Jplay Serial Key Forum

For the last couple of weeks or so, I've been trying out the trial version of a memory based audio player for the Windows 7(or vista) platform, called JPLAY. So far I'm pretty impressed with the sound quality it's a step up on Foobar IMO. The idea behind JPLAY is ultimate sound quality & it's certainly very good, but to get the extra quality it's a very minimal player at only 250KB & has no GUI, File management or playlist support! Its stripped-down, bare-bones playback engine fits completely inside CPU cache & will allow you to pick tracks from Foobar, JRiver etc by copy & paste method.

JPLAY then pre-loads the complete chosen tracks into the PC's RAM guaranteeing zero disk operation during playback. There's a few options to choose from & it's pretty easy to get up & running. One of it's main features is 'hibernation' mode, Your PC is used for audio playback only, this kills all unneeded processes from running in the background during the hibernation. A drawback to this is your PC is locked into hibernation until the chosen tracks have been played i.e no browsing or nothing. Hibernation is an option, so you can choose a little less sound quality to be able to use your PC during playback, but this does kind of defeat the point. You can use the player from a USB memory stick & removing the stick will stop the hibernation if needed.

JPLAY 4.1 + Crack Keygen/Serial Date added: Jan 2016. Download JPLAY 4.1 + keygen crack. Review this Software. Name * Email * Website.

Here's a link to the website for more info & it's full features. There's 32 & 64bit downloadable trials, it does drop out for a couple of secs every 2 or 3 mins or so but it's good enough to see what it's about! It does though cost 99Euro for a single license of the full version. JPLAY claims Full memory-based playback: most other memory-based players dynamically load tracks into memory during playback. In contrast, JPLAY pre-loads complete playlist into RAM guaranteeing no disk activity during playback.

Large Page Memory: superior memory management provides minimal CPU latencies. Maximum System Timer: reduce operating system latency by making Windows switch tasks faster.

(0.5ms instead of default 15.6ms) Maximal Priority Scheduling: ensure uninterrupted flow of music data by running music playback at highest possible priority. Hibernation Mode: cancel OS ‘noise’ by eliminating dozens of jitter-inducing processes and hundreds of threads. Review here It does seem to lift a veil & offers improved low end performance & better separation over what I'm hearing with Foobar, infact as good as I've heard in a player, but at some expense, in cost & ease of use in file management. Well worth a trial if you use a Windows 7 PC set-up IMO. Seems a lot of money for very little. I dont hear any interference whatsoever from my pc. Playback sounds identical to my cdp.

Maybe my ears are goosed!?!:) I think it works out at £86 or thereabouts. The trial is free though & there's a 32 & 64 bit version. I didn't hear any interference or noise with Foobar either Simon, until I took it away using JPLAY!

With some recordings the difference is very noticeable there seems to be a much blacker quieter background. The quiet parts seem more delicate which brings a better dymanic swing:) It's easy to setup & have a play & the trial version as I say is free. I've switched over from J.River to Jplay. Sound quality is worth the $ and the minor inconveniences. One happy camper here. Do you use J.River's file system & just use Jplay as the player over the top? I've just found out by email that there's a new 3.3a version of Jplay, that's suposed to be another improvement.

I've also got some setup tips that i'll post up to if you're interested? I slightly prefered J.River to Foobar when I had the 30day trial, but didn't think the difference was $50 worth.

What improvement do you notice with Jplay over J.River? I think it works out at £86 or thereabouts. The trial is free though & there's a 32 & 64 bit version. I didn't hear any interference or noise with Foobar either Simon, until I took it away using JPLAY! With some recordings the difference is very noticeable there seems to be a much blacker quieter background.

The quiet parts seem more delicate which brings a better dymanic swing:) It's easy to setup & have a play & the trial version as I say is free i take your point. But i hear no difference between using my pc or cdp as transport. I guess i have nothing to lose by trialling it, though. Just hope it is easy to use, as i am not the best on the pc.:scratch. Been playing around with this tonight and I have to be honest, I cannot hear a difference between my music server using Foobar/WASAPI and the JPlay player. Having said that, my music server is not a normal Windows PC, as it's trimmed down with as many services as possible switched off and it doesn't have a mouse, keyboard or screen or anything else running, like A/V or other software - no fans either and a hard drive which is as good as silent. I would have bought JPlay if there had been an improvement, but for me it didn't change a thing SQ wise and with it's clunky interface it's not a winner compared to what I have already.

I expect other peoples results will differ, especially if they have a standard PC with all the usual bell's and whistles running, which definitely can impact SQ, as I have experienced this myself especially on laptops. However, I reckon for a dedicated music server built and configured for nothing else, it could be redundant. To be honest if you have enough RAM available, all you have to do is run the portable version of Foobar from a RAM drive and you should have the same thing?

With Foobar being free, it would be hard for me to justify it's cost under those circumstances. I will play around some more though with hibernation mode and such like, as it would be more power efficient to use JPlay with the PC virtually shutdown, but then you lose the convenience of something like Foobar and playing music for me would become a faff again. Having said all that, I didn't notice a difference between having an SSD in my server against a mechanical hard drive, so maybe I just have cloth ears:scratch: What is encouraging though is that software like this is being developed, which can only be a good thing for file based audio. What we need is a free or low cost bare bones Linux distro, which boots a PC and does nothing but play music from RAM with a user friendly interface - only a matter of time and no doubt out there in some form already, waiting to be discovered by the masses? Maybe some on this forum have something similar already;):cool. Been playing around with this tonight and I have to be honest, I cannot hear a difference between my music server using Foobar/WASAPI and the JPlay player.

Having said that, my music server is not a normal Windows PC, as it's trimmed down with as many services as possible switched off and it doesn't have a mouse, keyboard or screen or anything else running, like A/V or other software - no fans either and a hard drive which is as good as silent. I would have bought JPlay if there had been an improvement, but for me it didn't change a thing SQ wise and with it's clunky interface it's not a winner compared to what I have already. I expect other peoples results will differ, especially if they have a standard PC with all the usual bell's and whistles running, which definitely can impact SQ, as I have experienced this myself especially on laptops. However, I reckon for a dedicated music server built and configured for nothing else, it could be redundant. To be honest if you have enough RAM available, all you have to do is run the portable version of Foobar from a RAM drive and you should have the same thing? With Foobar being free, it would be hard for me to justify it's cost under those circumstances. I will play around some more though with hibernation mode and such like, as it would be more power efficient to use JPlay with the PC virtually shutdown, but then you lose the convenience of something like Foobar and playing music for me would become a faff again.

