J River Vs. Media Monkey Do they sound different

Digilog5, I did run both KS and Wasapi event for hourrs this weekend and would agree that Wasapii event is a tad more revealing.

As a beginner with a PC-based source, I would say that the sofftware is at least quirky. The ripping software is tempermental and the album art features work about half the time.

I'm still having a ball acccessing my music and am astounded by the sound quality. Whether its the W4S Dac, which has gotten spectacular reviews, or the PC-based source, IMHO it sounds better than my Oppo 83 as a transport into the Dac. Can't see ever going back.

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.