JPlay vs Roon

Hey Rex,

I am not familiar with JPlay so I just looked it up... one concern for me is that JPlay only supports up to DSD256. It does not go up to DSD512 or higher which is important for me with HQPlayer.

I don't upsample so that is not an issue for me. I am only PCM. I guess I should have stated that.

Kingrex said:

I don't upsample so that is not an issue for me. I am only PCM. I guess I should have stated that.

Click to expand...

Got ya ... but that does beg to question why you use HQPlayer? Granted, I feel that HQPlayer is the finest playback engine out there, but it really shines when you up-sample.

I guess my real question then would be, what does JPlay bring to the table? Roon is about as good as you get in interface, meta data, and control and HQPlayer is about the best playback engine. You are talking about still using HQPlayer and therefore JPlay would be only your interface, correct? Does it compete with Roon purely on an interface basis?

If you do not care about interface what so ever you can actually use HQPlayer on its own to play your music without any other software. Very basic and rudimentary interface, but it works.

I'm not sure how much impact Roon has on HQ playback. Maybe non.

Even without upsampling, HQ applies filters before they go to the dac. At least I believe it does. HQ is complex with little to no support on what the filters do or how best to apply them. I found a few threads on computer audiophile but they talk filters I dont see.

I'm thess I'm tired of paying $10 or so a month just to access my music. Roon is ok but heck, why can't I sort classical by orchestra or recording label. It's not like Roon is doing anything amazing. I still have tchaikovsky recordings I cant find in my library via Roon. If I do a file search, there they are. If I do some magic hand movements I can make them show up.

Maybe a more accurate question would be, how does pcm native playback via HQ compare to JPlay server playback. I am seeking alive, natural and accurate sound.

Kingrex said:

I'm not sure how much impact Roon has on HQ playback. Maybe non.

Even without upsampling, HQ applies filters before they go to the dac. At least I believe it does. HQ is complex with little to no support on what the filters do or how best to apply them. I found a few threads on computer audiophile but they talk filters I dont see.

I'm thess I'm tired of paying $10 or so a month just to access my music. Roon is ok but heck, why can't I sort classical by orchestra or recording label. It's not like Roon is doing anything amazing. I still have tchaikovsky recordings I cant find in my library via Roon. If I do a file search, there they are. If I do some magic hand movements I can make them show up.

Maybe a more accurate question would be, how does pcm native playback via HQ compare to JPlay server playback. I am seeking alive, natural and accurate sound.

Click to expand...

ex, if you need information about HQ player, go to Computer Audiophile which is Audiophile Style and ask the HQ player designer and owner who is own the forum all the time , no absence of support.
Miska

Granted I have not tried everything out there, but in my view HQPlayer is the best playback engine going. Up-sampling takes it to another world. I could be wrong, but I believe that in this configuration Roon is simply the controller/organizer and should have little affect on the playback. Again I could be incorrect.

I do not encounter the type of issues you are referring to. Then again I do not listen to a ton of Classical. Yes Roon sometimes mis-id's and needs to be edited (rarely), but even editing is easier then other software packages I have tried.

I do know when ripping SACD's the only ones that have ever been an issue and could not be done were about maybe 10% of the classical ones that I have done for friends to put on their servers. Most others are always perfect, Pop, Rock, Folk, Jazz, etc.

Roon does allow you to search and bookmark by label, orchestra, bit rate, you name it. You use Focus for all that.
Here is search example:
-Name of orchestra
- DG
- DSD, PCM
- Not MP3
- after 2010
-etc, etc.

Roon has the best data management around. I suggest you try using Focus and go for the lifetime subscription as more and more products will work with Roon and you will save in the long run.

Can I search
Beethoven
Mercury
Boston philharmonic

Kingrex said:

Can I search
Beethoven
Mercury
Boston philharmonic

Click to expand...

Yes. Using Focus you can search:
Artist/Performer
Production
Composer
Label
Format

Here are the different formats that you can search for:

Never seen that. I will look for a tab called Focus.

After you have done the search you can create a Bookmark with that search criteria.

Then anytime that you add and album to your library that meets that criteria it will be automatically added to your bookmarked selection.

In the Boston, Beethoven, Mercury example, you can also add other criteria such as "MQA" or "96khz" and it will refine your selection based on criteria.

Very powerful.

Kingrex said:

Never seen that. I will look for a tab called Focus.

Click to expand...

Click on Albums first. Then near the top you will see a symbol that reads Focus. Click on Focus and then do the search.

After you have done the search based on your criteria, Bookmark it! You can name the bookmark anyway you want and it will show when you click on the bookmark tab (top right corner).

Nicof, I see where you are trying to go but its super clunky and not working well for me. If I pick Beethoven in Roon/Tidal it starts giving me 40 or 50 bands with Beethoven in the name. If I select one of them, I have to add it to my favorites to even get to Focus on Similar. In the focus on similar it seems to only searches under that Beethoven type artist I picked. Maybe I'm doing it wrong.

If I type Beethoven, Boston, is seems to give me some Beethoven album by the Boston Phil, but it also give me "Boston" and any other band with the name Boston.

If I could open a "Focus" or advanced search and start entering labels, venues, other info as such, as well as a composer I would be more happy. Not that I love Discogs but there is a pretty ok sort feature there. I would like to see more flexibility in all the music software search engines.

I am sorry that I was not very clear.

Try this:
1. Click on Albums. Roon will show ALL the albums in your library.



2. Then click on Focus. See location on the screen:



3. Then the Focus window will show. You can now click on the arrow as shown in the picture below.



4. When you click on the arrow, that will bring you to the screen where you can select the fields for your query. You need to click on composer (see arrow in picture below) and then select Beethoven. Likewise pick Performer and click on Boston Symphony. Same for Label (Mercury). Once you do that you will have on your screen all the albums that meet that criteria.



5. The next and final step is to create a bookmark of your search. For that you click on the bookmark that (see picture) and give it a name.



That's it. You only need to do this ONCE. Bookmarks are dynamic. That means that once you have created a Bookmark, any music that you add to your library in the future that meets that criteria will automatically be added to your bookmarked selection.

I hope that helps.

Tip: Metadata for classical music is all over the place. If you haven't already you may want to invest in metadata software to fix inconsistencies in how you identify your classical albums.

I don't know that I am getting all I want on any platform. Spotify, Qobuz, Tidal. I fould more beethoven choices tonight by entering "Beethoven Symphony NO. 9" in the search bar than by entering just Beethoven or Ludwig Van Beethoven. So odd to me.

Thanks for all the help Nicoff. I learned a lot. I will keep working at it. I'm sure I will click into the correct path and learn how to open the doors as I would like.

Kingrex said:

I don't know that I am getting all I want on any platform. Spotify, Qobuz, Tidal. I fould more beethoven choices tonight by entering "Beethoven Symphony NO. 9" in the search bar than by entering just Beethoven or Ludwig Van Beethoven. So odd to me.

Thanks for all the help Nicoff. I learned a lot. I will keep working at it. I'm sure I will click into the correct path and learn how to open the doors as I would like.

Click to expand...

ODD are you just doing this in Jpay or Roon or both looking for artist. IN Tidal you just type in Beethoven and a whole load of albums come up. So they are there
ex