Having said all that, I didn't notice a difference between having an SSD in my server against a mechanical hard drive, so maybe I just have cloth ears:scratch: What is encouraging though is that software like this is being developed, which can only be a good thing for file based audio. What we need is a free or low cost bare bones Linux distro, which boots a PC and does nothing but play music from RAM with a user friendly interface - only a matter of time and no doubt out there in some form already, waiting to be discovered by the masses?

Maybe some on this forum have something similar already;):cool: Hi Tim, Your findings are quite Interesting mate, I suspect your trimmed down windows OS on your music server is already doing some of the things Jplay does! Did you try the two different playback engines 'Beach' & 'River' by toggling the 'e' key?

If so could you detect any difference? Seems there's already a few similar pieces of software, cMP & cPlay, StealthAudioPlayer & Signalyst HQPlayer. Also there's Fidelizer, an optimisation program for Windows but not a player. I suspect if your server is nicely sorted then perhaps these may not add much, but may be worth a play. Hi Tim, Your findings are quite Interesting mate, I suspect your trimmed down windows OS on your music server is already doing some of the things Jplay does!

Did you try the two different playback engines 'Beach' & 'River' by toggling the 'e' key? If so could you detect any difference? Seems there's already a few similar pieces of software, cMP & cPlay, StealthAudioPlayer & Signalyst HQPlayer. Also there's Fidelizer, an optimisation program for Windows but not a player.

I suspect if your server is nicely sorted then perhaps these may not add much, but may be worth a play. Yes, I think you are right Alfie I'm probably achieving the same result as JPlay anyway.

Foobar will play from memory as well if you set the file buffering and I have played with that, but there is a slight delay when it loads the tracks (like JPLay) and as there was no perceived benefit I don't bother anymore. I suspect pretty much all of my file play is handled direct from RAM anyway, without me having to do anything. I have shut down the pagefile and just about everything else too, so nothing gets written back to disc anyway. My server has 4GB RAM and a 64bit O/S and when running only uses around 700MB and that's with an integrated Nvidea ION GPU. Compared to my desktop PC with 8GB of RAM which has 2.5GB in use when I'm just browsing and playing music, so quite a difference and the desktop has it's own 1GB graphics card too.

Just looking at the Processes running in Windows Task Manager in normal use, around 30 on the server, 77 on the desktop PC. I also have a Western Digital (EADS) green drive which are suited for low task silent operation and have a different firmware optimisation from general purpose hard drives. These show excellent results with sustained reads but are not so good at random access as they are 5400RPM - it has an onboard 32MB cache buffer as well which I believe reads ahead. I have also partitioned my hard drive, so the music library shouldn't become defragmented and reads remain consistent. The WD EADS drives are very low powered and run cool, mines around 35 degrees C and that's without any fans in the case.

I intended to try some more configurations but to be honest I'm so happy with the results at the moment that I'm more inclined to listen to music that fart around with the O/S anymore. I have been playing around with JRiver too using WASAPI output and playing from RAM - very good results and with all the benefits JRiver has as a usable media player, it does really make you question the price of JPlay?

I opened it up in Notepad++ and had a look, only 1800 lines of code and a portion of those are just plain text instructions for displaying to the end user. At today's exchange rate JPlay is £86.00, JRiver Media Center £30.00 and foobar is free:scratch: I spent yesterday listening to those three players and cannot with my system (and cloth ears) make out any discernable difference in sound quality - they all sounded the same to me.

I did have a look at JRiver Jukebox, which does play from RAM but there is no inbuilt WASAPI playback and it didn't sound as good as the other players to me. I didn't try the options for Beach & River, missed that to be honest so will have to try those too - did you notice a difference? However, playing from RAM with the computer in hibernation is a compelling feature of JPlay, but I don't like the fact that once the music starts you are locked into hibernation until it stops - this would be a major annoyance for me. Also, the fact that people here have tried it and struggled to make it work is likely to be a major drawback for the average computer user and could be a hindrance if people download the trial and have problems. What would be good is a right click Play in JPlay function like foobar and other players have like below; You select the files, right click them, send them to JPlay where it plays them and automatically enters Hibernation mode - that would be good and worth around $10.00 at the very most as a program. But what I think won't appeal to most people who use file based audio, is the software's inability to browse through your music library and play random selections easily - I think folk like doing that, especially younger music fans. I personally don't think the developer really understands their potential target market and is trying to cash in by tagging it a high-end audio player - snake oil and exploitive IMO, which is symptomatic of the audio market.

Its a very simple program and no doubt somebody will dissect it and produce something open-source soon and there are others around as you have discovered. A cynic may say the developer realises this and has priced it accordingly to make a quick buck, before the program becomes superseded by other lower priced or free alternatives. I like the simplicity but its overpriced (hugely), not very user friendly, a bit too basic and with other cheaper alternatives available I think it could struggle to become popular. I so wanted to like JPlay, but its not a complete product IMO and no better than what's already available. However, my findings are not entirely representative as my player is not an off the shelf product and this would very likely be an improvement for somebody using a laptop. I rather think though that if you have a dedicated music server, it really has no benefit over the other programs mentioned, but the only way to find out is to try it and see - if it makes an £86.00 sound improvement then good, if not buy some more music. I might be missing something here, but please can someone have a go at trying to explain why on earth streaming a load of bits from disk, into memory all in one go has any remote chance of sounding even a tiny bit different to loading them into memory progressively and streaming them from memory?

To say this is bonkers is an understatement. I think you may have missed the point, it's not so much to do with what you have described above, but more to do with how a typical Windows PC can affect sound quality and trying to isolate as much as that away from the playback of a digital file.

It does make a difference, more so on some systems than others - the ideal is to have no processes active at all, other than the music player sending data to a DAC. The simplest way to achieve this is direct from RAM, which is solid state and with no moving parts.

