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J River Vs. Media Monkey Do they sound different

So I invested in a Wyred 4 Sound Dac 2. Initially gad it hooked up to my Oppo 83 as transport and now have taken the plunge and hooked my PC up to the dac via USB. Very simple. Downloaded Media Moonkey and found it to be unnecessarily difficult to navigate. I downloaded J River and found the interface to be great.

I have Vista and am using Kernel Streaming. Sounds great! Even downloaded some hi res albums from HD Tracks. Does anyone have an opinion if there is a sound difference between the most popular packages and if so, who's software sounds the best? Are there software tricks that improve sound (besides kernel streaming and Wasapi?

Thanks in advance.
dmm53
cerebusrising's avatar
cerebusrising
1 posts
 
I'm not gonna spend too much time or get technical here but here is what i just discovered re:...

j river vs media monkey for ripping cd to flac...

Result... the files ripped by mediamonkey sound better.
The files ripped by jriver sounded ridiculously bass heavy and the mids were flat and distant.

It sounded like i was listening to a mid grade stereo system with the bass cranked and everything else dialed way down.

Which program is easier to use/ better features/ faster?
i dont know or care.
Did i expect this result?
No.
I expected j river to do a better job based on my reading in 'absolute sound' mag. (they glowed over j river and poo-pood mediamonkey) (i still trust them on opinions, but i trust my own ears much more)
Yes, all the variables for ripping were identical, I'm not going to go on and on with the details to prove how smart I am. Just wanted to share the results that i found surprising.

chuck
201 posts
 
Cereb,

What encoder were you using. I have a PC and have tried most programs for PC. I find foobar the best player followed by J River. I use DB Poweramp to rip my discs to WAV format. I feel it is the best to my ears in my rig. I could not get Media Monkey to output bitperfect.
timlub
1,649 posts
 
Same as Chuck, i've tried all 3 and prefer Foobar 2000. The latest version sounds very good.
leatherneck1812
116 posts
 
I switched over to PC audio last year. Windows vista, ripped all cd's with Jriver as flac files and saved on an external hard drive. Using Modwright/Logitech transporter. Sending over my wireless network from laptop to transporter. After initial set up which had its ups and downs but no major problems. I am very happy not only with the sound, but the ease of use and the ability to listen to any music genre from all over the world.
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