J River WDM issues

there seems to be a problem with playback using JRiver 20’s windows media driver. I’m using Win 8.1 and using JRiver, Roon consistently cuts off the first 6-10 seconds of sound on each track. Another driver on my PC, I don’t have this problem.

Hey, I just grabbed JRiver 20 and tried reproduce this–I’m not seeing the same failure. It seems to work OK for me.

Can you provide a little bit more information on how you’ve configured the JRiver side of things?

Also, just out of curiosity–what does the JRiver driver do for you with an app like Roon? This isn’t a configuration we anticipated :smile:

e.g.

  • ASIO support,
  • DSP,
  • convolver
  • VST support

So I guess, jRiver is just a workaround for having this features while using Roon :smile:

My config is pretty straight forward - I’m using JRiver’s WMD so that I can use EQ on my desktop system (I don’t use EQ in my main system). So in DSP studio, I have the “equalizer” box checked. That’s the only DSP I’m using.

I have JRiver config’d to play from memory and am using the recommended prebuffering setting of 6 seconds.

And as for why I’m using it, as Matty said, JRiver offers some tools that Roon apparently doesn’t.

BTW, for some reason I’m not having the problems with the JRiver driver any more.

oops, spoke too soon…the 10 seconds of silence has returned. Also getting some hiccups (skips) during playback when using JRiver

I’ve reproduced the problem here, and we’re looking into it.

YUP, I am having the same issues. The higher the res of the album, the more the stuttering and delay to start the album. Once an album is selected I am not having an issue going from track to track. It is just when selecting and having to press “play” going from one selection to another.

As to the reason we want to use it, besides DSP, it really has better SQ at this time than Roon. Possibly an ASIO thing for me. I don’t use VST or convolver, but SQ is paramount to me and I love Roon’s interface but want the SQ to be there as well. I understand you guys just released this and it will obviously continue to improve, but just giving some feedback and am looking forward to a bright future with Roon.

I spent a decent amount of time over the weekend looking into this.

The next build of Roon will work much better with the JRiver WDM driver. Not perfect–but probably as well as is possible with the driver in its current state.

I did my testing using WASAPI and ASIO drivers from several manufacturers, with Roon and Foobar2000 as client apps to generate the audio stream, because I wanted a “control” to help me figure out when problems were on our end, and when JRiver’s stuff was at fault.

The JRiver driver appears to have a few issues:

  • It blue-screened my machine several times. It was especially unstable in conjunction with Mytek’s ASIO driver, but I reproduced blue-screens with three other drivers (both ASIO and WASAPI), too.
  • There are sometimes one or two brief dropouts around the start of a new stream, seemingly regardless of the buffer settings in JRiver (or my work attempting to tune buffers on the Roon side). Foobar2000 experiences identical dropouts.
  • If we stop a stream and then immediately start another one (like when you press “next”), the driver freaks out and plays silence for 10 seconds. We are working around this by inserting a delay at the appropriate time when we detect the JRiver driver. Hardware drivers have always been fine with this behavior–this just seems like a bug.
  • If you attempt to address the JRiver driver in WASAPI push mode, it freaks out completely and plays stutter-y noise.

Once the next build comes out, you’ll want to enable “Event Driven Mode” (a new checkbox) in the audio settings. If you do that, it begins to behave a little bit better. And definitely expect to fool around with the buffer settings (both the output buffer and the “live” buffer) on the JRiver side a bit, too.

To be fair, they said this about the feature on their forums a while back, and Roon uses WASAPI:

WASAPI input is not officially supported yet, it may crash or exhibit other problems. We recommend you stick to DirectSound. The main goal is to use it with streaming applications for now, which do not have any control over their audio devices.

Also, the horrible hissing static noise problem seems to have happened before. As do the dropouts.

I hope they decide to put in the work and make this WDM driver more mature. It’s a neat feature. Also makes me wonder if there might be a less complex way to send audio to JRiver in their future. Something in userspace that doesn’t involve the herculean effort involved in writing a soundcard emulator perhaps.

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From my perch if you guys support ASIO I wouldn’t care about JRiver’s WDM.

For me the WDM is a stop gap until there is ASIO support.

From my perch if you guys support ASIO I wouldn’t care about JRiver’s WDM.

Yup, and we plan to.

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I’am in the same boat, I’am after using my ASIO drivers for my DAC as that’s the cleanest audio I can possibly get.

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Getting static like sound when using was through roon. Any ideas?

@alice are you using JRiver WDM? if so, you don’t have the fixes mentioned above yet, so this is expected. They are coming in the next release.

If not, please tell us a little bit more about your situation. What hardware you’re using, how you’ve configured Roon’s audio settings, etc.

That is correct, I was referring to JRiver WDM. OK I will wait then for the next fix.
As some have mentioned ASIO driver too please :slight_smile:

ASIO, and plug in support is the home run for me! Format conversion is next on my list (I down sample dsf files to 176 so that the plug ins work for dsf files.)

I use room convolution, and, Fab Filter Pro Q2. Both are essential in my system.

WDM works for me, most of the time, but I have experienced one (scary) “raw hiss” incident when switching tracks which makes me VERY hesitant to continue to count on it.

Long-time JRIver user here. The WDM driver is useful, but as has been pointed out, is not without it’s issues. Nevertheless, I suspect current JRiver users are a significant part of Roon’s audience. To have the two playing nicely together is surely a good way to make the transition easier, and can only be a good thing for Roon (imho).

Another Jriver 20 user here (PC), and I am listening to Roon playing back on the Jriver WDM driver. Sounds good!

I though I initially heard a pop, but it was non-repro. In Jriver I changed a few settings to accommodate this:

Live Playback latency to 20 ms
(Device) buffering to 10 ms

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Is this still working for you. I tried a while back and had erratic results. Mostly pops sometimes loud noises, so I stopped.

It’s years later, but I am experiencing trouble using the JRiver WDM driver to play streams from Qobuz. I have a crossover implemented in JRiver, so that would be nice. However, to quote one of the threads above,

I am getting that, though I don’t know if Qobuz uses push mode. I do not currently have Roon available to try. (I know, forgive me!) But I am wondering if anyone has had success using the JRiver WDM driver from Roon. I tried it a year ago, with stuttering trouble.

JRiver’s position is that their driver is flawless and my computer must be broken. However, other users report similar problems. I am asking in both Qobuz and Roon fora in hope of an informed answer.

Any reports (of either success or failure) will be appreciated.

ALSO, last I looked, the DSP in Roon did not include crossovers for subs and outputting 4 channels via USB. Any change in that? Any plans?

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