It's pretty much an accepted ideal in FBA, which is why programmers are developing this area. (unless of course I'm missing something too?). What I would say about Jplay is this.

If you don't hear a difference, however you run it, don't buy it! That's why they have a trial. I would guess the observations above about who is mostly likely to get the most out of it are correct. If you've a dedicated server and have already minimized unnecessary services then you may not hear a difference, particularly in non-hibernation mode. I don't have a dedicated server, I just use my HP notebook. With Fidelizer and J.River is sounded quite good. Hibernation mode (with the additional tweaks recommended on the Jplay forum) with Jplay is where I hear a positive difference in clarity, soundstage stability, the usual good stuff you get when you tweak an already good system.

It is an extremely simple system to use, and, admittedly enforces a different listening discipline having to listen to your entire queue.I simply copy album tracks using Windows Explorer. I don't mind, I actually find it more relaxing just to put an album on and listening to the whole thing, the way we did with an LP side. I think you may have missed the point, it's not so much to do with what you have described above, but more to do with how a typical Windows PC can affect sound quality and trying to isolate as much as that away from the playback of a digital file. It does make a difference, more so on some systems than others - the ideal is to have no processes active at all, other than the music player sending data to a DAC.

The simplest way to achieve this is direct from RAM, which is solid state and with no moving parts. It's pretty much an accepted ideal in FBA, which is why programmers are developing this area. (unless of course I'm missing something too?) I think you are. You say, 'it's not so much to do with what you have described above, but more to do with how a typical Windows PC can affect sound quality and trying to isolate as much as that away from the playback of a digital file' The 64,000 dollar question is why or how can background processes or anything else for that matter change the sound of an identical stream of bits. It's illogical, unbelievable and frankly, impossible.

I can see how different digital audio solutions can sound different if for example the word lengths are different, or if sample rate conversion is going on, or something like that. But other than that, on the same PC (with the same digital output and the same oscillators) the same stream of bits into the same dac and amplication and speakers will sound the same. Not only that, it MUST sound the same. The only way it can sound different is if the bits are changed, and there's no way that can be influenced by playing from ram or playing from disk. It is impossible. I brace myself for the 'I know what my ears tell me' brigade to wade in.

But I will say in advance, if anyone thinks they can hear such a difference, they are in my opinion deluded. The sound is a function of the digits and jitter and neither of those is influenced one iota by what processes are or are not running on the PC. Nor whether it's read from ram all at once or progressively transferred from disk to ram. Sorry Ian, I'm not going to argue the point with you, we shall have to agree to disagree, but you really are missing the point. The data is the same agreed, it's the playback sound quality that varies as the computer, it's hardware and operating system can (and does) affect the end product. You need to try it for yourself?

The 64,000 dollar question is why or how can background processes or anything else for that matter change the sound of an identical stream of bits. It's illogical, unbelievable and frankly, impossible. OK then, you're right of course, it's impossible and I'm very happy to remain a deluded subjectivist. The 64,000 dollar question is why or how can background processes or anything else for that matter change the sound of an identical stream of bits.

It's illogical, unbelievable and frankly, impossible. Bits are bits. But PCM audio is not only bits but also a time step (sample rate). This is a matter of a clock driving the sound card or the SPDIF out.

Perfect playback is bit perfect and timing perfect. This is my laptop running on AC This is the same laptop running on DC.

When running on DC the power saving kicks in. In both cases the same bits are send but the timing is obvious influenced by the hardware A bit more about PCM: http://thewelltemperedcomputer.com/KB/BitPerfectJitter.htm. I was sorely tempted by the Touch when it first arrived but I've read it still doesn't quite stand comparison with a computer based transport. Have you ever had the chance to compare the two chris? I was running a SB3 before Touch came out - it's now in my son's bedroom. I have had none of the problems with the Touch that others have posted.

There again I could have been classed as an old hand regarding Squeezebox streaming. As far as comparing the Touch with a dedicated computer transport, well, I have a laptop, and it has USB connections. I have a Caiman with a USB input. Do things sound better using Foobar on the laptop than they do using the Touch/Caiman? There again, the connection can only be 16/48 maximum.

I've also used Foobar with my EMU0202 USB, and that will run at 24/192 (proprietory drivers). And I have a couple of DVD-Audio discs that have 24/192 content.

Does that sound any better than the Touch/Caiman? The Squeezebox route works very well here, and for 2 locations in the house. If you want to know what it's like from another member's prespective, and he is a total newbie with Squeezebox Touch, ask Dave the Bass. I think he is a member here, although he doesn't post much. Bits are bits. But PCM audio is not only bits but also a time step (sample rate).

This is a matter of a clock driving the sound card or the SPDIF out. Perfect playback is bit perfect and timing perfect.

This is my laptop running on AC This is the same laptop running on DC. When running on DC the power saving kicks in.

In both cases the same bits are send but the timing is obvious influenced by the hardware A bit more about PCM: I don't know what we are looking at there mate, unless it's analogue output from your laptop. If you are suggesting it's the THD plot derived from a digital output, I'd better not say anything else for the risk of causing offence. Can't see that it does anything a Squeezebox Touch can do. A Squeezebox Touch is less expensive too. A Squeezebox Touch looks for me more like a gadget, not a piece of audio equipment, but you are right, it cost about the same and do the same.

And they are not only ones. That is why not cleary understand JPLAY and for what are they charging. 100 euro is not a little money. It is like a buying a hundreds pound worth audio cable. Is it better just because of software?

So, there is nothing to do with actual computer hardware, good or not so good? Then Touch and similar things must be better than any computer because they already running minimal necessary processes and playing from memory. If JPLAY is so good software, they should look for a partner to make a good dedicated piece of audio. Personally I still looking what can replace my computer for playing audio files. A dedicated computer for audio it is like going to opera in a truck. That's what put me off the Touch, the fact that there still seemed to be some way to go with computer based transport - people keep eeking more and more out of it with various software interfaces and spdif converters, eliminating issues of jitter, etc. For me there just seems to be a bit more versatility in computer based set ups at the moment, it gives you the option of adopting a sort of wait and see approach.

