I’m having trouble getting music to play through my my system. Here’s the chain:
Record player - NPC - USB out - Intel NUC USB in - JRiver - HDMI out - Emotiva XMC-1
I’ve tried installing the direct stream driver and following a few of the guides out there to setup Jriver for bitstreaming and so on. But to no avail.
I’m using Jriver 23 so perhaps there are some changes with the newest version that need steps that I haven’t figured out yet? Or maybe there are resources out there that I haven’t found yet that would be helpful?
Also, I don’t need DSD out per se… PCM would be fine too.
Are you trying to record your albums or just listen to them real time? I’ve never used my NPC for recording so I can’t help there, but if you are just trying to play real time then there may be an issue with that chain. To play real time the digital out should go to the DAC (which must be able to accept DSD) or use the analog out to the preamp.
But I’m not sure if maybe I haven’t setup something correctly on the Nuwave side. So just looking to see if anyone else has done it here and if there are any tricks or ideas to try again.
The USB out on the NPC is really there for recording. Why not just connect the NPC to the XMC-1 using balanced or RCA cables? When you’re playing records, I don’t see where JRMC would come into the picture (JRMC is for playing files that are stored in JRMC’s library, on a local hard disc or NAS).
I looked at the manual for the XMC-1 and it says it can accept DSD, but only through an HDMI connection. This is for playing SACD’s(!), presumably from something like an Oppo which can output on HDMI. The problem is, that’s a true HDMI connection, not the I2S connection that PS Audio uses with an HDMI cable (the NPC has an HDMI connector labeled I2S between the SPDIF and USB connectors). There is a USB input, but I don’t think it will accept DSD. The good news is the NPC can output PCM (according to the manual, I’ve only outputted DSD) and there is an SPDIF and USB connector for doing so. Given that, I would recommend you not go through he computer, rather go direct to the XMC-1 using either the NPC digital (PCM) out to one of the XMC-1 digital inputs or the NPC analog out to one of the XMC-1 analog inputs. Good luck!
I’d go with the analog connections. Otherwise, the NPC is doing an analog to digital conversion and then the XMC-1 would be doing a digital to analog conversion, both of which are avoided if you just use analog connectors. Of course, the best approach would be to try it both ways and see what sounds best.
The reason to go through the computer is to use the convolution engine of Jriver. I have a pair of floor to ceiling line arrays that sound reasonably good with the PEQ in the XMC but sound much better with convolution DSP.
Another option is to use the NPC to make recordings of the records, but that kind of defeats the purpose of having vinyl. I enjoy the hands on experience of records. I also have the option of just going through the analog inputs but would love to make the real time playback a reality.