"JPlay is a hoax" say JRiver

[Plutox]

So you don't approve of software like Amarra et al.

Depends entirely on what it achieves. As has been pointed out here, there & everywhere, ad nauseam, there is no significant evidence that JPlay actually achieves anything at all. What I find particularly amusing is the myriad of options that 'affect' the sound. I would have more respect if the authors had the guts to define what they thought was right, and stand by it.

As SQ has just pointed out, they are doing nothing more than stoking the fire of FUD that has consumed the domestic audio industry to destruction.

 

[clivem2]

Depends entirely on what it achieves. As has been pointed out here, there & everywhere, ad nauseam, there is no significant evidence that JPlay actually achieves anything at all. What I find particularly amusing is the myriad of options that 'affect' the sound. I would have more respect if the authors had the guts to define what they thought was right, and stand by it.

I've seen strong opinions from the team leader of WMA that iTunes is perfectly fine is setup properley. This is flies in the face of a lot peoples' experience. Jriver will soon release a MAC version of JMRC; Amarra, Audirvana et al will no doubt offer some options. How will Jriver cope with that?

The fact that there is an attempt to hang on to someone else's coat-tails is the issue – and if you don't believe that is a problem, then perhaps a closer examination of your own ethical values would be prudent.

Ad Hominen is not the way to deal with this.

I've worked in the software industry for a long time, over 35 years. I deal with these sorts of issues. Let's be clear; Jriver are benefiting from using a standard. When you use a standard you open up the potential for others to enter your eco-system. Standards promote inter-operability. If you want to stop your users have any freedom then don't use standards. The standard Jriver use is one they have not developed so they are benefiting from someone else's standard and work.

I can understand the Jriver may not welcome JPLAY in their market but the Jriver response has been unprofessional. They have also alienated the faction of their customer base who have bought both Jriver and JPLAY. JPLAY can be seen as a competitor to Jriver in that it's a player but in truth the player is so stripped down it's much more likely that JPLAY would actually bring sales revenue to Jriver.

What Jriver should have done is:

1) issue a statement saying they believe their customers best interests are best served by using Jriver on its own.

2) state that for support where JPLAY is installed, JPLAY must be uninstalled and the issue replicated via vanilla Jriver.

For Jriver to delete posts on their forum about JPLAY was wrong (but their prerogative), they should have closed the threads and requested JPLAY users to do 2) above or used the JPLAY forum.

For Jriver to insert a redirection onto their customers computers was the wrong thing to do, customers with JPLAY feel their supplier (Jriver) has invaded their privacy.

 

[ultrawomble]

Interesting to observe one member of the industry calling on another member of the industry to actually prove that a product works.

 

[sq225917]

I disagree. As long as they stay within the bounds of legality Jriver can say what they like. They don't appear to be stoking the flames of FUD, just clearly stating that Jplay does nothing that is proven to affect or improve the sound and potentially destabilises the OS. (Which is true any adjustment to the OS potentially destabilises it, though it's equally correct to say it potentially stabilises it as well. After all anything potential is potentially potential.)

It's up to Jriver to guess whether their customers want to be redirected and how far they think they should take the duty of care they feel they have to their customers. If I worked for Jriver and potentially found my application under attack from a competitors app that plugs in to my own then I'd go after them too. let's make no mistake about this Jplay are looking to take business from Jriver- end of story.

Until such time as they back up their claims for improved sound quality they open themselves up to all sort of attack and derision. If they advertised in the Uk press I'd have no qualms about putting them in front of the ASA, as I have done previously with a couple of other hifi shysters.

 

[clivem2]

Jriver's logic doesn't stack up. They admit JPLAY is bit perfect but they say it "may degrade sound". They can't have it both ways.

 

[clivem2]

I disagree. As long as they stay within the bounds of legality Jriver can say what they like.

Simon, if you are referring to my viewpoint, I didn't say they can't do what they've done. I just see it as unprofessional and somewhat naive commercially.

 

[arthur]

And the weiss is FAR better than the m-dac, believe me. There is clearly audible night/day difference in every aspect

Do you own both? Or even either?

 

[Paul R]

So you don't approve of software like Amarra et al. that hangs on the coat-tails of iTunes? And the myriad programs that hang on the coat-tails of Microsoft products?

Doesn't Amarra add some functionality? Like switching the hardware sample rate according to the media?

The question remains, what does JPlay actually do?

Paul

 

[Purité Audio]

As well as automatically sensing and changing sample rates, Amarra has a relatively sophisticated EQ, and you can use it without opening ITunes ,it also plays FLAC files .
Keith.