Although I'm aware there is a lot of scope with regards to modding the SB. You could view some of the software mods for what they are - DSP, or in other words sophisticated tone controls. And then ask the question 'what degree of manipulation does it take to make the music sound better than the original?' That's what some of the software mods are doing with the Squeezebox, and it could well be true for software players too. You could view some of the software mods for what they are - DSP, or in other words sophisticated tone controls. And then ask the question 'what degree of manipulation does it take to make the music sound better than the original?' That's what some of the software mods are doing with the Squeezebox, and it could well be true for software players too.

I'm quite interested in this Chris! Are you on about mods for both the SB & PC's? Which ones are you specifically referring to? Which have you tried? How did you prove that they were infact DSP software?

I've played around with Audio Diffmaker a little but have know idea about measuring timing issues. You could view some of the software mods for what they are - DSP, or in other words sophisticated tone controls. And then ask the question 'what degree of manipulation does it take to make the music sound better than the original?' That's what some of the software mods are doing with the Squeezebox, and it could well be true for software players too.

Yes, I'm not sure about these different software audio players, although as the owner of an Apple G5 PowerPC I'm blocked from running Snow Leopard and therefore unable to try all the latest software offerings. However, I did try 'Cog' when it originally came out and in comparison to itunes it seemed to me it was nothing more than messing about with an EQ. The spdif converters however I suspect are a different matter altogether in what they achieve - from what I've read it seems a decent async usb converter can take computer audio on to a completely different level. Jplay does little that free plugins for Foobar don't. If you are using Windows XP, use: Drop the file into your Foobar2000/Components folder.

Then load up Foobar, go to File ->Preferences ->Output. Select 'KS: ' and click OK. You can fiddle with the buffer length and Output Data Format afterwards. If you are using Windows Vista or 7, use: Much the same, it's the lowest level of access to audio a program can have on a Windows system. Anything touching the sound at this point is physical, where YMMV depending on your kit:).

However, playing from RAM with the computer in hibernation is a compelling feature of JPlay, but I don't like the fact that once the music starts you are locked into hibernation until it stops - this would be a major annoyance for me. [/SIZE] Hi Tim, When running in hibernate mode if you run JPlay.exe from a USB Flash Drive you can exit Hibernate (and terminate the playback) by unplugging the USB drive. It definitely does suit album play where you're playing the whole album from start to finish though. Hi Tim, When running in hibernate mode if you run JPlay.exe from a USB Flash Drive you can exit Hibernate (and terminate the playback) by unplugging the USB drive. It definitely does suit album play where you're playing the whole album from start to finish though. Chris Not really any use for my purposes, I'm totally file based so would have to copy the album to a flash drive, plug it in, go through the pa-lava of getting it playing, then unplug it to stop it - if I was going to do that, then I would rather buy a turntable and play an LP! Not the simplest of solutions at all and for me, far too much fuss without any gain.

I have been using the JPlay software for a couple of months now on a nearly daily basis in the office and at home. I haven't been using it as my sole music player as I also use Foobar.

I use Foobar probably more than JPlay but use JPlay for critical listening. I'm not sure if JPlay will ever replace Foobar completely for me. There has been a lot of talk about the price of the product. I agree that it does initially look expensive. One thing which hasn't been mentioned is that fact that you are paying for unlimited number of licences for personal use. This makes sense for me as I have three music PCs.

It may not make a difference to some people. Also, you are paying not just for the current version but for each subsequent release 'forever'. No cost of upgrading the software, ever. Also, the guys Marcin and Josef may bespoke the software for you at no additional charge. For example they implemented lossless volume attenutation for me. Something I don't think is possible in Foobar (although there may be a plugin for it). Just thought I would update this thread as JPLAY has evolved quite a bit since myself and others trialed it, so a lot of the information in this thread is now out of date.

This should be borne in mind before thinking about JPLAY and perhaps giving it a miss as that would be unfair to the product as it does so much more now. Updates for the current version (v4.1) allow integration into JRiver, iTunes and Foobar. In view of this I would recommend downloading the latest version and giving it a go? I've just tried JPLAY today on trial. Using it with JRiver as a front end, and the improvment in quality is astonishing! I thought my system was sounding good but JPLAY has just removed another layer to reveal an amazing amount of detail in a recording,i'm stunned.

Listening to Taste-Live at Isle of Wight as i type, it was always a muddy recording but JPLAY has it sounding like i've never heard.:) I'm buying this as soon as funds allow. It's only £86, a lot of people don't baulk at that price for cables! Very impressed.

Don't forget XXHighend too people Have you looked at what those guys advocate? They recommend computers that wouldn't be out of place at a LAN party, apart from the GPU.they are even talking about over-clocking and running complex RAID servers for storing your music. I'm a bit dumbstruck to be honest:scratch: This guy has put together his 'ideal' system for running XXHighEnd and no one has shot him down for it - quite the contrary, other's are linking to it as a recommendation!

£1,500 and then the DAC on top...:stalks: Not to take anything away from the bloke, as he's put together a very good and well thought out computer - but for file based audio? Take that with a pinch of salt. A low powered machine or say an Atom based computer may struggle but it should be fine on anything above that. Mines got an E6400 CPU clocked upto 2.66GHz and doesn't struggle, which is easily beaten by a 50 quid CPU now. Thanks for the heads up Robert, but I goes completely against the grain for me, which is low power and totally silent. My next server (already in the pipeline) has to be a small footprint, about the same size as a Rega DAC, even lower powered, low heat and with no moving parts. It's Atom based again so XXHE wouldn't run on it and TBH it's not something I would want anyway.

I'm an advocate of less is more when it comes to file based audio.:cool. Ah, Mr Peter Street (XXHighEnd), a man after my own heart; moar power!;) He is a very interesting guy with some very interesting ideas. He also produces a rather interesting but very expensive Dac.:stalks: I'm not convinced this low power trend for file based audio is necessarily the right way to go. One of the downfalls of the Touch for example is it's underpowered; great for a few files, but hang a 2000+ album data base on the end and it wobbles. Cplay did much the same as Jplay for Win XP. I'm not keen on Win7 as an OS for a file based music player; way too much going on that has nothing to do with getting the data from drive to Dac; hence Jplay.

