[alex]

i need to transmit a stereo audio signal over the home lan between two
computers and i'm looking for a software (maybe client and server and
maybe free) capable to do that on windows.
I know this is possible using vlc, but i would prefer to use the asio
drivers. Quality is important because i will use a second room with
different acoustic and speakers to double check my audio works.

thanks alex

[John Williamson]

alex wrote:
i need to transmit a stereo audio signal over the home lan between two
computers and i'm looking for a software (maybe client and server and
maybe free) capable to do that on windows.
I know this is possible using vlc, but i would prefer to use the asio
drivers. Quality is important because i will use a second room with
different acoustic and speakers to double check my audio works.

If I read correctly, you have a computer in the second location and you
want to review a sound file?

In which case, use a player such as vlc on the second computer and just
open the audio file over the network. It's built in to the operating
system. If you're worried about network glitches, copy the file to the
second computer and stream it off the HD locally.

Unless your installation is broken, there is no difference in sound
quality between ASIO drivers and WDM drivers except for a couple of
milliseconds delay on the WDM drivers.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

[LAB]

there is no difference in sound quality between ASIO drivers and WDM
drivers except for a couple of milliseconds delay on the WDM drivers.

Uhmm... Windows mixer resamples audio if it can't play that sample
frequency or other; ASIO driver bypasses the mixer.



--
Gianluca

[alex]

Il 20/07/2011 8.09, John Williamson ha scritto:
alex wrote:
i need to transmit a stereo audio signal over the home lan between two
computers and i'm looking for a software (maybe client and server and
maybe free) capable to do that on windows.
I know this is possible using vlc, but i would prefer to use the asio
drivers. Quality is important because i will use a second room with
different acoustic and speakers to double check my audio works.

If I read correctly, you have a computer in the second location and you
want to review a sound file?

In which case, use a player such as vlc on the second computer and just
open the audio file over the network. It's built in to the operating
system. If you're worried about network glitches, copy the file to the
second computer and stream it off the HD locally.

Unless your installation is broken, there is no difference in sound
quality between ASIO drivers and WDM drivers except for a couple of
milliseconds delay on the WDM drivers.

Thanks John,
it's not a matter of playing files, but to transfer "real time" audio
from the daw in one room to the computer in the second room.
I used the "file-copy" solution for a long time until now, but on every
small change in the daw i need to render the file again, which in some
cases, takes minutes.

WDMs are designed as "system" drivers to grant access to one (or more)
phisycal output. The audio will pass first through a step where the
sampling frequency and the bitdepth are converted to match the card
capabilty. What happens is that if two (or more) audio streams, with
different SF, are sent to the same output at the same time, the driver
will convert one to match the other(s) or both to match the card
capability, prior to feed the card.
For sample, if i feed my motu 828 via WDM with an audio stream at
46000Hz (not stadard), the interface will work flawlessly without any
change in pitch, while the "declared" frequency on the interface will
still say "44100". That's mean that the FS was changed!
Sadly a SF conversion is not a lossless process and most of the times it
will add a small amount of distortion to the audio.
This not happen with ASIO. If you try to play via ASIO a 46000Hz file,
the driver simply refuse to play. You need to use one of the allowed SF
of your interface and the whole system will be locked to that freq.
That's the right behaviour.

Other than this, another reason for ASIO is the fact that on the second
computer i have an old Digidesign Audiomedia III card, which has many
problems with the WDMs but work perfectly with ASIO drivers under XP.

alex

[alex]

Il 20/07/2011 12.39, LAB ha scritto:
there is no difference in sound quality between ASIO drivers and WDM
drivers except for a couple of milliseconds delay on the WDM drivers.

Uhmm... Windows mixer resamples audio if it can't play that sample
frequency or other; ASIO driver bypasses the mixer.



you can avoid to use the mixer in some cases, but is true, wdm can
resample the audio without warning, and that's bad.
For sample MOTU wdm drivers allow you to configure the audio software to
feed a specific output without passing through the windows mixer.

