JRiver + McIntosh DAC = Perfection

kevzep

Its all about the Music
I was told and I was told and told again by ron-c that JRiver is the best media player for the Mc DAC's, and being quite stubborn, I kept going with Audirvana on my Macbook Pro......

I tried JRiver a long time ago and when it was only a beta release for OS X .....
Because I most of my files are .wav I had a hard time trying to get the library sorted, I gave up, and because it was a beta version, there were a few bugs and it wasn't really performing that well....

Fast forward a few versions and I have to say 99% of the problems I was having with connection reliabilities, computer and C48 locking up have all but gone......
They have a good algorithm for organising your library, so I was able to organise all my .wav files into albums very easily, the HD tracks stuff just came in, and now I have changed my preferred files on HD Tracks to FLAC....
I have two FLAC albums, its all good....
NOT to mention the player sounds really good, its streets ahead in sound quality from anything I have heard before.....

So there it is, if you have problems with your C48,50,2500 DAC, try Jriver, be it OS X or Windows, it seems to pair very reliably with those DAC's.....

I am really happy with my system now, its so nice to use now that I know I can just play my music without the power cycling, rebooting, connecting, disconnecting and dorking around like before......

Just thought I would share.....:thmbsp:
 
2 questions

1 - what year Macbook Pro

2 - when switching bit rates you are having no issues?

Thanks!

i5 intel dual core, 8gb ram, 1tb SSD.........(2011 I think)

switching bit/sample rates is no problem at all, you can go from one to the other without stopping the media player.....
 
I kind of gave up on using the DAC in my C2500 as I had tried JRiver on my Mac Mini and had the same issues of intermittent lock up of the DAC. This was one of the early versions for the Mac so maybe I will give it another try with a newer version.

Currently I am using the built in DAC on my Oppo BDP-105D with USB input selected and have had excellent playback results using Audirvana Plus. It will play DSD files as well. I let the Oppo do all of the conversion and play out with the balanced outputs into my C2500 with the Oppo in Pure Audio mode.
 
Let me add that JRivers 20.xx will allow DSD file playback at 32/192 which sound superb.

Ron-C
 
Me, I gave up using JRiver on Linux as it was very unstable and early BETA.

I also gave up using the USB input of my C2500, although it should work nicely with the McIntosh USB2 drivers provided by McIntosh.

I wanted a headless solution on Linux (for bit perfect streaming), that I can control from my Ipad, my phone and a regular browser.

So I went native MPD on linux with all re-sampling, volume leveling and all the bit manipulation algo OFF which in fact modify your file.
I now stream unaltered bit for bit from flac to a coax digital output to my C2500. The result is outstanding.

I can manage my player via the 3 interfaces above and it's all good.

On another note, A tried a Fiio X5 Portable High Resolution Music Player and DAC on my system.

Simple analog out to my C2500. I was amazed....

This thing is absolutely remarkable (and affordable).
It's a pure flac player with the best power supply/CPU/DAC you can have on a portable device, all duplicated for each channel. It takes alot for me to say that but I could not tell the difference between my C2500 and this Fiio sound from the same song...

Just wanted to share that with you.

B.
 
You can of course use many music programs to play back computer music over USB. JR20 just happens to be the only program with a built in Windows driver which allows any web file to be played back over USB while skipping the built in computer sound circuitry.
When used with the McIntosh 32/192 ASIO DACs JR20 gives superb sound quality. You will hear proper imaging with a true sense of the recording's space, reverb and layering. Properly configured, all file types will be transparently played.
Users are all reporting great performance. You can try JR20 on their 30 day free trial offer to verify for yourself.

Thanks,
Ron-C
 
I want to add:

I use my C50 via USB via "McItosh ASIO(API)-Driver" via "HIFI-CABLE & ASIO-Bridge" to bridge
software players that do not have an asio support (like jriver). It's sound super (for sure better then to go through windows sound engine)

My motivation:
Most streaming services do
not support ASIO: My favourite service is WIMP HIfI (in US: Tidal) It do not support asio by default. By use this virtual cable, i was able to by pass the (crap) windows sound engine and dock the WIMP Player to the McIntosh ASIO API:

Result: Great sound and comfort ( C50 Remote controls the wimp player).

Resource: http://vb-audio.pagesperso-orange.fr/Cable/index.htm
 
Optical out from the MAC will work to optical in on the McIntosh. This is fine for iTunes files or anything below 24/96.

Thanks,
Ron-C
 
Optical out from the MAC will work to optical in on the McIntosh. This is fine for iTunes files or anything below 24/96.

Thanks,
Ron-C

Hi Ron,

Why is that? Where is the limitation coming from ?

Thanks
Brice.
 
Just the way your MAC is set up. Higher data rates over optical are possible but not always used. 24/96 is fine for almost any recording.

thanks,
Ron-C
 
I kind of gave up on using the DAC in my C2500 as I had tried JRiver on my Mac Mini and had the same issues of intermittent lock up of the DAC. This was one of the early versions for the Mac so maybe I will give it another try with a newer version.

Currently I am using the built in DAC on my Oppo BDP-105D with USB input selected and have had excellent playback results using Audirvana Plus. It will play DSD files as well. I let the Oppo do all of the conversion and play out with the balanced outputs into my C2500 with the Oppo in Pure Audio mode.

I'd give it another, shot, I have been having great reliability with JRiver 20......

Let me add that JRivers 20.xx will allow DSD file playback at 32/192 which sound superb.

Ron-C

Yes I have a drive fully of DSD which I am going to enjoy having a listen to now....Might be next week before I get a chance, got a lot on this week....

Lots of good info turning up in this thread.....

Currently, I am doing the 30 day trail with JRiver, I suspect I'll make the purchase pretty soon....

Its a seriously good sounding media player.....
 
"Yes I have a drive fully of DSD which I am going to enjoy having a listen to now....Might be next week before I get a chance, got a lot on this week...."
This should be your number one priority ;)
 
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