The main struggle seems to be getting the OS to not interfere with the data recovery process and Linux still has the edge for this imo; you just need a few months of therapy to get to grips with it. I use a dual-core Atom server based around the Intel 525 board with 4gb of ram and a 120 watt psu and find it perfectly adequate for my music collection which is 2tb+.

CPU usage rarely goes above 25%. SB Touch copes with a library of 6.5k albums/2.3k artists without too many issues - I limit the artwork to no bigger than 500x500 pixels and connection is over ethernet. I get an occasional 'break' in playback which I've put down to ipeng - if I use the logitech ipad app it doesn't happen. My only real annoyance is the 'blip' from the Rega DAC as it switches between bitrates if I program 16 and 24 bit tracks in the same playlist - but I can live with it/work round it. I'm quite keen to stick to low power devices where possible (quite fancy having a go at a vinyl playback system which would run off solar charged batteries - it'll have to be a 'retirement project' though.). JPlay software has evolved somewhat this year the latest V4 & then very soon after V4.1 now offer integration with Foobar & iTunes with 4.1 adding JRiver too. It also still offers the original JPlay with no front end as the JPlaymini player.

There is also a GUI panel now instead of the DOS looking panel of old, it makes changing setting easier just with a mouse click or two. JPlay now works as a Windows service which greatly helps it to grab hold of unfragmented memory to use & works far better now with my Laptop. Also now got a digital volume control for anyone without a preamp. Two Hibernation modes 'FulllScale' & 'TurboCore'. Here's some blurb. DirectLink: For the first time CD material is guaranteed to work with lowest latency of 1 sample on most PCI or USB audio interfaces! Large Page Memory: Decrease CPU latencies with superior memory management techniques.

JPLAY as a Windows Service: JPLAY is the first and only audio player that operates as a Windows Service. By leveraging ‘Session 0 Isolation’ JPLAY can get to non-fragmented memory sooner than with current approach of manually tweaking loading order of Startup programs.

No user intervention is required as Windows guarantees JPLAY will be started at earliest possible moment for best results. Maximum System Timer: Reduce OS latency by making Windows switch tasks faster. 64-bit Support: JPLAY makes use of both 32-bit and 64-bit CPU-s’ architecture. High Resolution: Jplay supports 16-bit Red Book and High-rez 24-bit files in WAV, AIFF, ALAC or FLAC formats – we say no to lossy codecs. A free trial version is still downloadable, but the break in playback does now seem more frequent & seems to last for longer (10 - 12 secs). It still sounds better to my ears than any other digital front end I've tried into the Young Dac, I might have a play around with the SBT mods yet though.

I mostly use Limux, but I do have 64bit Win7 on my system with Foobar + WASAPI. Thought I'd give the Jplay trail a whirl and used the Jplay mini on a 24/96 test file ( a nine minuite extract from a Mozart violin concerto). On my system and with my ears I couldn't realy detect a difference between straight Foobar + WASAPI and using Jplay mini, even in hybernation mode. In fact the idea it's only going to give of its best when using hybernation seems a bit odd to me. But I suppose there might be times when I 'd be happy to let audio playback take over my general purpose PC. You spend £100 (?) on the all singing all dancing Win7 then you go and spend £90 (?) on Jplay to stop Win7 from singing and dancing. I can see why John would question this.

It's more work, but if I were a windows user I 'd be more inclined to dual boot between say a standard Win7 install with foobar, jriver or whatever and a dedicated audio only configuration which would of course be based on a bare bones Linux setup. As to the XXhighend server spec.

Well that just seems barmy to me. Surely the lowest powered computer you can get away with is the target for a file based audio player? People have succesfully run Linux audio servers on NSLUG2, sheevaplug, pogoplug and even routers. The squeezebox touch, warts and all, shows what can be done with low powered embedded system, and that's using old technology.

The next wave of embedded devices are ARM based and it's astonishing what can be packed into a small space. See the Cubox ar solid run - Yes folks, it's a 2cm cube with a SOC which has all this: Specs: Supports Android, Ubuntu, XMBC, similar 800 MHz dual issue ARM PJ4 processor with 512KB L2 cache, VFPv3, wmmx SIMD 1080p Video Decode Engine OpenGL ES 2.0 graphic engine HDMI 1080p Output 1GByte DDR3 @ 800MHz Gigabit Ethernet, SPDIF (optical audio), eSata 3Gbps, 2xUSB 2.0, micro-SD, micro-USB (console) Infra-red receiver Raspberry Pi, eat your heart out. Mind you it's still only a development device and prices around £99. Wait a mintue, that's only a few quid more than Jplay.

John most of us buy a computer for use in everyday life so generally get windows as this is the package that most computers come with, we then try computer audio and find it handy and with a good DAC it will out perform a lot of CD players. Now then something like Jplay comes along and chages the whole ball park suddenly windows can be a really good medium to play windows, everything is still easy to use, there are no crashes I do not have to learn new skills and because I (we) already have windows it works out very reasonable considering the performance upgrade. If I had more time to learn a new system and I was not scared my system would crash I would consider the Linux as a possible solution. When comes to computers I want a reasonable easy trouble free life. I am still looking forward to you coming round and showing to me another way.

On my system and with my ears I couldn't realy detect a difference between straight Foobar + WASAPI and using Jplay mini, even in hybernation mode. In fact the idea it's only going to give of its best when using hybernation seems a bit odd to me. But I suppose there might be times when I 'd be happy to let audio playback take over my general purpose PC. For me the difference is huge but I do have a different system to most people and as I mentioned before I tend to suspect my speaker arrangement of getting the best out of digital ( no real evidence just experience of other systems). I accept everything you've written John as the way it is for many, and Clive's point that Jplay is easy. But, it comes apart a bit here imo. When comes to computers I want a reasonable easy trouble free life.

You've gone and got all offended now John.:( Yes, I crashed quite a few times but I'm reckless:eyebrows::D The point of the guide is if you follow it you shouldn't crash. I've done the crashing for you.;) Even if you do crash, what's the worst that can happen? May be spend a couple of hours transferring your back up files?

I don't want to upset anybody but until the people who are interested in file audio have a go themselves and stop quaking in front of their computers they are bait for every bit of overpriced software and sales bullshit out there. Who's the boss in your house, you or the computer?