[Peter Larsen[_3_]]

LAB wrote:

there is no difference in sound quality between ASIO drivers
and WDM drivers except for a couple of milliseconds delay on the WDM
drivers.

Uhmm... Windows mixer resamples audio if it can't play that sample
frequency or other; ASIO driver bypasses the mixer.

This does not matter if you open the file via the secondary location
computer running vlc or the other well sounding player - ie. winamp - that
way you just read the file data over the network and all the soft/hardware
involved in the playback is whatever that is available on the secondary
location computer.

If you want syncroneous playback, then a - or if you want it balanced or
worry about channel separation at 30 kHz - a couple of mic cables - between
the locations ensure that it is the same _analog_ signal you listen to. But
then some of the time I am a luddite ...

VLC can stream from a vlc host to a vlc or similarly capable client - in
which case my understanding is that only the client is involved in
da-conversion - if you want it, just never bothered to check how it works,
but it is there in the manual.

Some of the time Microsoft also makes very good stuff, they also have a
streaming solution, but all things audio they do are poorly or not at all
documented and you then never know just when their software knows just what
to do about the audio it handles for you to make it sound just right on your
specific playback equipment.

Always remember to select playback via headphones, strangely that option,
which should be the processed one, sounds like the linear option to me.

Kind regards

Peter Larsen

[alex]

Il 20/07/2011 14.08, Peter Larsen ha scritto:
If you want syncroneous playback, then a - or if you want it balanced or
worry about channel separation at 30 kHz - a couple of mic cables - between
the locations ensure that it is the same_analog_ signal you listen to. But
then some of the time I am a luddite ...

my poor man solution, beacuse the second room amplifier has not balanced
inputs, was to run an RG59 75ohm video cable and then using my old dat
machine to convert from the SPDIF produced in the control room. The
problem is that i was limited by 16 bits (DAT).
I'm looking for something more simple and reliable starting from the
point that in the second room there's a veeeery silent computer equipped
with a good audio card.

bye
alex

[Scott Dorsey]

alex wrote:
i need to transmit a stereo audio signal over the home lan between two
computers and i'm looking for a software (maybe client and server and
maybe free) capable to do that on windows.
I know this is possible using vlc, but i would prefer to use the asio
drivers. Quality is important because i will use a second room with
different acoustic and speakers to double check my audio works.

If you have a home lan, you've probably pulled cat-5 everywhere. And you
are probably using only two pairs of the cable for networking, leaving two
that you could use as an audio tieline.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Scott Dorsey]

alex wrote:

my poor man solution, beacuse the second room amplifier has not balanced
inputs, was to run an RG59 75ohm video cable and then using my old dat
machine to convert from the SPDIF produced in the control room. The
problem is that i was limited by 16 bits (DAT).
I'm looking for something more simple and reliable starting from the
point that in the second room there's a veeeery silent computer equipped
with a good audio card.

You can, in fact, run SPDIF into a balun to give you a 110 ohm balanced
line that will go over cat-5 nicely. You'll need to dedicate a pair to
the job though.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[alex]

Il 20/07/2011 15.20, Scott Dorsey ha scritto:
You can, in fact, run SPDIF into a balun to give you a 110 ohm balanced
line that will go over cat-5 nicely. You'll need to dedicate a pair to
the job though.
how long the baloon? freq sholud be around 2mHz...
but this way i'm still going to use the DAT machine with all the
limitations. I would prefer a software based solution instead.
Theoretically this will be a very simple task for two networked PCs... I
heard about solutions made by AudioTX but the demos i checked was not
satisfactory...

thanks alex

[alex]

