flatmap

You will be interested in Michael Fremer's brief encounter with the Kii Threes at CES 2016. He says, in part: "What is more, the sound was insanely great from bottom (expected) to top (unexpected), playing either files from vinyl that I brought or playing vinyl "live" on the Kronos turntable."

So, just to restate, you verified that ALAC metadata was written correctly, but Amarra attributed some of these files to "Various Artists" incorrectly. Without changing anything with the metadata, just converting to FLAC fixed the problem. Is that right?

I've put in a ticket #19697 and I'll let you know what I hear.

These suspicious requests happen merely by launching Amarra. This happens before the main window is even displayed. I’m sure this happens for all users, but it is not visible unless you are monitoring your network activity. For all other music players, and most other software, you’ll get a network request like this the first time you launch. You'll see that it supports update or authorization, approve it and that's that. Amarra is the only player that continues to ping new and unexpected servers all over the globe. Look, I like Amarra, it sounds great even though the user interface has lots of problems. I want it to work and continue to get better. BUT, the code has some serious problems that must be fixed. At this point, i only feel comfortable using it after blocking these requests.

Amarra 4 does make contact with sonicstudio.com (for update) and softworkz.com (for activation). Of course I allow those connections along with connections to discogs and googleapi. I really don't believe that is what this is about. Many sessions bring connection attempts to a wide variety of servers in different countries (like the aforementioned in Singapore and Australia). It is extremely concerning in my opinion, expecially to those servers with inexplicable roles that are on the blocklist. I certainly don't feel comfortable launching the app without a network monitor running. Very much hoping to hear a reassuring explanation, but I'm starting to feel there is some errant "cut-and-paste code that has squeaked into production.

I use a network monitor (Little Snitch) to help me avoid malware sites, ad beacons, and so forth. It's a constant help when I'm web browsing. Most surprisingly, when I start up Amarra it also triggers and sometimes on very suspicious sites. For example, when I launched it today, Amarra attempted connection to 103.86.99.99 and 103.86.96.96, both of which servers are owned by AS36351 SoftLayer Technologies Inc. which is blocked by www.blocklist.de. This makes me feel quite uneasy. Really, what is going on with this???

I don't really know how it compares to earlier versions. Sorry. "Exclusive mode" gives Amarra exclusive access to your audio device so that other applications cannot use it.

You can set the buffer size under "Device Settings." This is also where you opt for Exclusive Mode.

I had an older iMac which also developed this problem. I took it in and they diagnosed power supply was at fault. YMMV, of course.

Well I can understand that they want to accept incoming network connections for a remote app. HOWEVER, I cannot at all understand why they would be running an application on your-server.de. That's the part that makes me uneasy. Granted, I have no idea how to interpret this...

Yes, Amarra always asks, "Do you want the application “Amarra 4.app” to accept incoming network connections?", but in only some cases does Little Snitch detect calls like those to the above IP addresses. It does also request connection to ns1.images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com, googleadapis.l.google.com, gstatic.com... but I deemed these probably legitimate to display cover art, perform search and so forth.

I use Little Snitch to monitor network requests, and when I started Amarra 4 I got these notices corresponding to static.78-46-223-24.clients.your-server.de and another to an IP owned by Rackspace Ltd. Does anyone know what this is about? Of course I blocked both requests, but it makes me uneasy that Amarra wants to connect to these servers.

I've used my dragonfly red most of the day today and it is not perceptively warm. Feels like it is just the same as the room ambient temperature where I'm using it. But in any event, still cool to the touch.

As is obvious, there are some problems with this release. HOWEVER, the sound quality is terrific. Most striking is the product's ability to render spatial details. I'm not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but the illusion of space is markedly improved over version 3. To be honest, I didn't use version 3 so very often because I didn't care for the interface, but I always liked the sound. I do think the version 4 sound quality is better in almost every way. There is also an improvement, to my ears, in how muscial subtleties and quiet passages are portrayed. Maybe there is a quieter background with less noise? Whatever the cause, the result is very refined and I find that I'm getting absolutely absorbed in complicated symphonic works. Please keep going forward on this. You are doing the most important things just right.

Darn. Let us know if you get a fix from @Amarra_Support. Does this happen on your primary folder where you first do a scan? For what it's worth, I choose a primary folder with a small number of files. I scan that easily, and then subsequently use "Add to Library" to add my main collection. The latter takes about 20 minutes, give or take and this is the step where the progress indicator stalls, goes up and down, but ultimately completes.