Thread: JRiver vs CAPS on W2012

So JRiver doesn't officially support installing and running its software on Microsoft Server operating systems. Apparently it is actively discouraging fringe audiophiles from doing so on their precision CAPS specified hardware solutions.

Bits are bits, 1s are 1s and 0s are 0s and DACs only need a bitstream to fill their buffers. It makes no difference which operating system you use, so the JRiver argument goes.... And if that stream is not received file bit perfect at the DAC then it's a hardware error....Your fault for choosing that particular hardware. Apparently JRiver don't think that clean power and timing is everything and as long as your CPU can multitask 500 other background processes that have nothing to do with the task at hand, it shouldn't make a difference.

There is even talk that JRiver is considering blocking its setup msi from executing with a platform check. Why why why?

I want to run a W2012 R2 server in core mode. Run an audio player service, an IP stack with a share to my NAS volume, some up sampling, maybe some ADC processing. That's it! There are enthusiasts who have done some hard yards building configuration tools to allow us an optimal configuration and performance outcome.

I thought there was no looking past JRiver but there is a taste of bad sentiment in the air....and an electrical storm on the horizon?

If its not going to be JRiver, what's it going to be?... I'm not going to invest time and effort aligning myself to a software vendor that does not want to grow with its customers.

Who's looking past JRiver?

Servers are usually not meant to run Audio/Video software, but I understand where you are coming from. Default installs don't even allow you to play a music cd in the drive, only software.

JPlay highly recommends Windows Server 2012 R2 for best results. JPlay looks like a viable solution into the future.

Steve, have you considered a network player solution like Aurender?

Wow...as a hardcore computer (only) audiophile; I have to agree. If this is true; it leaves a really bad taste in my mouth as well.

Just like JPLay, solutions like the excellent AO Highend-AudioPC | Page not found encourage 2012 R2, as the way to go.

Sounds to me, like they don't want the support headache. It's true...if you don't know what you're doing; you can brick your box. And some might come calling JRiver for help. I'm OK with them saying, these "fringe" and "extreme" set-ups...are outside of our support scope. But to go so far, as to block it from installation; sounds prohibitive.

Then again...I'm sure someone, will quickly find a hack or work-around

Mike I considered Aurender a long time ago. Even Lumin more recently. I love their respective shiny, solid aluminium chassis....

CAPs community rate PC solutions highly. I have not really invested in digital as yet and a PC driven media player to me seems the best performance value proposition at a time where digital playback standards, interfaces and protocols are still evolving.

I would rather put the money on a solid DAC implementation that is vendor upgradeable as the climate continues to evolve. It's becoming appararent that DSD audio is what everybody wants and is here to stay. I also don't want to be locked into a vendor compliant specific DSD implementation that is proprietary.

The next Lapizator Big 7 or 8 Golden Gate tubes have me starry eyed ATM.

I'm an IT guy and I don't mind hacking around when I have the time. It helps me at my game.

We are talking about bleeding edge audiophile computing, that goes beyond the competencies of the average aficionado. It is not for everyone.

If you brick a PC, that can be fixed. Your data, the asset, should be on a seperate physical volume, preferably another storage device like a NAS.

Originally Posted by Steve

Mike I considered Aurender a long time ago. Even Lumin more recently. I love their respective shiny, solid aluminium chassis....

CAPs community rate PC solutions highly. I have not really invested in digital as yet and a PC driven media player to me seems the best performance value proposition at a time where digital playback standards, interfaces and protocols are still evolving.

I would rather put the money on a solid DAC implementation that is vendor upgradeable as the climate continues to evolve. It's becoming appararent that DSD audio is what everybody wants and is here to stay. I also don't want to be locked into a vendor compliant specific DSD implementation that is proprietary.

The next Lapizator Big 7 or 8 Golden Gate tubes have me starry eyed ATM.

I'm an IT guy and I don't mind hacking around when I have the time. It helps me at my game.

What about an Aurender N100 (from NAS) to a Lampi - if that's what you want. I will caution you about the Lampi. There have been more technical problems and sonic inconsistencies told to me than I can count. That being said, I would still like to try one personally.

Thanks for the cautionary advice on the Lampi products. I will keep my ear to the ground. Until such time, I have the MCD1100 USB PCM input as a starter.