Il 20/07/2011 15.17, Scott Dorsey ha scritto:
If you have a home lan, you've probably pulled cat-5 everywhere. And you
are probably using only two pairs of the cable for networking, leaving two
that you could use as an audio tieline.
right, but in the case of dedicating other pairs to the audio, i still
will need an external DA converter. I only own an old DAT machine that
always need a cassette to be switched in "paused rec mode" and act as
converter.
I already have RG59 (75ohm) cables passed inside the walls for the job.
No need for baloon since SPIDIF works fine as is. Via a video splitter
the spidif is goin' in the living room too, where is a spidif capable AV
receiver and from where i can listen the CR audio.
By the way the computer has way better audio quality and is not limited
to 16 bits.

thanks alex

[Mike Rivers]

On 7/19/2011 9:36 PM, alex wrote:
i need to transmit a stereo audio signal over the home lan between two
computers and i'm looking for a software (maybe client and server and
maybe free) capable to do that on windows.

Quality is important because i will use a second room with
different acoustic and speakers to double check my audio works.

Does it need to be a real-time stream? If not, why not just send the
file over the existing LAN setup and play it through the other computer?

Does it have to be wireless? Have you considered running balanced analog
audio through two pairs of an Ethernet cable? That works very well.

Or do you really need to make it complicated?


--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be operated without
a passing knowledge of computing, although it seems that it can be
operated without a passing knowledge of audio" - John Watkinson

Drop by http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com now and then

[Scott Dorsey]

alex wrote:
Il 20/07/2011 15.20, Scott Dorsey ha scritto:
You can, in fact, run SPDIF into a balun to give you a 110 ohm balanced
line that will go over cat-5 nicely. You'll need to dedicate a pair to
the job though.

how long the baloon? freq sholud be around 2mHz...

Figure you want a 4 Mhz bandwidth. I have gone a few thousand feet with
Cat-5 (before Cat-5e became available) using the Canare baluns.

but this way i'm still going to use the DAT machine with all the
limitations. I would prefer a software based solution instead.

I don't trust software, I much prefer hardware solutions. But there are
much better A/D units available than the DAT machine.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Mike Rivers]

On 7/20/2011 8:08 AM, Peter Larsen wrote:
This does not matter if you open the file via the secondary location
computer running vlc or the other well sounding player - ie. winamp - that
way you just read the file data over the network and all the soft/hardware
involved in the playback is whatever that is available on the secondary
location computer.

I know every computer system is different, but whenever I try to play a
file from a computer on the network with a media player, the player
won't open the file. I never bothered to wonder why, just copied the
file over the network and played it locally. Probably saved about half a
pound of hair and several hours that way. g


--
"Today's production equipment is IT based and cannot be operated without
a passing knowledge of computing, although it seems that it can be
operated without a passing knowledge of audio" - John Watkinson

Drop by http://mikeriversaudio.wordpress.com now and then

[alex]

Il 20/07/2011 17.49, Mike Rivers ha scritto:
Does it need to be a real-time stream? If not, why not just send the
file over the existing LAN setup and play it through the other computer?


real time!

Does it have to be wireless?

this can be nice...

Have you considered running balanced analog
audio through two pairs of an Ethernet cable? That works very well.

yes, i've considered all possible hardware alternatives. I'm at the
point of valuating the software solutions prior to choose.
I already have a SPIDIF "network" around the home but i still need DA
converters. And mine are OLD, BAD and "tedious" to work with.
Next my new interface (MOTU 828mk3) has a "spidif out" incompatibility
with old spdif machines such DAT and AV receivers. I have to use a
second card (digigram) to provide the spidif to the network, thus i need
to change the daw config in order to listen in the second room.
In the second room is a regular hifi integrated amplifier. The balanced
option will involve transformers which i don't have.
The software solution doesn't need any hardware mod nor change to be
functional, and is the one that can offer me the best sound quality with
stuff i already own (except the involved software, of course).
any hint (software, please)?

Or do you really need to make it complicated?

the opposite...

alex

[Nil]

On 20 Jul 2011, Mike Rivers wrote in
rec.audio.pro:

I know every computer system is different, but whenever I try to
play a file from a computer on the network with a media player,
the player won't open the file. I never bothered to wonder why,
just copied the file over the network and played it locally.

