Okay, Thanks.  Looking forward to z-7.

I don't use Normalization and if navigation is fast enough over the network, then no Gallery function will be okay as I'd rather not mess with Galleries if I don't have to.

If navigation is too slow, then I will have to change what I do; with the ultimate thing to do will be to make a new machine OR hang a manually-updated  2TB eSATA off of the existing audio PC.  Either is painful compared to what I have: a 1TB RAID array with auto lazy backups to another 1TB on the network machine from which I directly and easily surf, shop, and download from HDTracks and other means. (and attempting all of that that from the audio playback machine will be very painful and so is highly depreciated in my particular situation.)

FLAC works!!! over the read-only network.

I did check, access is read-only for certain.  So WAV works and FLAC works.  The only one that doesn't work is what I have for my entire 44.1/16 collection -> AIF.

You know what to do!!.  Please let me know when it is done.  :-)

Can you point me to a link on Galleries?


JRiver handles read-only network drives without a glitch, so I beg to disagree that there is no way around it. 
Just the opposite, since Windows defaults sharing to read-only (I believe), and since most people don't fiddle with those things, it behooves you to write around the read-only majority.


Yes, I will.


Why not?  ..temporarily you can convert your share to read only, it only takes 30 seconds, and then you can change it back.


Yes.  By now allowing myself write access, I am simultaneously not allowing viri and worms write access.


I will plan on eventually getting W7 per your advice.  Meanwhile, at least there are no gaps during playback with Vista.


I am confident that you will think of a simple fix soon.

It didn't help.

Specifically:

• The drive letter mapped okay.   
• Selecting the music folder from the mapped drive went okay, no error messages there, and was blue in color.
  
• What didn't work was the playback.  I got the usual error and a few more.   And the previouly-attached log files are coupled to this attempt (which was different from previous attempts in that this time I selected based on a mapped drive letter, not as in previous attempts where I specified a network folder ala \\...\...\... .

About the read-only, I'm still not 100% sure.  But I'm 92.5% sure, just because I normally set up all my network drives this way to avoid spreading viri over the network.  I also want the option to not run antivirus on the audio computer.

I will check FLAC tonight.   

I may also temporarily share as read-write.

Okay - Log files attached.

What did not work:
-Drive letter mapping of network read-only drive


What worked!:
-Wave files   ...yes, wave files pulled directly from read-only drive over the network worked.

Sorry, I forgot to turn on logging.   So when I went looking for that folder, it was not there, so I grabbed what looked like a log files.
Otherwise, I'll try the wav file tonight.


Correct, I have no drive letter assigned yet.   Can try tonight.

BTW, can you confirm that I do this on the audio playback computer?  (i.e., go through the operation of creating a drive letter on the audio PC, not the network PC)

Now just a few comments on the sound _{as this is a bit off topic in this thead}.   You asked:


Why?  Because I am using peak extend and arc prediction, which are intended for the NOS1 _{or so I understand}.

But here is the key point for all you W4S DAC2 users:  I set the Rolloff setting in the DAC2 to "Slow".   Normally, the DAC2 has a brick wall filter labelled "Fast."   But when I've tried "Slow" in the past, it had too much detail, too much air, and it simply was tiring to listen to.   In the past, it sounds better with the default "Fast" setting.

Now with XXHE, I tried "Slow" again because that is closer to a NOS1 (which has no filter at all).   With the "Slow" setting, I'm relying on peak extend and arc prediction to do that filtering, and apparently, that's what makes the big difference I'm now hearing.

What I'm hearing:

Instruments and vocals are more present or direct.  They are much closer to you and more distinct.  The analogy in photography, if I may, is like sharpening.  I almost want to say XXHE is cheating somehow.  Maybe peak extend and arc prediction can be seen like this, but NO, because if it were any kind of "sharpening" there would be more audible distortion,  but there is not.  In fact there is less.  It is also smoother at the same time, somehow.  At one point of listening last night, the tamborine player stepped out in front of the speakers and was only a few feet in front of me (the illustion of that).

The soundstage and image was clearer too.

The trade-off?   ..there always is one:  While everything got closer to me, so did the instruments in the far back of the soundstage.  What will seem like say 20feet back normally, now XXHE will render those instruments closer, like 10 feet back.  So while the soundstage and image is clearer and more forward, the depth has collapsed in my system.   (not sure I like that)

I also have a concern about whether or not such a direct sound will fatigue my ear (mine not yours).  With JRiver, I've gone 4 or 5 hours a day of listening for three weeks straight at 85db with peaks to 90db and NO ear fatigue. 

And finally for Peter or those technically inclinded:  The ESS ES9018 chip in the W4S DAC2 utilizes a frequency locked loop (FLL) based on it's own ultra low phase-noise oscillator.   That is, there is no phase locked loop (PLL) and therefore no attempt at phase lock to the input which in itself would create its own jitter.  Jitter on the input reaches a dead end: it has no influence on output jitter.  The frequency lock is based on crystals on both ends, and therefore has very little drift.  Drift would have an effect on audio because the FLL dividers would have to adjust.  But otherwise, once the dividers in the feedback loop are set and the FLL is locked, that's the end of the jitter story.  This is all in that patent I sent you in an eMail weeks ago, the ESS patent for the Sabre.

