc are all done in a domain that can't be digitally saturated or "overrun" because the math has such an enormous threshold.  If they were only processing in 24 bit (for example), digital EQ might over run the limit causing digital clipping.  This is almost impossible with 64 bit processing.

DSP Studio is the other big one.  Well, 64 bit processing is part of this, but the feature that uses it is DSP Studio.  Frankly, the features built in to the DSP are borderline amazing.  Graphic EQ.  Parametric EQ.  Crossover.  Channel reassignment.  Channel mixing.  Convolution filters (for room correction).  There are more, but those are huge features.

You can use the graphic or parametric EQs to alter the sound to correct for your headphones or speakers response.  I've done minor EQ to several headphones and made nice improvements.  It's not always desirable, but it's VERY nice to have the option.

If you're looking for "audiophile magic" from  your player, JRiver has been praised for having it.  Memory playback has been said by some to improve the sound, so you might try it.  I doubt it makes any difference, but it's there to try (Tools > Options > Audio > Settings).

Hopefully this gives you a little better idea of what JRiver can do.

Brian.

[glynor]

I'm led to believe that JRiver uses the internal Mac Core Audio, and that this is left wanting compared with some others.

Core Audio is the API you use on OSX to access the sound device. So, yes, MC uses Core Audio as the engine to play audio to the sound card. However, it does not use Core Audio to do DSP (audio filtering, transformation, resampling, etc). It uses its own engine to do all of that, whenever possible*.

If you hear about other applications "not using Core Audio", they're talking about the latter (assuming it isn't just lies), which MC has never done.

* Unlike WASAPI Exclusive mode on Windows, Core Audio does not allow playback to fail when incompatible audio types are played simultaneously. It automatically resamples, and you can't "stop it". So, the only time when MC's audio is resampled by Core Audio is when you start playback in another application first, leave it playing, and then start playback in MC.

[Foxman50]

Hi Brian

Let me first say i am in no way disappointed with JRiver SQ, i am new to computer audio and even newer to a Mac. I just want to have a play with stuff and see how good i can get it. It has already blown my Naim NDX away.

You mention a lot of item JRiver is capable of and while ive had a look its bloody confusing. I know there is wiki, its hard work, but it there not a user manual somewhere that explains the features and exactly what they do and how to use them.

Many thanks for your help

[Foxman50]

glynor

The problem i have is a lack of understanding what all the features do. To be honest I'm scared to change some bits not knowing what they do

[blgentry]

Yeah Foxman, JRiver is very complex, full featured, and powerful.  It's documented decently, but it doesn't have a sophisticated user friendly manual of any sort aside from the Wiki.  I'm not minimizing the effort it took to create the Wiki (which was a LOT).  Just answering Foxman's question.

The best way to learn about these features is to play around and do some research.  Asking questions here is a good way to get specific info too of course.  Depending on what you want to do, you might need to change very little about your setup to get great sound quality with all of your music.

If you just want to see what's available in the DSP Studio, for example, go to Player > DSP Studio ... and take a look around.  You can turn features on an off there very easily.  Just do one at a time and you shouldn't get into too much trouble.  You can always do a database restore (with settings only) if you get too far off the map.

Brian.

[glynor]

Long ago in days of yore, JRiver paid someone (a LOT of money) to make a help file manual once per year or so. The problem was, it was expensive and ALSO always out of date.

Because JRiver does iterative software design "in public", there's no way to keep a monolithic manual up to date. MC just changes too much (often every weekday).

[Foxman50]

Ok ive spent the afternoon messing around with the DSD and Eq settings and I'm pretty impressed. Maybe i should look at trialling some room correction software, i was thinking of Dirac live but then thought is there something built into JRiver that can be used.

OK i found the Wiki page for convolution, whatever that means. Does this mean Dirac is out?

Plenty of resources to read through.

Cheers

[JimH]

There are some threads on convolution here, too.  Try a search.

[glynor]

The Convolution wiki page is recent and should be quite accurate. I goaded one of our resident experts into updating it not long ago.  

MC supports VST plugins, and can definitely use Dirac and similar tools.  More here:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=86834.msg659817#msg659817

It just might not be necessary, because MC has lots of the tools built in, with the convolution filter and parametric EQ.