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In the first part of this series, “Understanding Digital Audio,” I introduced you to some computer-based digital audio concepts, and to the idea that sound quality can be severely impacted by jitter, vibration, RFI and EMI. In the second part of this series, I’ll show you how to configure a new install of Windows 8.1 to ensure that sound quality isn’t significantly degraded by unwanted disk and CPU activity, and how to setup and configure JRIVER Media Center for optimal playback.
This is not an exhaustive guide of tweaks and configuration settings – there’s certainly much more you could potentially achieve – but this post will provide you with a solid grounding on which to experiment further. Most of the information in this article also applies to Windows 7 and is relevant for those who want to build a PC dedicated to music playback.
It’s best to start with a completely fresh install of Windows, and during the setup process, create a new local user that isn’t associated with a Microsoft account. Install any drivers required for your hardware and chipset. When you log on for the first time, run Windows Update from the control panel and make sure that all the latest patches get installed, as we’ll need to disable Windows Update later.
Let’s start by performing some basic tweaks to minimize CPU activity and disk I/O.
I recommend that you remove all tiles from the Start screen. You can remove more than one tile at a time in Windows 8.1 by right-clicking the tiles you’d like to remove and then click Unpin from Start in the grey bar at the bottom of the screen.
So which services should you disable? As many as you can. But depending on how you will use your audio PC, there will be some services that shouldn’t be disabled, such as those relating to networking or Windows Audio services and the Multimedia Class Scheduler service (MMCSS), if you choose to use the Windows Audio Services API (WASAPI) (more on that later).
There are some services, however, that are vital to disable because of the high amount of disk I/O and CPU activity they generate. These include:
There are other services that should also be disabled, but the ones listed above are key. Most of these services can be disabled using the Services control panel applet, which you’ll find under System and Security, Administrative Tools. But some are more stubborn, such as Windows Store service and Task Scheduler, and they will require you to modify the registry.
Before rebooting Windows, let’s remove the page file. I have found this to be a critical step for ensuring good sound quality. Our PC doesn’t need this kind of memory management because there will always be enough RAM for our audio application.
Once Windows has restarted, we should also disable Windows Defender.
Most people find that setting the Windows power plan to high performance improves sound quality. You can change this setting in the Control Panel under System and Security and then select Power Options.
Now that you’ve gone through the list of services and disabled most of them, you should have a much quieter Windows. If you are not sure what a particular service does, then don’t disable it before doing some more research. Disabling security features, such as the Security Center and Windows Firewall, is also desirable, but do make sure you take provisions to keep your audio PC protected.
For the purposes of this article, I’m going to assume that you are using an external DAC connected to the PC via USB. In an ideal world, your DAC should be connected to a USB root hub that isn’t shared by any other devices. Let’s use Device Manager to check our USB configuration. Make sure that your DAC is connected and turned on.
Now let’s deprioritize some hardware devices to improve sound quality:
Let’s give priority to the System CMOS/real time clock (IRQ 8), and deprioritize the keyboard, PS/2 mouse, Numeric Data Processor and the System timer.
Repeat this procedure and create the following DWORD values with associated data (decimal). I’ve included IRQ0Priority for completeness:
Registry value | Registry data | Associated device |
IRQ0Priority | 150 | System timer |
IRQ1Priority | 153 | Keyboard |
IRQ12Priority | 151 | Mouse PS/2 |
I recommend starting with the IRQ priority settings listed in the table above. You may later decide to add the IRQ of the USB controller that your DAC is connected to and assign it a priority of 2 for example, to give it priority over devices such as the graphics card. Listen to determine if this improves sound quality, the results may vary between systems.
We should also set the DAC for exclusive mode, meaning that once your audio playback software starts to play music, no other software is able to share the DAC.
The software used to play your music files has an influence on sound quality. The two most popular pieces of software are JRIVER Media Center and Foobar2000. Media Center is widely considered to sound superior to Foobar2000, and has better library management features. It’s not free like Foobar, but well worth the small $50 asking price. A 30-day trial is also available.
Let’s configure Media Center to make sure it doesn’t create unwanted disk I/O and CPU activity, and to work with our connected DAC.
Note that after modifying this setting, you will need to manually start auto-import to add new files to your Media Center library.
The driver for your DAC will likely support different audio outputs and be listed more than once under this menu. If your DAC supports ASIO, it’s advisable to select this option. If not, you can choose between WASAPI and Kernel Streaming. Some DACs sound better using WASAPI, and others using Kernel Streaming, so some experimentation will be required to determine the best setting.
Under Buffering, note that the default buffer of 100 milliseconds, or 0.5 seconds for Kernel Streaming, can be lowered. Start with the recommended buffer setting, and experiment by gradually reducing the buffer. Smaller buffers should in theory sound better, but they do increase the load on the CPU, so the result isn’t always better sound quality. I recommend leaving all the other audio settings as default, unless you experience a problem with playback.
Now let’s enable WebGizmo. This will enable us to browse the media library and control playback without having to open the main JRIVER Media Center interface. This results in better sound, as GUI windows are known to introduce jitter.
Once Windows has restarted, launch JRIVER Media Center.
Now sit back and enjoy the music!
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