Bypassing PC with External HD Storage?

Tone_Boss

Active Member
Is there a way to play music stored on an external HD and not go thru a PC? Currently I'm using a NAD DAC and JRiver Media Center but the stutter (pretty sure thats the term) using Windows 10 makes it nearly unusable. Previously I was using Windows XP with the same setup and it was flawless. Moved everything to a new Windows 10 machine and have the stutter issue. This problem does not happen using Spotify, only with FLAC files from CD quality up to high res. I have 1T of music so would like to stick with the hard drive. Is there some sort of music player that the external hard drive can connect to and then connect to the DAC and then the integrated amp? Similar to a SONY HAP but without the storage?
 
Is there a way to play music stored on an external HD and not go thru a PC? Currently I'm using a NAD DAC and JRiver Media Center but the stutter (pretty sure thats the term) using Windows 10 makes it nearly unusable. Previously I was using Windows XP with the same setup and it was flawless. Moved everything to a new Windows 10 machine and have the stutter issue. This problem does not happen using Spotify, only with FLAC files from CD quality up to high res. I have 1T of music so would like to stick with the hard drive. Is there some sort of music player that the external hard drive can connect to and then connect to the DAC and then the integrated amp? Similar to a SONY HAP but without the storage?
I had occasional stutter too when I ran digital files from my PC. I solved this issue by getting a Raspberry PI3 and a copy of JRiver on it. Now the RPi plays the music and all my PC does is control it Some call this streaming, or pushing, but it works, great, never has stuttered since, and is quiet.

Since you are already a JRiver user, you can, for around $50 get JR's microSD card with the correct version of Linux and JRiver from them. From there it is pretty much plug and play, and the RPi costs around $50. JRiver maintains and updates it so it is a very usable system that doesn't require a ton of computer savvy to figure out.

One thing to check would be if the NAD has Linux drivers for its DAC. It probably does but worth a check first.
 
I had occasional stutter too when I ran digital files from my PC. I solved this issue by getting a Raspberry PI3 and a copy of JRiver on it. Now the RPi plays the music and all my PC does is control it Some call this streaming, or pushing, but it works, great, never has stuttered since, and is quiet.

Since you are already a JRiver user, you can, for around $50 get JR's microSD card with the correct version of Linux and JRiver from them. From there it is pretty much plug and play, and the RPi costs around $50. JRiver maintains and updates it so it is a very usable system that doesn't require a ton of computer savvy to figure out.

One thing to check would be if the NAD has Linux drivers for its DAC. It probably does but worth a check first.
Interesting. So where in the chain does the PI3 go?
 
Or maybe just tweak your W10 machine to get rid of the studder? Usually increasing the buffer size and making sure it's using the WASAPI audio engine will cure that sort of problem. DON'T use the computer's master volume control, as that fires up DirectSound, which kinda sorta sucks and adds a whole nuther layer of processing on top of the digital stream. Leaving that tool at 100% bypasses that nonsense.

** Also helps to make sure all your software and hardware are set for the same resolution and bit rate as your source files. Each and every conversion adds load to the processors and can add noise and dropouts.

Oh. If you're using USB, you may find that some of your other devices are messing with you. Try unplugging everything but the audio and see if that helps, and then it's just a process of elimination. I had a noisy wireless keyboard/mouse that I swapped out, curing a real head scratcher.
 
Or maybe just tweak your W10 machine to get rid of the studder? Usually increasing the buffer size and making sure it's using the WASAPI audio engine will cure that sort of problem. DON'T use the computer's master volume control, as that fires up DirectSound, which kinda sorta sucks and adds a whole nuther layer of processing on top of the digital stream. Leaving that tool at 100% bypasses that nonsense.

** Also helps to make sure all your software and hardware are set for the same resolution and bit rate as your source files. Each and every conversion adds load to the processors and can add noise and dropouts.

Oh. If you're using USB, you may find that some of your other devices are messing with you. Try unplugging everything but the audio and see if that helps, and then it's just a process of elimination. I had a noisy wireless keyboard/mouse that I swapped out, curing a real head scratcher.
Yup using WASAPI.
 
FWIW A buddy of mine has a router that can also be a music server. Has his 1TB drive hooked up that way. All of his network devices, TVs, phones, ipads etc can access it.
 
Interesting. So where in the chain does the PI3 go?
I have my RPi3b connected to the house network via an Ethernet cable, along with a 2tb NAS drive and my win 10 desktop. In my arrangement the PC sends the music files to the raspberry from the NAS drive. The Rpi can also run stand alone but I like having jriver interface on the flat screen TV and control everything with a wireless mouse from my chair.

From the Rpi I run a Modi multi bit dac via the rpi usb. The Rpi runs 24/7,has no moving parts, and uses about 5 watts. Rock solid reliable and because there are no moving parts or other processes going on there is never any sound floor from misbehaving digital over the speakers due to all the noise from a typical PC.
 
