Playback of DSD on JRiver WDM

[michael123]

Hello

 

We are trying to send DSD content from Roon to JRiver WDM, but there is no sound.

Is there support for DSD in JRiver? There are some checkboxes in the Roon settings (DoP, dCS handshake, ..) -?

[michael123]

There are 3 options -

 

convert to PCM (which works)

DSD over DoP (does not work)

dCS ( ???? )

 

Besides, what are supposed sample rates ?

 

 

 

[jriver]

JRiver supports DSD.  As Hendrik pointed out in this thread, trying to do DSD to our WDM driver is a little pointless, since MC supports DSD natively.

 

https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,116611.msg806143.html#msg806143

[michael123]

I follow that thread, apparently I opened it here as it is less JRiver-biased

 

We want to utilize JRiver sound engine for Tidal and Roon.

One of the options is to send the playback to JRiver via its WDM.

 

JRiver does not support DSD as input to its WDM, took some time to discover and Hendrik confirmed later

 

Quote

 

If you want to play DSD, please use MC, not the WDM driver.
I'm going to lock this soon.

 

 

Why is that?

 

In some other post I stated that I want same handling of DSD sampling rates, as DSD dacs have different support level. So we could control which rates we want to bitstream, and which do we want to convert to PCM. 

 

People use Roon to playback their content, it is very convenient. If there are already "inside" Roon app, they will NOT switch the applications just to play some DSD.

 

Yet, to benefit from Dirac as it now comes in VST2 flavor and JRiver supports that, we want to use JRiver as its playback mechanism.

 

Probably a better approach will be if JRiver will register itself as Roon endpoint, I don't know, maybe similar to HQPlayer

 

 

 

 

 

[Ben2300]

Just like Hqplayer, JRiver can act as an endpoint if roon I’m ok with that.

[jriver]

If you like Roon, please use it.  JRiver isn't an endpoint for Roon.

 

If you want to play DSD, JRiver does that.

[Cebolla]

On 7/8/2018 at 3:30 PM, michael123 said:

Probably a better approach will be if JRiver will register itself as Roon endpoint, I don't know, maybe similar to HQPlayer

 

HQPlayer is most certainly not a Roon Endpoint, ie, HQPlayer does not support the proprietary Roon Advanced Audio Transport (RAAT) network protocol. So it's actually the other way around - Roon has 'special' support for HQPlayer, similar to how it supports AirPlay, Squeezebox type streamers & lately Google Cast devices (eg Chromecast Audio).

 

Isn't it about time Roon supported the most obvious streaming protocol not on that list - industry standard UPnP/DLNA? That way you'd be able to use Roon as a UPnP controller and UPnP media server, allowing you to get JRiver's internal UPnP renderer to either (preferably) stream the audio files directly from Roon's library or stream the LPCM (raw or WAV) audio output from Roon Core's playback engine.

[michael123]

I don't like DLNA, it is not exactly real-time, its handling of higher bitrates and DSD was problematic in the past (not so distant past)

 

Frankly, although I raised the issue, I don't have Roon. I tried it in the past few times, every time caught some showstopper bugs, and their support - although very responsive, in a contrary to JRiver - in the end did not help much. Roon is best when you have Tidal subscription, and I don't need it, as I have fairly large library.

 

So then what's the point? I have friends, who ask me periodically regarding computer audio. Everybody today use Roon and Tidal. They still have JRiver installed, but their home application is Roon. 

 

WDM solution is not good for long term, it has quite serious delay, besides lack of support for DSD

 

Roon's interface and concept is much more intuitive, maybe Roon will support VST and that will be the end of story here.