all about pc and audio thoughts ...

Dtc - did not know that about JRiver, not sure if memory playback is as important on a PC as WASAPI and/or kernel streaming, as we must avoid the windows audio mixer. I do think JRiver would be an excellent product, but just not for me. I have owned an iPod for 8 years, use it extensively at work, and using JRiver for home audio while maintaining iTunes for iPod support was too much for me. Much simpler to just get Jplay so iTunes can utilize kernel streaming. I suppose it's possible for JRiver and iTunes to use the same library of lossless music, but did not investigate this option as it would needlessly complicate my life. I already have enough tech-based stress.

Steve,

Jplay and Jriver is the best current combo for PC, however the right version of Amarra on Mac still beats it IMO.

One must be careful of using not only the best playback software, but the best CD ripping software as well, dbpoweramp/Accurate Rip with PC and XLD with Mac.

Here are some more tips (no advertising):
www.empiricalaudio

Which version of Amarra do you suggest? I currently run Pure Music and although it's good I suspect what you say is true that the Amarra is better.

Albert - I use version 2.3.3 4318/19. It is called 19, but comes up 18. The link is on my audiocircle.com forum if you awant to download it. I have compared it to 2.3.3 4344 and 2.4 4347 and I prefer it. It is not too buggy if you avoid 192 and 176 tracks.

Make sure you use the two uninstall scripts in the extras folder if you already have an Amarra installed.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Realremo - J River does not believe memory playback really adds much to a properly functioning, well tuned system and I do not really hear a difference using it. I agree that using WASAPI or kernel streaming versus going through a mixer are more important than memory playback. Trying to run J River and iTunes in parallel should be doable, but also a potential nightmare for tagging, cover art, etc. IMO, the main strength of JPlay is minimizing the effect of other activity on the system, so I am not surprised it helps on your work environment laptop. On a well tuned, dedicated system, I am not convinced it provides much sound improvement.

Hi guys, just a couple thoughts and some of my experience that I think of when reading through this thread... I've been a budget audiophile for alot years, Okay, cheap.
When I switched to computer audio about 16 months ago, I downloaded the free version of JRiver (14?) and foobar 2000... at the time JRiver was ever so slightly better, but so close that on most recordings I couldn't tell the difference. Foobar did an update, with that I felt Foobar now had the edge. I realize that JRiver has also improved, but since that time Foobar 2000 has had maybe a dozen updates and on maybe half of those, I heard an improvement... the current version is a different world from what I downloaded 16 months ago... granted, I haven't compared with a current JRiver version and JRiver was more user friendly. Next, JPLAY, when I first tried it, I was smiling big, nice improvement, after some research, I upgraded my ram from 3 to 6gb, I turned off all or removed any programs not needed (dedicated music server, so most) what I found then was that JPlay no longer was the huge improvement, occasionally it sounded a bit leaner, but no longer added depth or detail and lastly, last night after months of undecisiveness, I finally downloaded windows 8... in my system, it is a clear improvement. ... I know the general consensus is that MAC is better, I don't know, it may be, but I can tell you that my system has improved very nicely over these past months using Foobar 2000, outputting wasapi into an anynchronous to spdif, to my dac. The differences in my system when properly optimizing my server was more than noticeable and Foobar 2000 has also dramatically improved, anyone using Foobar, go to the top, hit HELP, then update to current version. (its about 3 weeks old).. I'd love to hear from anyone that has compared very recent player versions... I hope this might help someone out, Tim