I think the problem is (and I'm guilty of it too) that folk comfortable around computers do kind of take their knowledge for granted and often become a little bemused at other people's reluctance to explore further and learn like I/we did. It drives me nuts at times, repeatedly fixing computers for my mates, especially when they keep making the same mistakes:doh: But computers do seem to be a block for many people and if they are using a computer as a multi-purpose machine, they are even more reluctant to risk crashing it as getting it fixed can be time consuming and often expensive. So it's easy to think 'why the feck don't people listen and just have a go', as that's just one step too far for many people, so something like JPLAY is a compromise.

I personally wouldn't go near it, but then I don't need to and I certainly wouldn't go near anything that sounded no better than what I already have. A big issue is time and I don't know what you do John (W), but you do seem to have a lot more time than even me and I'm single - people with wives, girlfriends and children have even less time to spend tinkering with computers. Don't take this the wrong way John, but your often forthright way of expressing yourself can be misconstrued.

When I first joined AoS you used to upset me frequently, but I know better now and rarely ever take offence, in fact I enjoy reading your lively posts and as I have said before, I have learned a lot too:):grouphug. Don't take this the wrong way John, but your often forthright way of expressing yourself can be misconstrued. When I first joined AoS you used to upset me frequently, but I know better know and rarely take offence, in fact I enjoy reading your lively posts and as I have said before, I have learned a lot too:):grouphug: But (splutter) but.I'm really well behaved here Tim:eek::D Yes, I have quite a lot of time compared to some. I'm a bit like Marco, semi retired, but without Marco's income.:lol: I tutor Maths and Physics. But (splutter) but.I'm really well behaved here Tim:eek::D:lol: fair enough.

Regarding JPLAY, here's something I hadn't really considered before. I have tried JPLAY (and JPLAYmini) on my server and cannot detect any improvement over what I already have, but when you take into account all the time, effort and money I have invested in my server and the fact that JPLAY is no better but certainly no slouch either, then that's surely a positive? For someone who wants a very simple way of achieving good quality playback from a computer, JPLAY certainly seems to fit the bill and should definitely be considered IMO. However, I also think as John (W) does, that a dedicated music player/server is the best option, be it a MAC, Linux or Windows based player, but that's easy for me to say as I'm very comfortable building and configuring my own. But I also agree with John again (lol, I'm agreeing with John a lot today!), when he says it isn't that hard to do.

All it needs is a little patience, commitment to learning something new and being prepared to step outside your 'computer' comfort zone. Again, easy to say but 12 months ago I had never considered building my own. His Linux guide is excellent and all you need really is some time and the willingness to give it a go, as the software is free and John's already ironed out the rough spots. I certainly intend to at some point, but at the moment I don't have the free time. I find the whole 'file based audio' concept really interesting and it's come on leaps and bounds in the last couple of years, so I'm pretty chuffed there are people out there developing software like JPLAY, as finally many of the sceptics are realising it is possible for a computer based player to produce very good audio:).

:lol: fair enough. Regarding JPLAY, here's something I hadn't really considered before. I have tried JPLAY (and JPLAYmini) on my server and cannot detect any improvement over what I already have, but when you take into account all the time, effort and money I have invested in my server and the fact that JPLAY is no better but certainly no slouch either, then that's surely a positive? For someone who wants a very simple way of achieving good quality playback from a computer, JPLAY certainly seems to fit the bill and should definitely be considered IMO. However, I also think as John (W) does, that a dedicated music player/server is the best option, be it a MAC, Linux or Windows based player, but that's easy for me to say as I'm very comfortable building and configuring my own.

But I also agree with John again (lol, I'm agreeing with John a lot today!), when he says it isn't that hard to do. All it needs is a little patience, commitment to learning something new and being prepared to step outside your 'computer' comfort zone.

Again, easy to say but 12 months ago I had never considered building my own. His Linux guide is excellent and all you need really is some time and the willingness to give it a go, as the software is free and John's already ironed out the rough spots. I certainly intend to at some point, but at the moment I don't have the free time. I find the whole 'file based audio' concept really interesting and it's come on leaps and bounds in the last couple of years, so I'm pretty chuffed there are people out there developing software like JPLAY, as finally many of the sceptics are realising it is possible for a computer based player to produce very good audio:) I expect there will be code similar to JPLAY out there for free or lower cost soon. Overall though it's great to have a choice! Someone needing to buy specific hardware for a music server will be more expensive than buying JPLAY. OK, you can setup a dual boot system on an existing machine but that steps into a area wheremost people don't want to go.

For those comfortable and with the time to invest in really getting to know how to build a server then that's a great route for them. Let's face it though, it'll take a lot more than 2 hours! JPLAY (or something similar in the future) is really easy though the downside is that you get a hairshirt UI and you need a lot of RAM for 24/192, something like 8GB to 12GB. This is remarkably like a discussion about the merits of DD over Idler!

I'm not convinced this low power trend for file based audio is necessarily the right way to go. One of the downfalls of the Touch for example is it's underpowered; great for a few files, but hang a 2000+ album data base on the end and it wobbles. I've been reading about computer based audio for about 15 years, but for home studio use. Even a beige Mac G3 was happily able to simultaneously record and play back many tracks at once with maybe the odd plug-in running in real time, all natively and running multiple midi tracks too. All of these DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) are basically databases, pulling up multiple audio clips in order, in time from all over the hard drive. They ran smoothly then 15 years ago, got loads better when dual processors came out in the early 2000s so that the OS could run its background processes on one CPU, leaving the software to do its thing and by then people were starting to record in 24/96 too.

If you could do all this 10 or more years ago with tens of tracks at once, why would anyone need high power in today's technology? The only reason I can think of is simply to handle over-blown operating systems and over-blown playback software. I can understand why products are developed with puny processors as every pound saved is margin. What I don't understand is why anyone using a laptop server or building a server wouldn't spend a little extra for a powerful CPU. It's rather like buying a performance car for it's speed and but not selecting the most powerful engine for it - just to see if it is still enjoyable. Clive, it is all about balance.