I'm not dismissing Aurender or Lumin at this time. I'm just not ready to go there yet and they may not be ready for me either...

There is zero loss in CAPs as it can always be repurposed. I think it's a great introduction into quality digital playback at a low price point.

Yup, I was one of the first with a CAPS, CAPS 2.0. But after wanting to chuck my computer in the water, I moved to the Lumin and never looked back. As good as the CAPS was (and I even had the red wine battery PSU), I just don't like having a computer in my listening room. I found they never provided a "relaxed" digital presentation. There was always a slight nervousness to the sound that I could never explain. But if you're a digital tweaker, than the Aurender with the DAC of the Month is a great alternative IMHO.

I'd be very interested in hearing more experiences with Jplay as the primary music player. The last time I looked (which was a couple of years ago) Jplay didn't have much in the way of library functions or GUI; then there was the Jriver/Jplay disagreement where Jriver threatened to block Jplay from being used with it, and I didn't follow what happened after that.

And that's also the problem with digital. The "DAC of the month".

The adaptation of digital often makes me want to wait it out longer like an old chameleon!

The other driver for me is ADC for my vinyl collection. An Ayre QA-9 would compliment that digital loop.

Or should I just buy some blank tape for the Studer...for the time being....

Using a bare bones Windows 8 Pro 64bit OS and JRiver v20 is just thru the roof audiophile quality playback that I experience myself. I have no complaints. Very easy to setup and rock solid.

Originally Posted by Steve

If you brick a PC, that can be fixed. Your data, the asset, should be on a seperate physical volume, preferably another storage device like a NAS.

Steve...I both agree, and disagree with you slightly (and I'm in IT too; so no p*ssing contests ).

1) While you're right..."fixing" a bricked CAPS PC is easy enough (re-image/re-load); if you're not savvy enough, to have not bricked it in the first place...that user might not find those things so "easy" either.

2) In my case...I don't see, re-purposing a CAPS PC. The whole idea, behind an audio streamer...and it sounds like you're in line with me, as you reference AO, JPlay, etc...is to run, with as little overhead as possible. Minimize Windows evasiveness, run with a small CPU to minimize power needs...and so on. So...when you don't need that CAPS anymore, like the one I currently have (but I'm making sure, my Aurender is going to work out...before I chuck my Squeezebox Touches and CAPS build); what do you use it for?

I don't think...in my case anyway...it has enough muscle, to do much else. Browse the web, check email?

During play back my CAPS CPU processing tops out at 3%. I think that's pretty efficient.

Originally Posted by Steve

And that's also the problem with digital. The "DAC of the month".

The adaptation of digital often makes me want to wait it out longer like an old chameleon!

The other driver for me is ADC for my vinyl collection. An Ayre QA-9 would compliment that digital loop.

Or should I just buy some blank tape for the Studer...for the time being....

Do you like to spin CD's, SACD's too Steve? That was a big part of me picking up the T+A PDP 3000 HV. I've amassed several more SACD's since I last had them ripped to DSD and getting them ripped is a PITA. Sometimes when that new SACD arrives, you just want to pop it in and listen. I can't imagine the T+A PDP 3000 HV with a Aurender N100 (or N10 when it comes out) not being the complete solution for all your digital needs. Of course, sonically, it remains to be seen vs the Lumin. And the T+A + Aurender is 3-4 times the cost of the Lumin and the T+A will never be a true network music player.

After reading all this digital stuff about SoTM cards and JCat cards, I'm beginning to think mounting a new cartridge on my Kronos isn't so painful after all.

Mike

Chris...the CAPs I have built has an i7 3770T with 32GB RAM. OK as a general purpose quiet Home PC/server, but would likely go into an office headphone/bookshelf system if I tired of it in the main rig.

Mike..Yes I have quite a SACD collection. Been very happy with the MCD1100 for that purpose. Can't see myself ditching that box ever which forms a part of my McIntosh stack.

When in the mood, I also have the MVP891 (same DAC as MCD1100 but different implementation) wired up for multi-ch SACD playback via analog ext.in into the Denon pre-amp. The Denon passes that through directly to the Mcintosh fronts and surround channels without any further ADC/DSP and sounds fabulous. There aren't many AV pre-amps that can do that. Even so, it's own DAC doesn't do a bad job by accepting the PCM over HDMI. I don't believe the MVP891 can do DSD over HDMI but I'm pretty sure the Denon does accept it.