 

[Cesare]

Jriver's logic doesn't stack up. They admit JPLAY is bit perfect but they say it "may degrade sound". They can't have it both ways.

Reading what jplay says it does, it appears to be some tuning for your windows PC to de-prioritise various processes (the windows scheduler is quite flexible and you can alter task priorities yourself if you wish). In addition, they state that they fiddle with the buffer sizes with the belief that lower latency reduces jitter.

Neither of these issues will alter whether the data is bit perfect - they aren't applying any DSP to the audio.

Fiddling with the task priorities is an attempt to lower the CPU load which they believe affects jitter. They also believe that lowering latency also reduces jitter, although i have absolutely no idea why they think this - my experience in all areas of IT is the exact opposite, and latency vs throughput tradeoffs are well understood.

So, i'd expect their fiddling to make no difference whatsoever, with the possible exception of making the machine less responsive when doing other stuff with it (changes in scheduler), and possibly increased risk of dropouts (due to the drive for lower latency causing buffer overruns to be more common). I'd expect though that in reality neither risk will be very high, and it will perform exactly as not installing their software.

Cesare

 

[clivem2]

Hi Cesare, what is clear to me is that the 4 engines JPLAY offers each sound different. Also when buffer size is changed and also some other parameters in the registry concerning other buffers, there is a change in sound again. Yet all these configurations are bit perfect as far as I am aware. This tells me that bit perfect is not a perfect test.

I agree with Jriver in that JPLAY does not sound the same as Jriver but both are bit perfect. I have also compared Jriver, JPLAY and Foobar with ASIO4ALL, all 3 sound different yet are bit perfect. I await the day when someone comes up with a suitable test which tells us what is happening here.

 

[Plutox]

They also believe that lowering latency also reduces jitter, although i have absolutely no idea why they think this...

I would have more sympathy with the product were they less mysterious about what they claim to be doing. How on earth latency has anything to do with it, beats me. It might be rather inconvenient having a thirty minute latency but that's all – it would have no direct effect on the eventual sound quality whatsoever.

I'm afraid all their marketing and chit-chat points to the idea that they are merely trying, as has already been stated, to exploit the double curse of doubt and ignorance that plagues audio hobbyists.

 

[Paul R]

Hi Cesare, what is clear to me is that the 4 engines JPLAY offers each sound different. Also when buffer size is changed and also some other parameters in the registry concerning other buffers, there is a change in sound again. Yet all these configurations are bit perfect as far as I am aware. This tells me that bit perfect is not a perfect test.

It's really, really easy to prove this. It's baffling that they haven't bothered.

Paul

 

[clivem2]

It's really, really easy to prove this. It's baffling that they haven't bothered.

Paul

You mean to check it's bit perfect? The various 3rd party tests performed thus far have found it to be bit perfect. Such is the cynisism the skeptics wouldn't believe any tests, there's always a get out.

 

[sq225917]

Jriver's logic doesn't stack up. They admit JPLAY is bit perfect but they say it "may degrade sound". They can't have it both ways.

I agree this is patently illogical.

I take the view that bit perfection is not all that counts, jitter and noise on the cable along with signal also count. But they have offered no proof of reduction of either. So until they do, I'll assume they haven't because they cannot. Just like no one else ever has.

It's not rocket science, if its better, it's different, so measure it and show it.

 

[Paul R]

You mean to check it's bit perfect? The various 3rd party tests performed thus far have found it to be bit perfect. Such is the cynisism the skeptics wouldn't believe any tests, there's always a get out.

No, it's easy to show if the audio from the DAC differs when JPlay is introduced, and in what way.

You, and they, have a huge mountain to climb away from 'hoax' because after some years you have no plausible mechanism and no experimental evidence. For me even the former would suffice to make the product interesting.

Paul

 

[Andrew.B]

if the playback was bit perfect but the output from the dac changed, that really would be something very interesting.

It always seems to be that which is never measured through. Which to me as a poor little consumer who doesn't know anything makes me wonder why they always try and confuse me with loads of technical terms that leave me confused and doubtful and anxious

 

[clivem2]

The results I have seen comparing dac outputs are very similar though not identical. The assumption is they are close enought to be considered identical. What we don't have is a control graph where we can see the effect of say deeper soundstage, so we haven't a clue of what look for. More research is required.

 

[sq225917]

You might be on to something Clive. 0.5db of distortion spread over the audio-band isn't going to be audible to anyone. But a specific transform like the one you mention conceivably might be. The trick is getting two signals that only differ in that way and comparing them using standard methods.

You need the help of a studio guy I think.

 

[sbgk]

Would you believe it the hoax lives on in version 6 (beta at the moment), good feedback so far. Many veils being lifted.