appledave

Port 1 is on the outer edge of the mini furthest away from the power supply. 4 is the closet in the centre, so 3 would be the second from the middle. Personally I find the outer port 1 the best to use. DE.

It's been a while since I followed this thread, but I'm in the process of creating a new SD Card as I'm migrating from a 2011 i5 MacMini with a dud video card to an identical model I found used (simple RAM and HDD swap). Is Maveriks the preferred SQ version of OS X over Yosemite? I seem to recall some chatter about how Yosemite was slightly better the last time I created a bootable SD Card; and have been using this setup the whole time. (I'm not going High Seirra). BTW my personal best results was Booting from SD, ejecting the SATA Drive, and playing the application from the RAM Drive. Personally I found playing the tracks direct from the NAS preferable to moving the data to a second RAM Drive, but to each his own. The application files definitely preferred from the RAM Drive rather than the SD. David Engel. Also just sold my Emotiva XDA-1 for an Oppo 105D so it's time to re-evaluate!!

What Jud said. Mode 2 was the original that has always been with us since the beginning. In one upgrade (can't remember which one) Damien introduced a new set of tweaks for a new listening mode which became Mode 1. More revealing, but also more bright. Results vary with systems, but generally those with warmer equipment (tubes, B&K, etc.) tend to prefer the original vs. the more accurate and brighter sound of Mode 1. In LOL-speak: YMMV...

Integer mode 1, huh? I always found that too harsh, clinical and bright compared to Mode 2 which seems warmer. This is using 2.5 which I think is the same as 2.6.6 (confirm?). Does 3.0 reverse this trend?

Audirvana is fantastic for what it is. Software that was developed by one guy. One guy who has personally sent me updated test versions to correct issues along the way for no fee. Been on-board since the 1.4.x days and enjoyed every minute of the software experience, and what it provides to the CA community. 'Nuff said. Still using A+ 2.5 since I have a PCM only DAC and never wanted to go through all the iterations of DSD upsampling (that seems to be a big resource hog on a Mac Mini). Very happy with the sound, and spent a lot of time tweaking it to where is it just right. I'm going to hold off on 3.0 for the time being, a shift in the high end is the last thing I want right now. But I will gladly give Damien the upgrade fee when I go forward without hesitation. DE.

Note that XLD doesn't check for peak volumes, and depending on the source material adding to much gain can cause clipping in your conversions. Either one could use an editor program to determine the peak volume to set manually in XLD, or use other pay for tools such as DSD Master that scans the files and sets the gain for you per album/track. I re-did many pf my DSD files and found that +6dB was too loud for some.

I have this happen all the time, sometimes direct mode doesn't like the DAC and will stop with this error. Usually at the beginning of a track when it is switching sample rates. Quitting A+, Unplugging the DAC from the USB port on the back of the Macmini for about 5-10 seconds, and restarting A+ solves the issue (until the next time). The frequency of this occurrence is completely random, but I've had this since early 1.5x versions. A macmini restart usually solves the problem as well, although sometimes it is still not happy on a cold boot, and needs the same procedure above upon starting. Could be DAC related... I use a HiFace2 USB->coax into an Emotiva XDA-1. What hardware do you use? DE.

DFF tagging in A+ is a convention, not a standard. It may work in some other apps that adhere to the same convention, but not with any certainty, and may not work going forward. For example I was able to pass some information from A+ tagged DFF files during an XLD conversion process, but the Date field did not pass through and had to be redone on the new files. DSF use standard ID3 tags which is part of the file standard so should be universally recognized going forward no matter what. Since my DAC doesn't accept DSD natively (only PCM), I converted all my DFF SACD rips to 24/176.4 PCM FLAC, as I find it slightly better than the real-time DSD->PCM conversion that A+ does on-the-fly. Files are slightly larger, but there is less processor load on playback which I find beneficial. I used +6dB gain and highest quality options to go from DSD->PCM. Some may pooh-pooh on this approach, but while I was at it I moved the originals to DSF to avoid any future ID3 tag buggery should I upgrade my DAC to one that accepts native DSD in the future. I know that the DSD->PCM process is not totally lossless... Hope this helps! DE.

What Dave said... (the other Dave)

Yes, please include Mavericks.

Thanks Damien, After a complete restart (Mavericks) it's been running for a few hours without hiccup thus far. The volume does seem to be Muted when I start the app, and sometimes it will keep playing a track, but Mute itself at the beginning until I turn it up manually (that never happened before). I use a small USB cable to the HiFace2 so it hangs freely. The back of the MacMini can get hot, but not generally the HiFace2 (I will check when playing 24/192 thanks for the advice!) I have tracks of all sample rates, and use 'Power of 2' up-sampling so most data is sent to the DAC at 176.4 kHz.

Nope. Tried a playlist excluding 24/192 tracks. Same issue going from 24/96 to 16/44.1 - Random occasional lockups I can't seem to figure out. Except now they will turn the system Mute as well...

Yes, there are no drivers for the HiFace 2 (thankfully!) and I have had random freezes before 2.2.2 so I always suspected the HiFace as a possible culprit...but I just had another very long session that finally stopped just AFTER a 24/192 track, at the beginning of the following 16/44.1 track. If there is a res-switching bug, it may be related to going to and from 24/192 kHz. It also MUTEs every time this happens, and is still MUTEd after I restart the app. That is new behaviour with this version.

Spoke too soon. Again MUTE and the player is stuck at beginning of track. Again at start of a 24/192 Track. And again still MUTE on application restart until volume manually adjusted. Hope this helps!

Just had a long session without any more MUTE issues, but noted that A+ was at MUTE when I first time I started the app. Weird. I'll keep an eye on it. The new sound is 2.2.3 is really wonderful!