Al can never understand the point of having two of them running.
Johno= I’ve always had a single PC until recently. During the latter stages of the JPLAY beta trial I decided to try Dual PC configuration. Something I liked and made good sense for my setup.
My original dedicated audio PC = Intel NUC i5 with Audio optimizer in core mode using jriver and jremote, connected to DS sounded great. Added JPLAY and a whole new world opened up for me = sounded amazing with JPLAY6 using JPLAYmini...
Changing to dual PC controlPC and AudioPC allowed me to remove the HDD from the music room. During the quietest passages of music I could hear the 2T HDD. The control PC is located is an adjoining room and I cannot hear the controlPC i7 4770k 16 gigs ram on windows 8.1 with JPLAY steering the audio PC which switches into hibernate mode when an album is played.
Al uses one and core mode with an iPad if need be.
Johno= I used this setup before transitioning to JPLAY6 and ditching jriver. The SQ with JPLAY6 is in another league – way better than jriver in my system.
Al PC is fanless and either DC battery or hd plex linear psu .
Johno= My audioPC is fanless, I relocated the intel i5 NUC mobo into a solid aluminum case providing heat sink to CPU. I use the same HDPlex linear supply to feed the NUC, and power the NUC SSD directly from the HDPlex.
I am in the process of implementing the Paul Pang USB card. I will be connecting this to the HDPlex 3.3 and 5 volt lines
I also use a P5 but it powers my whole system, I prefer not using multi wave
Johno comment for Engine Ultrastream playing via KS:PS Audio Audio 2.0 output
Dac link 170hz and PC buffer 0.2 the sound is more open but a little fragile compared to the fuller sound of DAC link 1hz.
Dac link 1hz PC buffer 2 sec the sound is fuller and very smooth, though I can swing either way Dac link 170hz or Dac link 1, depending on mood have fun Al
SSD used in the Audio PC for operating system only
mechanical HDD 2 x 2T near capacity loaded with music, at this stage SSD not financially viable for music storage whilst I would preferred that medium.
recently I installed Diskfresh a product which might help with concerns of data fade, though this whole topic is new to me and I don’t know if it is a real concern - as each 2 years I’m transitioning the data to higher capacity drives as the collection grows. This is all borne from those large capacity music files
I’ve contemplated those devices and wonder how much noise would traverse the dedicated NIC from the Control PC where the HDD are located.
In the dual PC setup I set out to reduce electrical noise, I did not have a starting point of noise measurement, but just take practical approach, example reducing loading - stress, I had two 4 gig sticks of memory a removed one as the memory load on the Audio PC is only 330 megabytes, (why do I need 8 gigs) using both Ultrastream or Xtreame JPLAY engines same memory load.
CPU load on ultrastream is 2% + or - 1%
CPU load on Xtreame is 30 %
Same memory load for each engine
removing power supply load off the Audio PC NUC is my current goal, control PC is later project
There is also audio memory that has regulators and some other kind of filter to make it quiet wjat ever that means.
In my refersnve server I went the whole 9 yards
even the other board is modded woth a better clock chip. Now what all this means who knows this digital audio where there some smoke and mostly mirrors
but of course pride of ownership does pitch in lol.
But it does sound very nice and using lesser computers the server is obvious in being better. But I do wonder dos I go too far
Very nice is your audio PC it should benefit well from JPLAY6
My control PC by day performs other home and work tasks though when its time to relax I reduce its load and direct the stream of music files to the audio PC. In the future the control PC may become solely dedicated to control PC function but for now it has multiple functions. The purest would not be satisfied with my setup, however for me it has been a major journey and SQ improvement, I’m very happy to sit back and enjoy the sound. There has been a lot of change recently. Saying that the PPA card has to be implemented, I’m waiting for supper teddypardo regulator and riser card to arrive.
Johno said
Al please try the JPLAY mini player, it installs as one of JPLAYs components when you install JPLAY.
If you have time to do so I’m interested to hear your opinion of players, jriver or jplay mini in your system
for me JPLAY mini is better all round music SQ but not for usability I have sacrificed for SQ benefits
I second this. I also prefer JplayMini to Jriver but to get back the usability, try JplayStreamer that comes in the Jplay install. You need an openhome controller on your ipad/andriod. I use BubbleDS - it’s like Jriver Gizmo but works with Jplay. I don’t hear a difference with this vs Jplaymini.
While your in JRiver, select the tracks you’d like to listen to in JPlaymini (just do CTRL+C). No need to close JRiver but you can if you want!
And then go to JPlaymini and hit space, it will play the tracks you did “copy - CTRL+C” in JRiver!
JPlaysettings:
Playing via : I find KS to best (you should see somethign like KS: USB… or KS:name of DAC ?)
Engine: Ultrastream
Bitstream: ıf you changes this might cause problems, native works with most DACs but with my Zodiac I need to force it to 24.
If nothing works reinstall it since it worked the first time
You cannot use JPlaysettings while the JPlay engine is in use, you must stop playback first!
Once the playback is stopped you can try different settings, no need to restart JPlay, just go back to JPlaymini window and hit space.
I did some listing in gui mode it’s nice for sure. It seems to add details some how but not making it thinner just more.
Piano is even better than before.
Going into core mode and I’ll try other settings. So far just PCM. but it does seem good and better then jriver but truth I only tried it for an hour or so but its detaila and depth was less with jriver. But jplay does seems better. Wow
let’s see in about one or two hours
and thanks for helping always faster from the vets
Yes, JPlay does sound excellent and seesm to have that extra something about it!
After a lot of struggle I installed Windows 8.1 one my Mac to test the latest JPlay 6, it did sound good but bootcamp windows is just awful, so sluggish and almost unusable!
So, I may have to setup a PC based system to really use JPlay 6 since I doubt the JPlay team will ever do a OSX version!
I did use JRiver and JPlay for sometime and I always preferred JPlay to JRiver.
Although JPlaymini does look very simple but JPlaystream does allow you to use minimserver and Kazoo controller!
It has more detailed inofrmation oin the manual and JPlay forum.
Please share your experiences and findings, I do have a feeling that you may like JPlay more than JRiver.
Settings option 1 low cpu utilisation
Engine Ultrastream playing via KS:PS Audio Audio 2.0 output
DAc link 1hz
PC buffer 10
This settong is a tad better for PCM but bad on DSd. For DSd it made ot flat . It lost its dynamics and detail and seems to add avail like quality. I have a xion 3.5 CPU I do not need to save the CPU usage. For what it’s worth anything that lowers CPU makes DSd bad. Maybe it’s me but it does seem to go hand and hand . It’s why my servers are all I7 and not I5. It does not seem to matter much on PCM but DSd ot does .
Any thoughts on settings. My AO are 1/A. And for now I am leaving it as it s what I use
Going out to dinner now but I will,play when I get back. How do use more CPU power ? What setting.
Also ther is a 4X that someone said to try I am later too but for now I would like to keep the varibles to a minimum .
So AO 1/a and yes the stings you say do that exactly good took now we here alike so far .
Somwaht can boost the details. And do you play DSd. This is critical for me. The two are very different and the DS is finally sounding good on DSd I want to make better not slip back to boring. Any ideas.
Doesnthe settimg you say go to 170 represent CPU usage ?
Doesn the settimg you say go to 170 represent CPU usage ? Answer NO
Using 1hz or highest setting Hz one will be preferred more than the other.
Using Xtream engine will utilise more CPU
with Xtream engine you can adjust Xtreamsize the amount of memory JPLAY will commit to the task I think. the more memory you have the larger you can make Xtreamsize upto 5000
