With everything set at 0 dBFS on JRiver, Audacity, and the Hilo, on both PC and Mac, the recorded levels should be exact, as depicted above. I did not find that out until the end and had to rerecord the Windows version. On my first Windows recording, I accidentally moved the JRiver internal volume control down -0.5 dB, so the levels did not match. Note I did not apply the amplification, this is for viewing only. I used Audacity’s Amplify effect to validate that both recordings were recorded at the same level. Here is what the Mac recording looks like: Here is what the Windows recording looks in Audacity: All levels were set at 0dBFS and I used the stock USB cable that came with the Hilo. There is nothing else in the signal path, all DSP functions were turned off, and with ASIO, any intermediate audio layers in Windows are bypassed. Note that the “ bit-perfect” light is on in both versions of JRiver while I was recording, indicating that the output of the player is streaming bit-perfect audio at 24/96 to the DAC. ![]() In Audacity, the only change I made was to set the project sample rate to 96 kHz and bit-depth to 24 under the Edit menu->Preferences->Quality. When we compared those files to the FLAC’s, the waveforms tested out to be virtually identical.” The Producer/Engineer’s provided a note of provenance (PDF) to go with the download, so I feel reasonably comfortable that this is as close to the master as one can get: “We made the FLAC files from high-resolution uncompressed 24-bit 96K master stereo files. I am using Tom Petty’s song Refugee that I downloaded directly from Tom Petty’s site which is recorded at 24/96. JRiver) and record the same audio in another application (e.g. With the Hilo I can simultaneously play audio from one software application (e.g. Looks like this configured on Hilo’s touch screen: I am routing the output of JRiver to input USB Play 1&2 on the Hilo and patching it to output on USB Record 1&2 which is the input to Audacity. As confirmed on the Lynx support forum, the audio bitstream is going from JRiver, through the ASIO driver, through the USB cable, into the Hilo, and then clocked back out the Hilo, through the USB cable, through the ASIO driver, and into Audacity. The Hilo has the capability to patch (sometimes called digital loopback or route) any input to any output. For a DAC, I am using a Lynx Hilo, which by one objective measure, rates as one of the most transparent A/D D/A converters on the market today. On Windows, I am using the ASIO version of Audacity and on the Mac version 2.0.3 to record the audio bitstream from JRiver. The MacBook Pro is an Intel 2.26 GHz Core 2 Duo with 8 GB of RAM and running OSX version 10.8.2. The Windows computer is an Intel 3.30 GHz i5-2500 quad core with 8 GB of RAM and running Windows 7 64-bit operating system. Given that the test software is freeware, I designed the article to follow a step by step process, so if inclined, one can repeat the test procedures and see if the results are repeatable. The Audacity recordings of the JRiver music players on both Mac and Windows are included in this article so people can download and subjectively listen to and objectively inspect. Using Foobar’s ABX Comparator to listen to each recorded track and determine which one sounds different or subjectively better.Using Audio DiffMaker, that is purpose built software for audio differencing tests, to analyze the two recordings, which also produces a difference file that can be listened to and subjectively evaluated.the difference file) and whether it is subjectively audible. Then by editing and lining up the track samples, inverting one of the tracks, and mixing them together, we will see what audio signal is left over (i.e. Using Audacity (or any digital audio editing software) to digitally record the output from JRiver on both Mac and Windows.Similar to how I compared JRiver to JPlay, I am using the following test methods and tools to compare SQ: Now that an early release of JRiver is available on the Mac, I thought I would take the opportunity to compare the sound quality between the two JRiver music players. JRiver on Windows is extensively reviewed by Chris. I have been listening to JRiver Media Center on Windows for almost two years and have been a happy customer.
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