Memory playback worse than disk... Why?


Hi,

I'm used foobar, now jriver to connect my new toshiba portege r830 (i5,4g ram, windows 7 64-bit) to my Dac via USB

I play 24/96 flac files, stored on a buffalo nas.

To even get close to near absent jitter, I use wasapi event mode (better than ks, wasapi,...), exclusive mode for Dac, and clear the buffer before each track. I also increased the priority if the jriver process.

When I elect to playback my files from memory (file uploaded prior to playback), I get these big crackling noises upfront, and experience more jitter than by playing direct from the nas disk. Why?

Poor laptop design, windows design, settings ?

P.s. I'm amazed how complex it has been to make 24/96 work (and it's still not perfect).
mizuno
2 thumbs up Simontju to your opinion on FLAC. When FLAC is the option and not WAV on high rez downloads I always convert to WAV after... added processing for FLAC decoding seems to add jitter/ loss of clarity in playback on my dedicated music server.
@ Simontju

FLAC is not a bad format. Get a better computer, build a real media server, drop the USB connection and get a Bit Perfect sound server. If you can find someone to build a Linux server for you then go for it. Don't blame the format if your computer cannot handle it.
I also believe JRivers buffer setting to be the problem. I agree that FLAC is not a bad format, but to my old ears, WAV sounds better. You can argue formats all day, but in the end, listen to you're own preference.
Mizuno, I switched back to foobar 2000 and problem was solved.
See my post here, which describes a fix that I suspect stands a good chance of being applicable. That solution did in fact solve the tics/pops/skipping problem the OP in that thread had, with a Windows 7 laptop playing audio via USB.

Regards,
-- Al
FLAC is not a bad format. It's just 1's and 0's. It's how you read those 1's and 0's and pass them to your speakers that is the culprit.