Have not but this seems like a common issue on Windows 10 with any player.

It is not. I have no idea where you read that...but it is an inaccurate assumption.

I use Foobar2000 for all my playback throigh either WASAPI exclusive or ASIO. I did not suffer audio issues until my motherboard started to fail (https://dewdude.ath.cx/soundproblem.m4a).

But when the motherboard isn't acting up...my sound is perfectly stable.
 
Is there a way to play music stored on an external HD and not go thru a PC?

Lots of suggestions on the threads in this subforum. This one in particular may be relevant:

http://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/questions-on-making-server-for-flac-playback.742307/

Possibilities:
Router as file/media server ('poor man's NAS'), plus client devices
NAS as file/media server, plus client devices
Cheap Android media box & suitable media tool (e.g. BubbleUPnP, Kodi, etc)
RaspberryPi & suitable media tool (Roon, Volumio, etc)
 
Out of curiosity are you using usb 2.0 jacks or 3.0 in the chain? Might not be the issue but 3.0 has way better transmission rates and you should favor it as a data pass through.
 
Might not be the issue but 3.0 has way better transmission rates and you should favor it as a data pass through.

Even using a 384k/24 source, that's still only 26Mbps. Compare that with the 480Mbps rate of USB2. It really shouldn't be a problem.
Red Book 44.1k/16 is only 1.411Mbps, or 0.3% of the available USB2 bandwidth.
The only potential issue is if using an old USB audio protocol that doesn't include any sensible amount of FIFO buffering, allowing the USB transmit buffer to go empty. Or if the Win10 USB driver has very bad real time response.
 
I ran into a jitter problem even when using external storage, a Synology D-415+, and a dedicated Windoze 7 based CAPS 3 Zuma server. This is all connected via USB to my D100 DAC.

I added a Wyred4Sound "Recovery" USB reclocker in between the music server and the DAC. Jitter gone...
 
dewdue is correct - there is no reason your Win 10 setup can't duplicate your Win XP experience... except for the way it is configured. It's a PITA, but use the Win 10 resource monitor tools and see what is eating into your performance. But then again, an XP machine is fairly old - what is the configuration? Processor, memory, etc. Win 10 may be too much for an early XP machine. As others have noted, there a number of options such as a NAS with your drive attached.
 
Processor, memory, etc. Win 10 may be too much for an early XP machine.

Yes, Win10 was too much, even for one of my Atom-based Win7 machines. Despite the claims that Win10 would give a performance improvement, I found that it had a significant detrimental effect on performance. I reverted back to Win7.
 
Before I switched to the raspberry pi I ran music files directly from my Windows 10 desktop and had quite a bit of trouble. First there was a buzzing over the speaiers that timed on and off perfectly to the drive light on the computer. The fix for that was to run it in power saver mode, but then when I wanted to use the PC for something else it would be slow and I would have to dig through the menu to get it back to high performance mode.

Then on occasion, maybe once every ccouple days when I went to play some music there would be an almost imperceptible rapid cutting out of the sound. It would sometimes take me 20 seconds to even recognized it, and there was nothing I could do but reboot the computer and that would fix the issue until the next time.

There were other issues too, at times the music would play too fast, but just slightly and not enough to notice righr away except the singers on familiar music all were just slightly too high pitched and this again required a reboot to fix.

These last 2 issues were especially exasperating because I found it difficult to enjoy the music when I was always listening to hear if the computer needed to be rebooted again.

I read up, played with all the buffer settings, got new audiophile usb cables, even bought a filter/reclocker, which helped some but not the rapid skipping or the speeded up playback as I redall.

Then I upgraded to the current dac I run now and it had the same issues.

So once I got the Rpi and got all playback the hell off this PC of mine, ALL the problems went away!

I believe that not all win 10 audio problems can be solved simply by tweaking software settihgs. Some computers simply by hardware designor component quality don't deal with audio well. I believe that the problems stemmed from the USBin my pc and no amount of fixing it downstream from that would work, in my case.

The RPI3B is a simple device, no moving parts, and nothing else to muck up the digital stream to the dac, for $50 it has proven to me to be a bargain!
 
Can't help with the OP question, but can say I have JRiver on Win10 and it's fine.
I am not using the onboard Dell USB port, I added a USB 3.0 card for the connection to the DAC. Onboard USB only runs a wireless keyboard/touchpad combo from LogiTech.
I second what sKiZo posted about buffer size.
 
I think the issues with win 10 at least in my case are more hardware related than software. I do have jriver running on a laptop that I use out in my shop system and it seems to be fine. I maxed out the buffer size on my desktop but that's not the issue there. I chalk it up to cheap parts and or noise from something causing the usb to have noise.

Not a computer scientist, so it could be something about the config but I tried everything I could to get that computer to play nice but in the end the Raspberry pi was the answer for me.
 
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