J River Vs. Media Monkey Do they sound different

In an attempt to hijack my own thread, I was wondering if anyone has had good results with a particular USB cable. I'm using a cheap Radio Shack 3 mete ( to reach my sofa0 right now and am looking to make an investment in a quality ($250-$500)USB cable. Looking at Cardas Clear, Audioquest carbon and a host of others.

Has anyone had good experience with a mid tier USB cable?

I installed J River on my computer recently and could never get it to run. It would open and just hang the program. Running Windows Vista and the stock cheapie sound card (Realtek HD I think). Would love to compare it to Media Monkey, which I did get to run fine (although I could not get the ASIO output plug-in to work so I am running wav out). Media Monkey sounds pretty darn good, but since I can't get ASIO to work properly, I don't know if the WAV out is outputting bit perfect data to my DAC or not.

I am new to the computer audio stuff, so I don't know where to start to troubleshoot J River. Searching through endless forum pages to find troubleshooting solutions that may or may not apply to my computer/situation is daunting...

I have just downloaded the free Jukebox 14 version and although it sounds very good it no longer supports ASIO or WASAPI output. I am using it with Directsound. After reading their forum, it turns out that "audiophile features" are now only available in the paid Media Center software. Like I said earlier it still sounds very good but not quite as good as my Potplayer+Reclock combo which are free as well.

I found that out too and went back to V12 - I think that's the previous version. Secure Rip and ASIO support are missing in the new free version. I don't mind paying for Media Center but it is big time overkill for me. I just want to send PCM to a USB port. I may take a look again at Foobar. Now that I have a way to play my music I can take some time to learn how to setup things in Foobar to my liking. When I first was looking at it, and JRiver, I wanted a painless way to play my music files as quickly as possible.

This is precisely why I have heretofore avoided computer audio (other than an iPod into a Wadia iTransport to DAC). There seems to be no end of headaches and nothing causes more teeth-gnashing for me than computer issues. And I have not had to deal with USB cables, WiFi issues (if streaming music), backup drives, new software and a controller like an iPhone or Touch. This is all in addition to a normal music rig.

Seems many spend more time one these sites trying to sort it all out than slipping a shiny disc on a CDP and pressing play!

Perhaps in 2 or 3 years it will not all be such a headache. For example, 2 years ago one had to use a USB/SPDIF adapter because few DAC's could play well directly from a USB connection. Now we have asynchronous USB, etc., which appears to accommodate USB connections. Perhaps in another year or two there will be players like JRiver or MediaMonkey that are not such a bear to figure out and use. Fundamental problem seems to me that one is trying to convert a machine made with music as an afterthought to one where music is the main thought. In addition, there appears to be the prevalent fantasy tha some day there will be a ,ass of popular music available in Hi-Res. Unless Apple decides to do it, will never happen, and I do not think Apple sees the demand.

I am no Luddite and admire the people who have all this running and seem to enjoy it. But until it is a simpler process, I will stick with my old ways: transport to DAC.

Neal