This is from Jriver's site about Kernel Streaming: Kernel Streaming is a hardware direct way to speak directly to a WDM audio driver. Jriver Media Center 15.0.6 (and later) adds support for Kernel Streaming output. Kernel Streaming is a hardware direct, bit-perfect method of communicating with an audio device. It bypasses any Windows mixing. It holds the card exclusively so other programs can not play music over the top or change the sample rate.
Also, you can't control the volume (at least within Windows), it's a fixed level output direct to your W4S DAC2 that goes over async USB. Within the configuration of JRiver, you can select the output device and type and the DAC2 is a "device" that you can select. It's pretty cool. I've used a lot of other playback programs, but this one sounds the best on Windows at least (works fine on Windows 7 32 and even 64 bit without any issues). It's also how you'll be able to play back high rez audio like 24 bit 192Khz Flac.
For playback, I use an Ipad with Plugplayer to control Jriver as a media render and "server" even though it's really playing the flac files locally. I'd say Plugplayer still has a few bugs to work out, but it's definitely very usable.
It would be really nice if Sonos would just get the hint and come up with an audiophile version of a Zoneplayer 90 or something like that.
Also, you can't control the volume (at least within Windows), it's a fixed level output direct to your W4S DAC2 that goes over async USB. Within the configuration of JRiver, you can select the output device and type and the DAC2 is a "device" that you can select. It's pretty cool. I've used a lot of other playback programs, but this one sounds the best on Windows at least (works fine on Windows 7 32 and even 64 bit without any issues). It's also how you'll be able to play back high rez audio like 24 bit 192Khz Flac.
For playback, I use an Ipad with Plugplayer to control Jriver as a media render and "server" even though it's really playing the flac files locally. I'd say Plugplayer still has a few bugs to work out, but it's definitely very usable.
It would be really nice if Sonos would just get the hint and come up with an audiophile version of a Zoneplayer 90 or something like that.