Anyone tried JPlay?

[jkeny]

Sorry.I missed all these posts - I had WiFi turned off on my 2 laptops while experimenting with Jplay - it was the only way I could get them to ping one another without tearing my hair out :(

Yea, my netbook is a HP Pavilion DM1 - 1.6GHz AMD processor & 8Gb RAM - does the job. It worked fine in Frans & sounded no different to his laptop when being used as the AudioPC (the one that the DAC connects to). We swapped them around a couple of times I think but noticed no change.

My 32Gb Corsair USB drive is not being seen as a disk drive but is showing as a USB device - so I'm scuppered with my Audiophile Win 8 -to-go testing. Another day maybe. Look forward to hearing your experiences, Fran & anyone else who tries it.

Thanks Nigel for the email - most helpful:)
Pearse, are you back in town already?

[Ken Moreland]

The AudioPC (connected to the DAC) should run nothing but Jplay Service, and it should be as high a spec as possible so SSD's ,PPAStudio SATA cables, EMI/RFI absorbent materials etc are on the agenda. It doesn't require to much RAM in contrast to previous Jplay versions.

The Streamer PC can be anything that works but it does require maybe up to 4Gb of RAM to accommodate 1.5Gb for maximum cache size for larger Hires tracks, and some maybe 1Gb for Xtream which is heavy on memory usage.

In both cases Windows 8 is best for both sound quality and convenience.

For stoppages etc the place to play is REGEDIT and adjust the settings on Current User/Software/Jplay . a key one that worked for me was PacketSize. I think default is 3 but I set it lower to 0 or 1. In the case of 0 the data is streamed to the AudioPC without a buffer. You can watch the characteristics of the WiFi transmission in TaskManager/Performance/Wifi.

Also in REGEDIT XtreamStopTime can be set up to about 3000 to 30000 and this may stop the occasional replay glitch.

for more info http://jplay.eu/manual/

[tony]

Ken has covered everything Fran. I am getting the glitch after playback where the track plays again for approx 10-15seconds. In xtream mode it can take nearly a minute(need to time it to be exact) in between end then glitch then star playback of the next selection. If you play say 5 tracks in row they play fine but the glitch occurs at the end of the last track. On occasion I have missed the glitch i.e track stops and I somehow manage to start the next selected track without the glitch. I assume it is a timing issue of just picking the right moment.

Good news is it is a general issue that jplay are aware of and to the best of my knowledge there is no fix yet.Will look at what Ken suggests.

I have the audio(slave) laptop wired to the modem and use wifi for the streamer. It connects fine for me I dont even have to go searching for jplay when I power it all on.

The delay from switching on to starting to play music is similar to waiting for a valve amp to warm up.
For somebody with a SS amp and CDP they can play music within 10-20 seconds of power on but with this arrangement unless you leave the laptops powered on you have the wait time until you have powered up the laptop and fired up windows

[nige2000]

Been playing with the JPlay 2 PC setup for a while now and from what I have learned so far everything matters as regards the quality of both PCs, its just a matter of where to stop!!!
My previous 2 PC system had a powerful laptop with SSD, 8Gb ram, Win 8 as the Audio PC and a home built fanless powerhouse PC again with SSD 6Gb ram, Win 8 as the control PC, sounded great but...

Went and bought the Zuma fanless server and set it up as the Audio PC and moved the laptop as the control PC and I was amazed at the difference.

Added direct ethernet connection between both and the whole system became as stable as a rock with every bitrate I could throw at it handled with ease, even DSD.

Just for the hell of it I went back to Total Commander on the control PC and I heard an improvement which I was not expecting!

Just orderd the Meicord Opal ethernet cable so lets see if this makes a diffference.

Finally I have been using JRiver Media server to manage my music with JRemote which allows both PCs to run headless.
One of these days I must try JPlay Mini.

Hopefully the final project this summer is to do loads of EMI, RFI shielding inside both PCs with some 3M "hoodoo" absorbing sheets I bought last year after lots of positive reviews, do not ask me what they were called again but I remember they were not cheap.

Its this madness that keeps me sane.....I think!!
Pearse.

you are dedicated!!!

the zuma certainly looks to be the business,
it would be interesting if you could take out the sata filter and go through the regular usb port on it to see how much worse it sounds, as i would assume the audio pci e to usb card and the sata noise filter is the only difference between the functionality of the zuma and a similar kitted out passive pc.

nige

[Fran]

Something I twigged last night - I think you may need to set a different ip address for the wifi and ethernet adaptors, and otherwise it won't talk. I had to disable the ethernet on my audio pc to make it all work. On the plus side, I can surf away on the streamer laptop while the other is playing.

A friend has got me some extra ram so that might help a bit.

Ken/pearse: is there a list of the services in W7 to disable? I went looking for that last night but didn't get a result. I don't have a W8 install yet. After this one settles down I'll work it out.

John: you might need to go into the bios and make sure it has the usb in the boot list priority (at the tp)



Fran

[Ken Moreland]

Fran, try this link http://www.blackviper.com/service-confi ... gurations/

For W8 http://jplay.eu/forum/computer-audio/w8 ... o-disable/

Proceed with caution.
KM

[jkeny]

Thanks Ken, Fran
It's not that my USB stick can't boot - it's that it is no longer working - operates as if everything is working fine but 0 bytes used & 0 bytes free :(

[Fran]

Looking at that, it seems his "tweaked" set of services is the one to try. I'll have a go later!

Did you try any yourself?


Fran

[Ken Moreland]

I did some service and program reduction in W7 and everything still worked. It's best to do one at a time and confirm operation in between but I just disabled a few together. I haven't done any reduction with W8 yet .
KM

[tony]

Didn't somebody post on jplay that they got down to 8 or 9 services. Hopefully later next month we will be able to offer an opinion on 2 laptops comparison to server/pc solution.

I have 2 laptops currently with 6gb ram and it is stable on every setting except the aforementioned glitch in xtream. I will upgrade the dac connected laptop to 8gb shortly but don't envisage that resolving that issue.

Pearse are you getting that problem? If you are not the solution is financially painful.

Fran in relation to the network connection part I had no real issue with that. Disabled antivirus, Set up home networks and allowed access/rights to the dac laptop. I wanted to keep the dac/music laptop off the internet as there is no antivirus enabled on it. Your method with mac addresses is a solution if using only one modem. With Ken I think he is using a dual band modem/router and using the higher band for streaming.

Interesting to see if the ethernet cables improve sound. Personally doubt it just can't see how that works. Funnily enough it is not too expensive compared to some cable upgrades.