So who knows what accounts for the dramatic sound difference.   To quote someone's sig, can't remember who, "in theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is."

What about Vista?   

1) With Vista 32 (I have Ultimate), Is this a problem?

Specifically:

2) If I make a restore point today, will it be there a year from now?

Trouble can happen many months after a restore point is created, let's say one year later.   I have a suspicion (I don't know) that restore points fall off the end of the earth after about one month.  No?   At least whenever I go looking for a restore point, I only see about one month's worth.

The other possibility is that when I create a restore point manually by clicking on the "Create" button, that creates a  restore point that does *not* fall off the end of the earth.  For Vista, does anyone know if this works?

This problem is solved from at least the latest version .9z-6-1c . 

Perhaps tomorrow I will try with WASAPI on the "Minimize OS" free version 0.9z-5-02 .

Good morning Peter

Copy to XX Drive first did NOT work.


Attached are the two log files.

Otherwise, 6-1c solved the other problem.  And....

I can't believe what I'm hearing!!!!

Maybe I can elaborate more tomorrow, but this player is "in your face!"

There is a dramatic difference.  And this is not supposed to be with the W4S DAC2 (as with your Phasure NOS).  But there is.

 

I thought you said that you just kill 3.exe as part of the demo.
Anyway, last night I started having this problem more often than not, even though I did these three things, I still ran into the problem:

• Turned off auto rate change, and unchecked fx
• Manually selected upsampling
• Gave up on upsampling altogether, kept it on 1x _{still failed}

There might be a false assumption here somewhere:  I get this error even when all files are of the same type, and none HDCD.  There's probably something else going on here.


I just want to emphasize that, although I did once see a warning about HDCD.exe, I was not playing any HDCD.  I got that error when playing the Indigo Girls CD (original release) which must have predated the invention of HDCD.  So I really think that this has nothing to do with HDCD _{unless there is a false positive detected by hdcd.exe}.

I'm playing mostly aif 44.1/16, and flac for high rez, and hhxe does not yet play DSD (.dsf).  _{btw there is google code for DSFIFF .dff files to PCM, please consider.  I think it is called DSD2PCM.}


Because the demo disables the Minimize OS, thus making the demo "impossible" to allow mistake click by me, and because .9z-5-2 was so horrific with my DAC, and because the Minimize button is no where near the play and stop buttons (I've already accidentally hit the unattended button by accident and wrongly answered the popup message and lost control of the system), I installed the latest version .9z-6-1c.    Sure enough , I have yet to have this problem.  It may come, but I did not see it in about 1 hour of very intermittent use late last night.
BTW, please, no more RAR.  I am joining the chorus.

However - please note that the problem with no network play still exists in the latest .9z-6-1c.

I will email W4S and let you know.
Hopefully with .9z-6-1c I will finally be able to at least evaluate the audio engine. 

So I imagine the "won't play over the network" thread will be more active going forward, since it appears you already know how to solve this problem (at least so far) as per the latest version.   With .9z-6-1c I changed format, etc, several times

P.S. As suggested, I may kill JRiver in the middle of play to see if indeed it nukes the driver.

P.P.S.  Tonight I will also change format several times with .9z-6-1c and see (I think I did but don't specifically recall).

Because I could not imagine anything else.
The other possibility I can imagine is the the network drive is read only.
Will read only-cause this?


No, I usually have always loaded from the Library Area by doubleclicking the folder.  The other way is by using the explorer button for single tracks w/no coverArt.


As above (no). 
Let's be clear, I've never been able to play from the network, not once has this worked.
The only thing that has worked so far has been for files that I've pre-copied to the OS drive.


I agree, it does not make a difference.
I'll try the down arrow and report if that makes any difference.


I have no wave files.  I only have .aif and .flac and .dsf.
Maybe this is the problem?  Are you converting aif to wav?   (both are PCM)


Thanks, I'll try that.

I hit the stop button all the time to change tracks; and this, by itself, does not seem to cause the problem. 
Besides the demo cutting off 3.exe, what "other reasons" could there be for terminating playback?


What do I tell W4S?  _{(This problem does not happen with any other software.)}


If I go back to manual format change, i.e., manually using the slider for 1 2 4 8 upsampling, and this problem does not reoccur, then I think this proves that the problem is with the auto format change code.

How about this:  Is there some kind of watch dog timer for how long it takes to load a file, or to get an open handle?   This is one suspicion I have.  If loading off the network all the way to memory, the whole song, it will take some 20 or 30 seconds perhaps?  (I don't know since JRiver plays immediately, even if I enable play from memory from within JR.)

I did one better; instead, I shared the folder directly above the music folder (i.e., I shared "My Documents" on the network computer).  That works in that I now have a music root that is \\machineName\My Documents\My Music\ .
Everything is blue and I no longer get warning that it must be a folder.  Looks good.   But then....

Everything seems to work: xxHE shows all the album art for albums A - H _{(what happend to I - Z?)}.  I think, "I'm there!"    NO.  I'm not.  I double click an album and xxHE loads all of the tracks.  Looks good, right?  NO.  Now I get another error that says "No tracks found to play; please check for disk full."

Now what?   

With all these reboots, why not one more?

Okay, so, yes, in the middle of a song, I killed xxEngine3.exe and that reproduced the problem.

Congratulations! 

No what?