JRiver for audiophiles - what's new?

[michael123]

Hello

 

I discovered recently that JimH shamefully banned from his forum -- which is supposed to be support, as many links explaining license are going to support, and by banning such, isn't JimH violating his own license? 

 

Anyway there were recently posts on JRiver about audiophiles, I replied that nothing changed much in JRiver since version 25 I think where a full memory play was introduced and then I think 64-bit version is an important step.

 

Beyond that what I see is full ignorance of audiophile community - clearly seen in release notes.

 

Jim opens feature requests threads, and then consistently erases my posts :)

 

I asked for

- integration of streaming - Qobuz, Tidal, Spotify (yes, Spotify is not exactly audiophile-quality, but I like its playlist engine)

- Enabling JRiver as a NAA point, so I could use Roon as a front-end. For me, JRiver UI is an anachronism as lack of streaming-first support. But I like its DSP/sound engine. I also use Dirac so I would prefer using JRiver as a a back-end

 

I upgraded few times JRiver in my life, now I am locked on version 27 and it is a matter of principle now. I am not going to pay Jim a dollar unless he listens to community

 

-- Michael

 

[DuckToller]

8 minutes ago, michael123 said:

Hello

 

I discovered recently that JimH shamefully banned from his forum -- which is supposed to be support, as many links explaining license are going to support, and by banning such, isn't JimH violating his own license? 

 

Anyway there were recently posts on JRiver about audiophiles, I replied that nothing changed much in JRiver since version 25 I think where a full memory play was introduced and then I think 64-bit version is an important step.

 

Beyond that what I see is full ignorance of audiophile community - clearly seen in release notes.

 

Jim opens feature requests threads, and then consistently erases my posts :)

 

I asked for

- integration of streaming - Qobuz, Tidal, Spotify (yes, Spotify is not exactly audiophile-quality, but I like its playlist engine)

- Enabling JRiver as a NAA point, so I could use Roon as a front-end. For me, JRiver UI is an anachronism as lack of streaming-first support. But I like its DSP/sound engine. I also use Dirac so I would prefer using JRiver as a a back-end

 

I upgraded few times JRiver in my life, now I am locked on version 27 and it is a matter of principle now. I am not going to pay Jim a dollar unless he listens to community

 

-- Michael

 

sound a bit self centric to me.
I have understood that JimH antics are not everyone's taste, but he doesn't seems to care a lot about that.
It's your decision to continue with compromise or look for other solutions, he won't change for the dollars you may give him.
You can use i.e. the qobuz app for windows with JRMC enabled drives as output .. just as an example
I would honestly think, JRMC makes more money with home theater users than audiophiles ...
and a good bet is that you and most of us  would behave in a comparable manner sitting in JimH's chair after 20 years of customers that want everything but pay just a little ...

[stefano_mbp]

21 minutes ago, michael123 said:

 

- Enabling JRiver as a NAA point, so I could use Roon as a front-end.

Can you elaborate? I really don’t understand this request.

[michael123]

Just now, stefano_mbp said:

Can you elaborate? I really don’t understand this request?

 

Stream audio from Roon to JRiver, natively via networking Roon protocol. Similar to a way HQPlayer works I believe

[stefano_mbp]

Just now, michael123 said:

 

Stream audio from Roon to JRiver, natively via networking Roon protocol. Similar to a way HQPlayer works I believe

So the right request should be to have JRiver with Roon Ready feature (Roon Bridge), NAA is specific to HQPlayer and it has nothing to do with Roon

[michael123]

8 minutes ago, DuckToller said:

sound a bit self centric to me.
I have understood that JimH antics are not everyone's taste, but he doesn't seems to care a lot about that.
It's your decision to continue with compromise or look for other solutions, he won't change for the dollars you may give him.
You can use i.e. the qobuz app for windows with JRMC enabled drives as output .. just as an example
I would honestly think, JRMC makes more money with home theater users than audiophiles ...
and a good bet is that you and most of us  would behave in a comparable manner sitting in JimH's chair after 20 years of customers that want everything but pay just a little ...

 

yes, I know these drivers and tried using Dirac as driver, far from being perfect.

Yes, JRiver is mainly for video guys, TV and such. But strangely when Jim formulated recently a list of JRiver users, he put audiophiles on top.

 

[michael123]

1 minute ago, stefano_mbp said:

So the right request should be to have JRiver with Roon Ready feature (Roon Bridge), NAA is specific to HQPlayer and it has nothing to do with Roon

 

ok, I might be misusing terminology.

