It's been a month since I ordered my third X3 (center channel). No word from Clayton on build progress. So I wait some more.
Living for some time now with my last speaker positioning. I like it and have not wanted to change location. Nice! 21 inches from side wall and 5 feet from the front wall. This puts 9 feet between speakers and 10 feet from each speaker to MLP. I do have 6 inch GIK absorber/diffusors on the front wall directly behind each speaker. Phantom center channel is perfect. I have a couple tracks where I know for a fact where each singer is standing and the X3s position the singers perfectly. Depth is excellent. Lots of choral music and the female and male chorus groups are well placed. They sound behind the speakers, females to the middle left and males to the middle right. I guess I'm good.
The last few days I've been tinkering.
1. Music is sent via JRiver Media Center from my PC via USB to my DAC. The DAC sends the analog signal to my pre/pro which does not add any processing. I tried to make sure my speakers were equidistant from the MLP. But, I thought I would try JRiver's room correction DSP. Yes, I could input speaker distances (I could do a lot more). This worked for PCM files but not DSD files.
2. I set up ROON on a 14 day free trial. ROON will provide room correction DSP for both PCM and DSD files. That was nice to find. But, I just don't think it's worth the $12 a month. I'm not likely to keep it. There were other issues with ROON as well. But, I tried it to test out its DSP.
3. I have streaming subscriptions to Amazon HD Music (for Jazz) and Primephonic (for Classical). The only way to get this music from my computer to the DAC was to use JRiver's WDM feature. Works great on my Windows 10 PC. I pull up the Amazon Music app or Primephonic's web browser based app. Play music and it is captured by the WDM feature. JRiver then sends it to the DAC. My DAC has VU meters so I can look at the source music coming to it. Streaming is pretty much 2 channel and I could see the left/right meters running - thus confirming both streaming services do play through my DAC.
4. My final bit of tinkering was to figure out how to use these apps on my computer without having to turn on my projector and bring my mouse/keyboard in to my listening space. I tried Windows remote desktop. No good. Just for fun, I decided to use Google Chrome's remote desktop. Guess what? It worked. From my pad I can select music with either app to play over my system.
I guess I'm pleased with myself for figuring this all out. Now, while sitting in the MLP, using my Android Pad, I can use the JRemote2 app to play music stored on my NAS or with Google remote desktop stream music from Amazon or Primephonic. I also have a Marantz app that I use to control volume.
Marcus
