J River MJ12 Pops/Clicks-Effects help needed?

> But should i still be hearing this if i am averaging a
> total of 40% computer usage in my task manager?

Remember that I listed several causes. High CPU utilization figured into some of those causes and not others.

Keep in mind that audio playback is a real-time task. If the buffers ever underrun, you hear a pop. So if there is a momentary bottleneck that delays MJ12 from refilling the output buffers, the result isn't satisfactory. Windows doesn't have good facilities for reliable real-time The 40% and 60% numbers aren't impossibly high but it does suggest that your PC CPU isn't very fast for the job. Right now, I'm playing Flac files on a low end dual core AMD CPU and seeing 1% CPU utilization.

I suggested switching to the Processes tab in Task manager and watching the CPU utilization by individual processes. watching I/O activity is also informative.

I'd try increasing the buffering as I described in the first post. The current setting may just be wrong for your system. (There is a similar buffer setting for Direct Sound output in MJ12. You might switch to Direct Sound and play with that buffer setting to see if you get pops and clicks with a smaller buffer using Direct Sound.)

> I closed out all other programs

You may have to bring up the A/R program and change its settings. It probably will not appear as a task on the Start bar.

You haven't described your computer hardware and soundcard. When you post in the J. River forums, provide that information. You can get some of that info from the Help/System info command in MJ12.

Bill

There are a lot of PC USB deficiencies, both hardware and software that can cause these pops due to high latencies or interrupt conflicts. Usually custom drivers have higher latency. Non-Windows ASIO can cause higher latency. Upsampling or decompressing Flac etc. also causes more latency. Dell laptops are notorious for having poor USB interfaces. It is almost impossible to get rid of the pops on these Dells. All USB ports on computers are not equal, even on Macbooks. Macs are the most trouble-free I have found.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Well everything plays just fine until i try and use the DSP effects in J River MJ12.
When i check my task manager while using the DSP effects the computer usage is not going wacky or anything so i don't understand. I posted over on J River forums about this but have yet to get any resolve on this. On some threads i was reading over there, some people are saying to get the best sound quality to not use the DSP at all. But i do think it would have added some benefit to some of my live recording ambience for sure and i would have liked to have utilized some of the effects. The eq section works fine and i am only experiencing these clicks in trying to use the effects portion of the DSP in MJ12.
And i have tried all the buffering options i could to get this to go away and it will not.
Using the direct sound did not correct this either and it is certainly not as high quality running that way with the sound card i am using.
I just yesterday switched to purewave instead of WMD in my sound card and the sound even opened up and improved more. The only downside of using that is that i think it disabled my ability to listen to Youtube and other sound on my computer.
So i need to enable that again if i want to do so i think.
Still learning over here for sure!

And as far as my computer not being fast enough well i am not so sure?
I have been doing some music editing and mastering and do use Sound Forge and other programs that i know can tax a computer and i very seldom have had any glitches while operating these programs.
Even if i have all other programs closed out and just running MJ12 i still experience the clicks.
So i am clueless at this point as to why.

But I have to repeat how much i love this player thus far for it's sonics compared to the WMP9 that i had been running for years. My system and ears are certainly enjoying it.