Is JRiver still the best software?

+1 @ho249 

Here's the latest installment of where things stand.  As @sandstone suggested, I downloaded all the manuals and the Windows USB driver software from McIntosh. I do have a company Wintel computer that allowed me to install the software in the hopes that it would let me control how bit depth is input by the playback software.  It does not, which is not really surprising.  Most software applications are designed to control variables from within the user interface.  And none of this does me any good with Mac OS X Catalina.

I also got a response from and administrator on JRiver's MC 27 forum as follows:

"That's how it's supposed to be, all Media Center is doing is padding the output bit-depth with zeros to the maximum your DAC supports, so 16 bit or 24 bit is padded to 32 bit, but it's not actually doing any dithering or anything like that.  It's done that way to make things easier but it ultimately doesn't matter, even with the padded bit-depth it's still a bit-perfect output (if no DSP is being used)."

Which wasn't what I was hoping to hear, obviously.

As @ho249 mentioned, I did look into the settings for bitstreaming, and those are none (the recommended default), HDMI, S/PDIF, DSD or custom.  Choices under the custom menu are all formats:  AC3, E-AC3, True HD, DTS, DTS-HD and DSD.  While the C50 does support S/PDIF input for the DAC, that connection handles up to 24 bit only.  DSD is not supported in the C50 DAC and the home theater outputs aren't useful in this case.  The MC Audio Device options output setting available for the C50 is McIntosh Audio [Core Audio].  The ASIO protocol is not an available option within MC 27 and the set-up documentation for OS X specifically cites [Core Audio] choices as preferred.

This all prompted a message to my dealer (Audio Classics) and as they always do, Ryan put me in touch with a McIntosh factory support engineer.  Ron asked after the C50 firmware, which is presently V2.00-2.10.  He advised upgrading to the current V2.00-2.21.  Unfortunately, that can only be done by a dealer and the nearest one to me is a 100+ mile round-trip.  If it can't be done while I wait, then my entire audio system is out of commission until I get it back, too.  Ron offered to walk me through JRiver settings over the phone in an effort to find a stopgap, and I'll take him up on that when I'm able to pry half an hour loose next week sometime.

I made another effort at a critical listen last night on a bunch of Red Book material I know well just to see if I could live with it as-is.  The warm-up time for my system is lengthy since it's in a concrete and rock-faced rack (one day I'll get a couple of pictures posted to my virtual system here so folks can see it), but even the first tune sounded off.  After half an hour or so, I tried a cut (Doors Riders on the Storm) that always impresses when I play the disc on my 881 and was again disappointed.  While the imaging was on point, the vibrato of the Fender Rhodes piano just sounds wrong to me when the bit depth is changed.  As a final test, I was going to try a 24 bit 88.2 kHz Bach piece and JRiver hung.  Restarted the software, still hung.  The last time this happened, I had to uninstall and reinstall it so I shut the test down.  I may get back to it this weekend or may not.  I have very limited patience for balky computer software and even less time to deal with it.

As to the @ozzy62 comment, @sandstone is exactly correct.  My MacBook Pro wasn't doing anything and has literally been around the world twice with me since I purchased it in 2012.  I used it so hard and so long I spun the hard drive off its bearings and had to shelve it.  Which perforce shelved my digital music project, too.  I'd been thinking about a BlueSound Vault when I knew the hard drive was failing, but really didn't want to buy yet another box to wedge into my rack.  Then this past spring I found a 1 TB internal solid state drive for $150, got lucky copying my audio files from the old drive over and was able to resurrect the Mac.  The machine now boots from dead cold to fully operational in less than 19 seconds.  Media Center fully boots with the complete library (~350 GB) in 5.  Not bad for a 10 year old laptop.

Finally, I received an upgrade notice last weekend from JRiver to migrate to MC28 for Mac and obtain all kinds of "improvements."  For the bargain price of $30.  As much as I'd like to start getting into the minutiae of metadata, I'm going to attempt resolving the whole bit-depth thing first and before I spend any more money.

And computers were supposed to make our lives easier...

JRiver Media Server is for the serious, technically astute user.  I have used it with varying degrees of success and lots of frustration for many years.  It's "documentation" and "support"  are not from the vendor but from the community.  My suggestion is if you can install it and use in in a reasonable amount of time (8 hours?)  then it is a great fit for you.  If you cannot, it does not get any easier so cut your loses and find something that works for you.  Just as you don't need a hydrogen bomb to kill a squirrel you do not need JRiver just to play music.  If you are spending months (and I have) just to configure  JRiver to play music on a stereo system over WiFi try something else. As a lifelong software developer I have found it excruciatingly difficult (and fiddly) to use.  My wife can use the JRemote  interface on an iPad but is helpless if something goes wrong or it needs to be restarted.  When I kick the bucket the product will be useless to her.

@danchilcoat,

Looks like you are very frustrated. So much so that you registered today and decided to express your frustration on this music player.

You claim to be a lifelong software developer and yet have these frustrations, while normal audio reviewers are able to configure it. Also tons of videos are available online on how to set it up. I have no horse in the race. But Something does not add up. Maybe you should go into the Jriver site forums and seek help instead of venting it out here. Good luck!