I built my music server from a NetBook (Samsung) that has served me well for a couple of years. I needed to trim down my 'portable' kit and this was the easiest most cost effective route as I replaced the net book with an iPad. This worked for me! It's rather like buying a performance car for its speed and but not selecting the most powerful engine for it - just to see if it is still enjoyable.

I don't think you'd need up to date speed for a media server. So it would be more like buying a car that has enough power to negotiate motorways well enough, overtaking etc. You don't need a Lamboughini to do that - they're capability is wasted in normal usage. I think people just spend 'to be certain' that it will cope when actually they don't realise that could probably do it all on a P4 very easily and for free (ignoring looks and silent cooling.).

Back in the day I was happily using a P2 400Mhz to run.wav play lists which is essentially all that an audio server does. I don't think you'd need up to date speed for a media server. So it would be more like buying a car that has enough power to negotiate motorways well enough, overtaking etc. You don't need a Lamboughini to do that - they're capability is wasted in normal usage.

I think people just spend 'to be certain' that it will cope when actually they don't realise that could probably do it all on a P4 very easily and for free (ignoring looks and silent cooling.). Keygen Soft Restaurant 85255. Back in the day I was happily using a P2 400Mhz to run.wav play lists which is essentially all that an audio server does.

If you want to use some types of windows players you need a reasonably powerful processor. This isn't due to windows as such, it more to do with the performance - ie greatly reducing latency. In-memory players such as JPLAY and xxhighend are processor hungry. So this is like having an incredibly responsive engine with loads of torque. Of course if you want to use Foobar or Jriver etc on windows then use a low speed cpu as the sound is far from optimal anyway. Maybe I should explain some more about what JPLAY and other in-memory players strive to do. The re-clocked buffer on most dacs fixes all data timing problems don't.no it does not!

They may re-clock but it seems they can only cope with VERY small levels of timing errors. In-memory players deliver or make available data within very precise time windows. Playlists and GUIs for the likes of JPLAY are very hairshirt, actually there's no GUI with JPLAYmini. I dont think JPlay or any other memory player can alter the clock frequency or its accuracy so whether the data is assembled, or collected on demand, one might assume the timing errors will be the same. My understanding is that if there is an advantage to memory players it's that bus activity is reduced. I dont think JPlay or any other memory player can alter the clock frequency or its accuracy so whether the data is assembled, or collected on demand, one might assume the timing errors will be the same.

My understanding is that if there is an advantage to memory players it's that bus activity is reduced. Of course it can (but it's not altering clock freq, I didn't say that).

Ensuring priority for JPLAY is high, stopping or reducing priority for unnecessary processes, running in Hibernation mode. This all goes a long way to making Windows look more like an RTOS. Yes the bus is a big part of this but believe me, if you don't have enough CPU it doesn't work, you have to start adding buffers, which doesn't sound as good. You should discuss with the developers on their forum. Timing errors are what JPLAY seeks to minimize big time.so don't assume it doesn't do this. Maybe the developers found something they aren't telling us but I don't think so. Of course it can (but it's not altering clock freq, I didn't say that).

Ensuring priority for JPLAY is high, stopping or reducing priority for unnecessary processes, running in Hibernation mode. This all goes a long way to making Windows look more like an RTOS. Yes the bus is a big part of this but believe me, if you don't have enough CPU it doesn't work, you have to start adding buffers, which doesn't sound as good. You should discuss with the developers on their forum. Timing errors are what JPLAY seeks to minimize big time.so don't assume it doesn't do this. Maybe the developers found something they aren't telling us but I don't think so. Of course it can what?

I wouldn't argue about the more processor power side, it's something I considered a long time ago, but possibly for differnt reasons. I've easily maxed out a slow single core playing 24/192 with some DSP. Increasing priority I'm all for. But, data is loaded into RAM anyway and on the computer side of things, the clock accuracy isn't changed just because data is held in RAM. Of course it can what? I wouldn't argue about the more processor power side, it's something I considered a long time ago, but possibly for differnt reasons. I've easily maxed out a slow single core playing 24/192 with some DSP.

Increasing priority I'm all for. But, data is loaded into RAM anyway and on the computer side of things, the clock accuracy isn't changed just because data is held in RAM.

I'm not sure why you're talking about clock accuracy. The point is that data packets go to the DAC at exactly the right time, whether a clock is accurate or not isn't the point, the process needs its timeslot just when it needs it. The system needs to be able respond in a consistently timely manner. Data does not get written into large buffers, they call this Directlink, ie no buffer or a buffer the size of one packet. Think RTOS - which it approaches, no queueing or buffering (or very little), the whole thing is in lock-step. In the highest quality mode the beta of 4.2 takes 30 secs to respond to the keyboard due to the high priority JPLAY has. Like I say, contact the developers, they are quite open to reasonable people.

I must admit I'm not up to speed on modern software. JPLAY loads a large part of the music data into memory (I presume that it is continuously loading up the rest as it plays - and that it can't claim to load a whole track as it could be hours long).

It then sends that data to the audio output via the soundcard driver, err accurately. I might be missing something but I don't see how music data can be output via s/pdif without being accurately timed.

Or are we saying it is super-accurate within jitter-level picosecond timing? How does this take up lots of processing power? 24/192 is still only 1.125Mb/s in stereo. Is it having to work overtime to work out the timings of everything to cope with packeted data and other processes? That does sound plausable to me. Coping with timings mucked up by computer busses and their packeted data protocols. Still though, my first paid-for sound card back in the 90s, a Gravis Ultra, had 8Mb of memory on board so surely this would have been on the other side of the packeted protocols and could have been used to buffer data and pass out to s/pdif reclocked on board?

I.e the soundcard would handle a lot of this. OK, I've read some of the JPLAY FAQs (before I finished the above post). It does load as much into memory as possible and is ok for just loading one track at a time into memory so doesn't need that much RAM really. It also talks about shutting processes down. Back in the day, setting up pcs for your home studio meant fiddling around with the OS settings (win 2000/NT 4 was good for this, much of it done during the install - in fact some real pro hardware and software wouldn't even work with Win 98 because it was too homogenous, untweakable yet now everything has gone that way) and shutting down a lot of processes yourself and fiddling with the BIOS and also setting the OS to run completely on it's own processor in a multi-processor machine so that no background processes including hard-drive access would interfere with the multi-track audio. That also worked both ways so loads of DSP wouldn't interefere with the operating system slowing down user interface responsiveness.