I do that all the time. Unless you're trying to play the file across
the internet, seems to me it's more straightforward to just share the
file across your local home network. I've got most of my music files on
one computer, and I play it on two different computers, each hooked up
its own amplification system.

[alex]

Il 20/07/2011 20.12, Scott Dorsey ha scritto:

No matter WHAT you do, you will need D/A converters. Try the Benchmark.
Try any one of a number of popular audiophile boxes like the Entech. No
matter what you do, you need conversion.

Of course scott!!! the best converter i have is INSIDE the second room
PC so using it will be the best end less expensive option.
I can even plug the spidif connection to the soundcard input and use it
as "converter", routing the spidif IN into the output analogue RCAs!!!
But it will be better to use it through software and the TCP-IP, since
this will be not the only use of this PC.
Another reason is that via LAN i can arrange a set of digital meters in
the PC that will help me discovering errors.


This should not be the case if everything meets the standards. You would
not by any chance be using Panasonic equipment on the other end, would you?
Panasonic's interfaces did not meet the standard.
I don't know exactly which is the problem, but i can say that with the
MOTU 828mkII everything works fine while with mk3 not! But i'm sure, the
mk3 spdif output is working well, or at least how it should work (is not
damaged). So is a matter of "standard"... or "not standard".
At the end of the story i should change the DAW config to be able to
feed the SPDIF network with audio, and this is boring.

In the second room is a regular hifi integrated amplifier. The balanced
option will involve transformers which i don't have.
They are available inexpensively. Or use the AES/EBU interface. Unless you
have a Panasonic since Panasonic won't meet that standard either...

thanks for all the answers, scott, but I'm interested in experimenting
with a software solution. This IS the topic of this thread. I got only
answers telling me how to do it via hardware, which is a topic i know
very well but, right now, is not what i want.

If i ask how cook meal, people answer me that vegetables are better...

alex

[philicorda[_9_]]

On Wed, 20 Jul 2011 03:36:03 +0200, alex wrote:

i need to transmit a stereo audio signal over the home lan between two
computers and i'm looking for a software (maybe client and server and
maybe free) capable to do that on windows. I know this is possible using
vlc, but i would prefer to use the asio drivers. Quality is important
because i will use a second room with different acoustic and speakers to
double check my audio works.

thanks alex

As I understand it, you want to be able to direct the output of one
machine's DAW to the soundcard of the other over a network in real time,
and have sample accurate transfer. Low latency being not essential.

The problem is keeping the sample sync with both sound cards. As far as I
know, the only thing that does this is MLAN, which can recover a clock
from the network somehow. It's somewhat expensive though, and only
supports limited hardware. There are many other solutions, but they rely
on re-sampling.

I can think of how it could be done, but sadly the software does not
exist yet. If the client buffered a second of audio, and cleared it's
buffers whenever the master DAW playback was 'stopped', then it should
always have enough leeway to compensate for the clocks drifting over a
reasonable time (less than 30 minutes or so continuous playback). It
might be possible to hack Jack to do this, but it's probably not going to
be easy.

[Jonas Eckerman]

On 2011-07-20 13:41, alex wrote:

it's not a matter of playing files, but to transfer "real time" audio
from the daw in one room to the computer in the second room.

What DAW? I'm guessing it does handle VSTs.

Reaper comes with something called ReaStream wich is used to stream
audio between different computers. I've only tested it a couple of
times, but it seems to work fien when you don't mind the added latency
of a network.

This is also available as a free VST plugin so you can use it with other
Daws/VST hosts. Together with MiniHost or some other rudimentary VST
host it ought to be possible to use without a full DAW. I haven't
actually tried the VST without Reaper though.

And Reaper also comes with ASIO input drivers, so you could use Reaper
as some sort of over complicated (DAW-ASIO-Reaper-network-something)
bridge.

The free ReaPlugs are at:
http://www.reaper.fm/reaplugs/index.php

Regards
/Jonas
--
Jonas Eckerman
http://www.truls.org/