I was so hoping that I could finally find something better in my system than eMM streaming to the Bridge. Without using Wavestream (keeping things on an “as provided” playing field) I’ve been using eMM and MinimServer on my system for the past several weeks. While I love just about everything with MinimServer (and MinimStreamer and MinimWatch), after my last stretch of listening comparisons this afternoon eMM is still the best server solution to the Bridge - at least on my system. MinimServer is very close, maybe if I wasn’t listening to them side by side I’d never know the difference. But in a critical comparison eMM has the tiniest advantage. I can’t even put my finger on what it is, other than they sound a tiny bit different and I like eMM better.
Yes Tony, that is my impression with EMM streaming to Bridge as well. I just like the SQ of EMM, but not jRiver definitely (jRiver makes the sound bit mechanical like the interface ), I haven’t tried Minim yet but most likely wouldn’t.
tony22 said
MinimServer is very close, maybe if I wasn't listening to them side by side I'd never know the difference. But in a critical comparison eMM has the tiniest advantage. I can't even put my finger on what it is, other than they sound a tiny bit different and I like eMM better.
Don’t feel bad, Tony. My take on situations like this, where two components are extremely close, is that it’s OK to go with the the “lesser” one for reasons other than SQ. (Not that I don’t want to improve the SQ when possible!) If you like the flexibility that MinimServer offers for browsing, which is unparalleled in any other program and particularly useful for classical music, then go with it. If EMM meets your needs, that’s OK too.
BTW: if you use FLAC files, did you try having MinimServer transcode them to WAV before sending them off to the Bridge? I found this made an improvement. (flac:wav24 in the stream.transcode box).
magister, yes I’m using the streamer trancode strings (including for DoP) that you provided earlier (thanks!). Of course I also have eMM set to transcode. Learned this lesson a long time ago with my Squeezeboxes.
radioclash, I don’t disagree - and Minim even does DoP! - but for me it’s sound first.
I wonder if LMS via Wavestream will sound as good as eMM? I think I did this test a while ago. Although with DoP potentially becoming a bigger part of the picture that no longer seems like the best way to go.Even if it sounds as good, if it’ll never get to DoP I may as well stick with eMM.
Well, I set up foobar and the UPnP/DLNA package. No problem getting it to pass the Bitperfect test through the Bridge. Listened to it, MinimServer, and eMM. eMM to me still sounds the best, but now that I had a chance to listen to all three they really are very close. If I play them enough one after the other I can see myself easily not being able to tell which one is which, but with foobar really providing no advantage (to me) over the other two I decided to stick with eMM for PCM duties and MinimServer for DSF playback. I don’t think either it or foobar can do direct ISO playback yet.
), I haven’t tried Minim yet but most likely wouldn’t.