LEReid

Thanks for helping! I had selected another drive and then selected the first drive again. Then I zapped the program and re-downloaded, and it was still giving the error message. Then I forgot about it for three days and tried again, and now it works.

Nope. (Ripping to the same drive before and after it stopped working.)

I've been happily using XLD for a couple of years. Starting a few days ago, it gives the message "error has occurred in the encoder" for every track I try, whether from a CD, or a file of another format. Luckily I'd just finished virtually all of my CDs...but not quite all. I'm usually resourceful enough with the google for problem-solving, but I don't see anything out there that's useful, or any kind of xld users forum. Anyone else having problems?

And upgrades too often...it felt like I was having to do fiddle with something most weekends.

I just switched from A+ to Pure Music--sound quality of A+ not right for my system, too many futzy problems with how it plays from playlists when you're switching among playlists or using auto-update playlists in your iTunes with A+. I'm very happy with Pure Music. About to pay as demo is running out....

Pure Music also doesn't mess up when playing from playlists that rely on the current play count, even if live update is on....

Oh I am so trying to avoid preferring different software players for each album! I can see it happening. Soon I will own both Audirvana and Pure Music, and then something will convince me to spend money on Amarra, and then I'll be switching between them every time one or the other updates, and then I'll truly be lost to the world ;-)! Meanwhile, I've become convinced of the value of XLD, as I just discovered I've been missing two tracks of this for several years without knowing it!

Okay, I guess I have to go find another thread, because I compared Audirvana with Pure Music over the weekend and Pure Music makes me much happier. I think it could be my system. Since audiolab already tends to what some might call a clinical sound, Audirvana, especially 1.4.6, was making me wince. Also I found it interesting that attending a live performance or two shifted somewhat my expectations of what I wanted to see in the sound from my system. Pure Music is feeling smoother and more, er, musical. Nicer sense of the sound in the space in which it was recorded. In the context of everything else going on, including the new Audiophilleo2, Audirvana was sounding like there were strange boxes around each note a singer sang.

I appreciate the encouragement (mwheelerk acousticguru and orgel)... I am generally inclined to get my system to something I like and then enjoy it for years without tweaking. But this transition to computer audio is a long haul to sort out the kinks and get to that spot, and regular Audirvana updates do add to the challenge. I did get sound back, which certainly is nice, but it's felt lately like music has to be a weekend thing (when I have time to reboot everything however many times it takes for it all to start working again) instead of something I can take for granted (put a CD in the player and press play). I'm trying to test out the audiophilleo2 and that leaves me futzing with what's audiophilleo2 and what's the latest upgrade of Audirvana. (As Mihnea suggests...the upgrade cycle on the software pulls you into troubleshooting even if you intended to sit back and enjoy the music, or concentrate on something other than the software for a while). audiophilleo is having very mixed effects--without Audirvana running, audiophilleo is a huge, noticeable improvement. With Audirvana running it seems to hugely vary by album. I've got one of those mac minis that messes up when outputting hi-res files (at least that's what Westlake says on the forums about why the audiolab produces "chuffling" sounds when playing hi-res files from some mac minis), and the audiophilleo2 fixes that. And overall it makes the quality as good as playing the CD (which was my problem--the ripped files were sounding worse than the original CD even with Audirvana)--on some albums and in some aspects they sound very much better (much more space and detail in orchestral music) and others ... I'm not so sure (less naturalism in vocal music? but here I'm sorting what's Audirvana 1.4.6 and what's the audiophilleo2).

How do you all cope with the relative time investment in computer troubleshooting vs. listening to music? I kind of miss listening to music. Today's adventure is no sound output whatsoever. Using the same setup that produced great music yesterday. I'm spending the evening on ... is it audirvana or the audiophilleo I'm testing out? Not on music, not on the book I want to read. I only have so many hours between when I actually have to work for a living, make food, do laundry, etc.

Aha....the playlist I'm dealing with is exactly a "not yet played" playlist. Thanks for the tip.

And lord help me a gapless album on iTunes is now gapped on Audirvana....I guess I'll read back through the 940 posts on this thread to see what the community experience with this has been.

Perhaps I spoke too soon. It just played...what?....9 tracks of the 21 I'd added to the playlist and then stopped. Let me try iTunes alone without Audirvana. My ears will hurt but let's see if it plays the tracks through.

From time to time I get immersed in work or go away for a week or two, and then I come back to see whether Audirvana can play an album start to finish when I click play or add it to up next while in a playlist, with this or that view, etc. And it still does things like play one track and stop. On a brighter and entirely off-topic note, I just purchased tickets and a pass for the Boston Early Music Festival in June. I think the musicians will be able to play live start to finish without anyone having to reboot a computer or a DAC, or having to research the behaviour of iTunes playlists, or check their USB cables, or any such thing.

Tried going back to 1.4.3 and I still get two songs played (in order now, not skipping one) and then it stops. Have to quite Audirvana and reboot iTunes to get to listen again. To crappy iTunes sound. :-(