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How do I optimize J.River with quality sound card

I've been doing a bunch of reading on this site and it's been very informative. I'm trying to wade into the PC audio arena and I would like to do so initially on a small budget.

I currently have a two channel setup with a Rotel CD/integrated amp and Linn speakers. I do not have a stand alone DAC and I would like to set up my PC using a quality sound card initially. I read a good article in the Absolute Sound on the subject and the author used an Echo/Mia Midi soundcard and Foobar2000.

I purchased an Echo Gina sound card which has an internal PCI card with a breakout cable to an external box. The external box has a DAC and both analog and digital I/O connections.

After messing around with Foobar, I find the user interface a little lacking. I think J.River is easier to use and I would like to use that as my software.

So, the question is what steps must I take to use J.River and bypass the KMixer in WinXP. Most of the other posts on this subject reference setup with USB DACs. I may go that route one day, but not yet.

Thanks to all in advance. This is a great site.
bmdduck
gmood1
1,251 posts
 
Hi I think you're making this more complicated than it has to be. Just rip your CDs with DbPoweramp using Apple Lossless.

The J.River recognizes apple lossless files and pretty much any other format out there. The only other player I've seen that can do this is Foobar. Not even Itunes has the versatility of J.River.

So my advice is to rip AIFF or Apple lossless and allow J.River to import the files. That way when and if you go to a Mac your files are ready to go.

Itunes sounds like garbage on PC..I would avoid it at all cost! Even though the full blown version of J.River isn't free. Pound for pound it is the best of the available playback softwares on the market right now IMO.

You may find that the PC in fact has more versatility in the real scheme of things when it comes to software choices and availability. Don't get me wrong Mac sounds just fine when it is setup properly..but no better than PC in the end.
bigamp
216 posts
 
If you're not using an ASIO device, which you're not, you shouldn't need an ASIO driver. ASIO drivers are used when you have an ASIO device. A lot of people use them because they have the added side benefit of bypassing kmixer. But you can bypass kmixer in control panel, so you shouldn't need an ASIO driver.

If your dac or usb device works with Direct Sound, then I recommend using that option and no ASIO driver. Direct Sound does not modify the bits during playback, unlike most ASIO drivers which will modify the bits. If you do need to use an ASIO driver, I recommend using Jriver's built in ASIO driver because it doesn't modify the bits (you don't need another driver like ASIO4all in addition.)
bigamp
216 posts
 
How to unmap your device in Windows XP to bypass the kmixer (and so you don't need an ASIO driver):

Control Panel - Sounds and Audio Devices - Hardware tab - Double click on your adio device - Properties tab - Double click on "Audio Devices" - Double click on your audio device (or click Properties button) - Check box for "do not map through this device" - Click Apply
gmood1
1,251 posts
 
Bigamp I'm confused on this ASIO thing in J.river. When I go to J.River tools and options for selecting ASIO. I select it in the output. Below that I have another ASIO option window. The only two options are ASIO4all and ASIO-USB. Both of which I have on my PC. I do not see another ASIO to select from.

My USB-AUDIO driver does a direct connection too my Bel Canto Dac. Do the other methods you've explain do the same thing?

Wavelength's website also encourages use of separate ASIO drivers? Do I have to remove both of my ASIO drivers to use J.River ASIO? I can't find anything else about this.
oldlistener
9 posts
 
Bigamp was wrong about jriver MC 12 having an ASIO driver builtin. It has code to interface to an ASIO driver.

A real ASIO driver talks to the actual soundcard hardware. You usually get that driver from the company that made your soundcard. If the manufacturer didn't write an ASIO driver for their soundcard, you probably will have to settle for ASIO4all.

The ASIO4all driver doesn't talk to actual H/W. It talks to the normal Windows driver at a lower level than the Waveout or DirectSound interfaces.
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