There's not much info anywhere as to what Amarra (full version) DOESN'T support... I can play stereo FLAC from my library with no trouble at all. I do not use the iTunes interface, I just drag tracks or playlists to the Amarra playlist window. Stereo FLAC is played-back through a Wavelength Proton USB DAC.
I've made some 5.1 FLAC files from 5.1 SACDs and Blu-ray discs. These play fine via the Mac Mini's HDMI output when I use Decibel playback software (under $35 last time I looked). All I have to do is select HDMI in the Decibel preferences (that seems to automatically reset Audio Midi to HDMI). The 5.1 FLAC files arrive at the surround processor as 5.1 uncompressed PCM and the channels do appear in the right locations.
Playing the same 5.1 FLAC files with Amarra through the Mac Mini HDMI interface produces the dreaded high level digital noise (loud buzz... volume way down before trying this!!!!). This happens when Audio Midi has HDMI selected and while the Sound control has the surround processor selected. There don't seem to be any settings in Amarra for specifying output goes to the HDMI port.
Amarra definitely supports STEREO FLAC over HDMI since those files play fine. This doesn't sound nearly as good as stereo playback through the Proton USB DAC. But I did the test to see if Amarra would play ANYTHING via HDMI or not. ASonic Studio's webside doesn't say HDMI is supported, but it doesn't say it's NOT supported either. The website says USB, FireWire and analog are supported. And the SS website doesn't say if support is limited to stereo or whether multi-channel is supported.
When Amarra chokes on a multi-channel file, pausing does nothing, the noise continues. I have to quit Amarra and re-start it (though I haven't tried other options to get the noise to stop... I figured if Pause didn't work, something was seriously crashed.
Because of the problem I have with Amarra and the fact that the same files play fine with the much less expensive Decibel software, I have to assume that either Amarra is not supporting multi-channel playback over HDMI at all OR I've missed something and don't have something set right.
Anybody have any confirmation that multi-channel files are not supported or that there's some way to set the Mac Mini or Amarra to get multi-channel files to play properly?
