Hallo Erwin und andere Interessenten,
die Entwickler von JPLAY gehen davon aus, dass jeder PC, der für Audiowiedergabe genutzt wird, nur höchst suboptimal diesen Zweck erfüllen kann, da er zur selben Zeit meist noch jede Menge anderer Aufgaben zu bearbeiten hat. Der Begriff „fehlerhaft“ geht da wohl an der Sache vorbei. JPLAY „repariert“ nicht, sondern versucht, Hardware und Betriebssystem in Richtung Audiowiedergabe zu optimieren.
Wir alle wissen, dass Entwickler und Produkthersteller auf ihren Beipackzetteln nur einen Teil des verfügbaren Wissens präsentieren, aber vielleicht hilft für unseren Zweck ein kurzer Blick auf die wesentlichen Aussagen auf der JPLAY-Website, um wieder in die Erinnerung zu rufen, was hier eigentlich zu welchem Zweck getan wird: Auf der FAQ-Seite wird zunächst sehr schlicht und wenig technisch formuliert:
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How can JPLAY sound ‘better’ than other players?
Did you ever experience that one software package was much faster than the other, while both did the same thing and produced the same result? Maybe one was general-purpose and other was custom-built? Maybe one did many things OK and other did ONE thing great? JPLAY was built with only one goal in mind: optimal music reproduction. And that means no ‘Music Management’ features, no ‘User Interfaces’, no nothing…. Except a fanatical focus on producing the best possible sound quality.
Yes, I understand that. What I meant is how do you explain ‘better sounding’ if all players are bit-perfect?
In music, timing is everything. And in digital music reproduction doubly so: while producing bit-perfect output is easy, producing it at exact time required by digital formats (e.g. 32 bits every 22 microseconds for CD) is not. Why? Because while your PC may be really fast, it’s also doing hundreds if not thousands other things at the same time it plays music. With so many things going on, do you trust it will always ‘hit the beat’ at just the right time? Programming optimizations in JPLAY are designed to minimize both software & hardware interruptions in order to make it ‘easier’ for PC to ‘keep the rhythm’.
My DAC is buffering data so I’m really not concerned with PC keeping a perfect timing.
You should be. Simple truth is that the less processing the DAC needs to do, the better the results. Again, if you are doubtful, JPLAY is FREE to try! Trust only your own ears!"
http://jplay.eu/faq/
Im Manual werden dann u.a. folgende Aussagen geboten:
"Playing via: [Kernel Streaming,WASAPI, ASIO]. WASAPI may be compatible with greater number of devices, but Kernel Streaming offers much lower latency. KS is the lowest audio engine level in Windows, allowing more efficient, real-time streaming. For the ultimate playback experience, we recommend KS. ASIO is applicable only to DACs that have an ASIO driver. Note that on 64bit Windows 64bit ASIO driver is required.
Engine: [River, Beach, Xtream]. JPLAY offers three unique bit-perfect playback engines. You should try all and decide which one is closer to your preferences and which one works better in your system. Xtream works only for Kernel Streaming and Buffer sizes up to 32 samples. (DirectLink having biggest impact and larger Buffers proportionally smaller). Please note this engine is ‘extreme’ in sense that it will use a lot of additional RAM (use larger Buffer if you get ‘low memory’ warnings from Windows) and may delay stop/pause/next/etc commands by up to 45 seconds depending on settings so be patient if after e.g. pressing ‘stop’ music does not stop immediately – it is normal behavior!
Throttle: [OFF,ON]. When Throttle mode is activated, JPLAY will reduce to absolute minimum both CPU and I/O priorities of all running processes and individual threads in the system it can get to, without risking the stability of Windows. Note that if use only a single PC this will reduce system’s responsiveness! (e.g. mouse may become ‘jerky’ and machine may appear ‘stuck’ at times when CPU intensive tasks are activated) If you’re doing CPU intensive work, it’s best to turn off Throttle mode, but if you are ‘just browsing’, we advise to leave it ‘ON’. Naturally, if you have a DualPC setup with a networked AudioPC leave setting to ON. (setting is applied only to AudioPC so your ‘work’ or ‘ControlPC’ is not affected in any way.
Hibernate mode: [OFF,ON]. Hibernate mode eliminates dozens of OS jitter-inducing processes & hundreds of threads, providing best possible sound quality. Please note Hibernate is ‘extreme’ mode and is not guaranteed to work on all systems! Hibernate mode is more likely to run in Dual PC mode with a dedicated AudioPC. On single PC USB stick needs to be inserted into USB port to start playback – unplugging the stick will be the only way to stop playback. In DualPC mode stick si not needed as you can fully control Hibernation of AudioPC from your laptop (‘ControlPC’).
Advanced settings
Tweakers can access additional JPLAY settings via regedit under Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\JPLAY key.
PacketSize: [0-4] default 2. Lower values would result in more ‘rapid’ host player reaction, 1 being almost immediate (<1 sec). Higher values introduce more 'delay' (each one double the previous). Opinions on impact on sound quality is divided so best to try yourself and choose what works & sounds best to you.
XtreamSize: [10-2000] default 750. You can change the amount of RAM used by Xtream : some people prefer sound quality produced by large values: Maximum setting is 2000 but will require several Gigabytes of free RAM so it requires 64bit OS with 8GB RAM minimum! Just like PacketSize larger values will increase delay between stop/start/next button presses and music actually following starts so this is recommended only for album-listening sessions (if you are a fan of Xtream engine at all, that is)"
http://jplay.eu/manual/
Die Vorstellung, ein technisch hervorragendes System brauche kein JPLAY, während Kümmerlinge damit aufgepäppelt würden (meine Übertreibung …), wird nicht unterstützt. Mir ist klar, dass die von mir zitierten Eigenaussagen der Entwickler keine wissenschaftliche Beweiskraft haben. Das trifft aber für die meisten unserer Aussagen in diesem Kontext zu ...
Ich möchte nochmals auf den großen Nutzeffekt hinweisen, den man aus der direkten Kommunikationsmöglichkeit mit den Entwicklern via Forum hat: z.B. erfährt man auf diese Weise, dass die schöne alte Foobar-Version leider nicht mehr kompatibel mit den neuen JPLAY-Versionen ist.
Freundliche Grüße,
never (Udo)