Having read a little about JPLAY, it seems to be doing all the things that people did over 10 years ago of their own accord by delving into the workings of windows and using proper, well conceived audio hardware but now it is applying those principles without the user needing any knowledge nor specialist hardware whilst coping with the newer many-times overblown operating systems. Sounds like we've taken many steps backwards and then forwards again to get back to where we were at 10 years ago. But now available for everyone on off the shelf hardware. Hence my confusion over why you'd need anything too modern. It's an odd world. OK, I've read some of the JPLAY FAQs (before I finished the above post).

It does load as much into memory as possible and is ok for just loading one track at a time into memory so doesn't need that much RAM really. It also talks about shutting processes down. Back in the day, setting up pcs for your home studio meant fiddling around with the OS settings (win 2000/NT 4 was good for this, much of it done during the install - in fact some real pro hardware and software wouldn't even work with Win 98 because it was too homogenous, untweakable yet now everything has gone that way) and shutting down a lot of processes yourself and fiddling with the BIOS and also setting the OS to run completely on it's own processor in a multi-processor machine so that no background processes including hard-drive access would interfere with the multi-track audio. That also worked both ways so loads of DSP wouldn't interefere with the operating system slowing down user interface responsiveness. Having read a little about JPLAY, it seems to be doing all the things that people did over 10 years ago of their own accord by delving into the workings of windows and using proper, well conceived audio hardware but now it is applying those principles without the user needing any knowledge nor specialist hardware whilst coping with the newer many-times overblown operating systems.

Sounds like we've taken many steps backwards and then forwards again to get back to where we were at 10 years ago. But now available for everyone on off the shelf hardware. Hence my confusion over why you'd need anything too modern.

It's an odd world. It does load as much into memory as possible and is ok for just loading one track at a time into memory so doesn't need that much RAM really. Sounds like we've taken many steps backwards and then forwards again to get back to where we were at 10 years ago. But now available for everyone on off the shelf hardware. Hence my confusion over why you'd need anything too modern. It's an odd world. One of the developers prefers to run with 250MB of RAM allocated to tracks.

This can be tight for some hi res music, especially classical. 250MB is ok though as you only have a short delay between tracks as they load. Tracks that blend into each other don't any more. Steps backwards and forwards - it is the way of the world, We start out with something new, specialised and expensive and end up with a product which is commoditised, low-cost and often less specialised. The home studio PCs + software 10 years ago - what did they cost vs a £350 laptop + 99€ for JPLAY today?

One of the developers prefers to run with 250MB of RAM allocated to tracks. This can be tight for some hi res music, especially classical. 250MB is ok though as you only have a short delay between tracks as they load.

Tracks that blend into each other don't any more. Steps backwards and forwards - it is the way of the world, We start out with something new, specialised and expensive and end up with a product which is commoditised, low-cost and often less specialised. The home studio PCs + software 10 years ago - what did they cost vs a £350 laptop + 99€ for JPLAY today? You're right, I do agree. Now you can do it on a PC from PC World with a €99 bit of software. You can get someone's (or your own) old studio music PC complete with 'obsolete' hardware and do it for much less than the new PC but it won't be very pretty and won't be good for much else.

I prefer the latter because I'm still excited about the idea of having two seperate CPUs!:lol: I found a Dell server a few months ago with 2 x Xeon 3.5 Ghz. It's been thrown out because it's obsolete (works fine) but I'm stuck in the mind set of my dreaming about home studio days and got all excited about the possibilities. Something that was being talked about back in the day when I was reading Sound on Sound magazine (around 2004 I stopped I think) were linux based DAWs that ran using common pro/semi pro soundcards like RME HDSP and the drivers etc had direct access to all the hardware, no layers of OS in between. Might have to examine that again. Software was all open source and free and becoming quite powerful and fast on the hardware available back then. Or - another option I have available - you can go the DSP hardware route like Pro Tools. There's a system called Pyramix out there that's becoming quite popular (certainly used for Radio 3 live broadcasts - seen it myself when they've had the doors open on the truck at Barbican).

The system runs on DSP on the soundcards and these soundcards can be picked up for about £99 if you're canny - they were also produced OEM for Avid and others so can be found in production studio clearouts (usually US eBay). Merging (company that makes Pyramix) has been developing and is about to release some audiophile media server software based on their cards and DAW. Audiophile people who have already been using the pro DAW software as a kind of media server are very impressed with the sound. Again, £99 soundcard and can run on an old machine like a P4 nicely in the older versions of the DAW software which they give out free if you ask. A few updates on JPLAY I know its not for everyone but it has gone through a number of changes that has further improved SQ The first change was moving to Windows 8 This is like a major DAC upgrade and heard the difference between a laptop with Windows 7 and 8, needless to say my friend upgraded to 8 straight away.

Jplay is now version 5b which is a big improvement over all the variations of Jplay 4. Its now using 64bit and you can use it with 2 pcs one acting as a streamer the other a Audio player. Yet again this adds a further step up in SQ. I have been very impressed by all the improvements in SQ.

I've been running some of the various beta versions of JPLAY v5 and have been running the official versions as soon as they where released. I'm only using a single PC version currently but I have treated JPLAY to a nice new i5 8GB laptop. I must say the sound is astounding, people seem to be able to find the sound the prefer by selecting from the 3 'engines'.

Xtream is best for me, River is good too and Beach I just don't get on with but some swear by it. When my ethernet crossover cable arrives I'll have a play with a 2 PC setup. If I'd had this sound a few years ago I question whether I would have gone back to vinyl.

Jplay is a Hoax JRiver recommends that you uninstall Jplay. It adds a layer of sound processing that can degrade sound quality, performance, and stability. You will achieve the best sound quality with JRiver alone. The author of the. For his computeraudiophile.com blog, Mitchco tested JRiver Media Center and Jplay. Both produce. Archimago also found.

For a more detailed discussion, please visit the. To protect its customers, JRiver will remove forum posts that discuss Jplay. JRiver will not provide support for Media Center if Jplay is used.