Audiophile Info

Media Center has the leading engine for audiphile use. All data paths within the program are 32 bit. Support for lossless formats includes APE, FLAC, Windows Media Lossless, and Apple Lossless. (WAV files can also be used, but the output is identical to any lossless format, so we recommend using lossless compression.)

Output via Direct Sound, Wave Out, ASIO, or WASAPI (Vista and above).

MC also supports DirectShow.

MC's DSP Studio in Playback Options allows resampling at 48Khz, 96Khz, and above.

In September, 2009, the audiophile site 6moons published aJ. River Media Center review as part of their Weiss Minerva review. The Minerva is a $5000 DAC, and MC held up well in their tests.

Other audiophile credentials of the J. River audio engine include:

• First to embrace lossless compression. Matt Ashland, J. River's CTO, is also the author of Monkey's Audio (APE).
• First to support gapless and cross-fading playback
• First to implement the Replay Gain standard (a high-quality system to provide playback of varying tracks at the same volume)
• First to natively support ASIO (a quality-orientated way to talk to a soundcard)
• Full support of LAME gapless information
• Inclusion of high quality DSP filters, like the highest quality resampler available
• Play files from memory

Also see: DACSettings

An Audiophile Thread on Interact.