Never contemplated ripping the DSD off SACD. I don't have that PS3 or? No doubt, difficult to do...

What are you using to rip your vinyl?

Looks like there are a few IT people in the audiophile hobby. My first experience with computers was with commodore 64, AMIGA 500, IBM XT, IBM 286, IBM 386, 486 and a bunch of clones. I configured so many NOVELL/NT servers and LANs I lost count. For my 20+ years I performed mainly as a Network Engineer/Administrator for both NOVELL and Microsoft. Just a small portion on what I have worked on long ago. I remember populating memory cards and mother boards which I dreaded so much! EISA bus, ISA bus. Remember all the dip switches you had to set? In those days the general population could not build a PC.

George....Very cool. Please start another thread for this!

I have a collection of vintage Apple (pre 1990) that I would be happy to post.

So you are still running a Novell network at home?

Originally Posted by Steve

George....Very cool. Please start another thread for this!

I have a collection of vintage Apple (pre 1990) that I would be happy to post.

So you are still running a Novell network at home?

Not since the early 90s. Now it's just a simple peer to peer LAN with a private firewall. I remember a simple LAN for the DOS environment was a product called Lantastic which allow you to share both files and printers. It was not very difficult to set up and it was cost effective for very small offices.

I remember it George. Nice to see you are keeping it alive. And who said you need a NAS!

Originally Posted by Steve

Chris...the CAPs I have built has an i7 3770T with 32GB RAM. OK as a general purpose quiet Home PC/server, but would likely go into an office headphone/bookshelf system if I tired of it in the main rig.

Wow, really? See...that kinda runs counterintuitive, to my design philosophy. In fact...if I were to stay with a streamer solution, I'm with AO.

A 2-box solution...with the player, being sooo bare bones; it can't even sustain an OS, lol.

^^Before my time. Looks like Halt And Catch Fire

Originally Posted by Steve

And that's also the problem with digital. The "DAC of the month".

The adaptation of digital often makes me want to wait it out longer like an old chameleon!

The other driver for me is ADC for my vinyl collection. An Ayre QA-9 would compliment that digital loop.

Or should I just buy some blank tape for the Studer...for the time being....

Steve, you may find this an interesting read: Analog to Digital Converter Shootout: Which Sounds Best? (All Files Now Corrected and Available) | Analog Planet

Jim (Jriver owner) is a very complex personality. His ego seems to be bigger than Large Magellanic Cloud.

And if you see how he treats his customers online ...

I have already started looking for an alternative. I'm using HQ Player now, which sounds much better when upsampling stuff than Jriver, although it is not as easy to use.

There is something on the horizon which will blow minds... Not from JRiver.

And I'm not sure about the Jim-bashing. I've dealt with him quite a lot over the years and have had nothing but positive experiences.

Originally Posted by CDLehner

Wow, really? See...that kinda runs counterintuitive, to my design philosophy. In fact...if I were to stay with a streamer solution, I'm with AO.

A 2-box solution...with the player, being sooo bare bones; it can't even sustain an OS, lol.

Chris....It is AO but also with enough grunt to up sample on the fly. Also would like it to process ADC.

Originally Posted by FlexibleAudio

Wow Mike, I don't want to set off a fire storm form Lampi lovers but can you provide some context as to whether these problems were on recent Lampi models, pcm version, dsd, etc....???

PM sent.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Originally Posted by FlexibleAudio

Wow Mike, I don't want to set off a fire storm form Lampi lovers but can you provide some context as to whether these problems were on recent Lampi models, pcm version, dsd, etc....???

I had two units (Leampi DSD gen 5 level 5 and Big 7) and zero problems.

My units are current production though (with PCBs) - not sure how were the older ones.

One things is certain - just looking at the pics, the introducion of the PCBs have improved the build quality (and consistency) quite substantially.

Originally Posted by bzr

Do the latest Lampizators have transformers or SMPS?

I have never seen a SMPS in any Lampi.

Kev,

Here are some images I've posted in the Big 7 thread:

http://audioshark.org/computer-digit...l#.VQizJo69HF8