The point is having Roon to discover JRiver players and being able to render music on them

 

[stefano_mbp]

2 minutes ago, michael123 said:

The point is having Roon to discover JRiver players and being able to render music on them

I think there is little to criticize, JRiver is based on UPNP / DLNA and inserting RAAT (Roon Bridge) would be a distortion of the JRiver software structure/architecture 

[stefano_mbp]

@michael123 … have you asked Roon to use UPNP/DLNA ? … I think they would react exactly like JimH

[michael123]

2 minutes ago, stefano_mbp said:

I think there is little to criticize, JRiver is based on UPNP / DLNA and inserting RAAT (Roon Bridge) would be a distortion of the JRiver software structure/architecture 

 

I disagree. There is JRiver WDM driver (that works every other day), what's the difference? Using RAAT will enable native integration into JRiver bypassing Windows.

 

I am saying it is an aging application, 100% of my close audiophile friends use Roon with Tidal Hi Fi today. By enabling RAAT it might be possible to give second life to this application and enable these Roon users, who abandoned JRiver, to gain use of it again

 

Another point in my 'feature list' is support for streaming services, Spotify in my case. If every small hardware jukebox today supports Spotify, what's the technical problem for commercial application?

[michael123]

4 minutes ago, stefano_mbp said:

@michael123 … have you asked Roon to use UPNP/DLNA ? … I think they would react exactly like JimH

Ban me from the forum for 2 months ? 😅

[stefano_mbp]

46 minutes ago, michael123 said:

But I like its DSP/sound engine. I also use Dirac so I would prefer using JRiver as a a back-end

Are you aware that HQPlayer can do DSP/DRC and convolution? And it is already integrable with Roon.

[michael123]

4 minutes ago, stefano_mbp said:

Are you aware that HQPlayer can do DSP/DRC and convolution? And it is already integrable with Roon.

 

Yes, I tried many convolution engines, but to my taste only Dirac sounds natural, Dirac also gives wide listening spot comparing to others.

Is there somewhere direct comparison (i.e. sound-wise) between Room/HQPlayer/Convolution vs JRiver/Dirac?

[DuckToller]

24 minutes ago, michael123 said:

 

I disagree. There is JRiver WDM driver (that works every other day), what's the difference? Using RAAT will enable native integration into JRiver bypassing Windows.

 

I am saying it is an aging application, 100% of my close audiophile friends use Roon with Tidal Hi Fi today. By enabling RAAT it might be possible to give second life to this application and enable these Roon users, who abandoned JRiver, to gain use of it again

 

Another point in my 'feature list' is support for streaming services, Spotify in my case. If every small hardware jukebox today supports Spotify, what's the technical problem for commercial application?

I would consider that JRMC have a strict don't touch competitor's products

Me, too,  understands that JRMC library management & integration into the explorer menu is the key differentiator which customers may not like to exchange easily against the ROON User interface. 

I can't see the need for JimH to change that ...

[michael123]

2 minutes ago, DuckToller said:

I can't see the need for JimH to change that ...

 

JRiver won't become Roon, I don't see there a team of developers capable of developing anything near Roon GUI, I reviewed (well until I was not banned), all JRiver release notes - very minor changes. There is one 'major' change, and then for the rest of year JRiver tries to stabilize it. But again, nothing related to audiophile community (or even audio)

 

Video is not the strongest part either BTW, it does not support new multichannel audio formats. Frankly, I am not a videophile.

 

My problem is Dirac, I like it very much. So far VST3 support exists in JRiver, and yes Roon were not very responsive about adding this feature. They promised I think few times, but nothing came out so far.

[DuckToller]

How about audirvana?

Or @mitchco's Hang Loose convolver?

[michael123]

8 minutes ago, DuckToller said:

How about audirvana?

 

Seems to be an option, I don't know how its playlist (radio?) option comparing to Spotify

[stefano_mbp]

53 minutes ago, michael123 said:

there somewhere direct comparison (i.e. sound-wise) between Room/HQPlayer/Convolution vs JRiver/Dirac?

not that I know

[botrytis]

3 hours ago, michael123 said:

 

JRiver won't become Roon, I don't see there a team of developers capable of developing anything near Roon GUI, I reviewed (well until I was not banned), all JRiver release notes - very minor changes. There is one 'major' change, and then for the rest of year JRiver tries to stabilize it. But again, nothing related to audiophile community (or even audio)

 

Video is not the strongest part either BTW, it does not support new multichannel audio formats. Frankly, I am not a videophile.

 

My problem is Dirac, I like it very much. So far VST3 support exists in JRiver, and yes Roon were not very responsive about adding this feature. They promised I think few times, but nothing came out so far.

 

The cost of Roon is due to using the record labels databases, not the free one from the internet.

 

 

[stefano_mbp]

On 11/28/2022 at 2:41 PM, botrytis said:

The cost of Roon is due to using the record labels databases

Roon actually uses Rovi db. It’s a shame that Roon uses an external metadata db as in this way it cannot manage and control its content