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Yuri

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  1. Yuri

    Audirvana 1.4

    These modes 1 / 2 do not made me clear at all. Are we talking about bit-exactness or some sort of sound processing? Per my understanding, as a software engineer who worked with codecs before, the audio stream is either bit exact or not. So if Audirvana is claimed to be bit exact using INT mode then no other mode should affect bit stream. So what is actually introduced by new INT modes? I can only guess this can be audio data format on packet level (USB/Firewire). BTW, iTunes is also bit-exact at least through AirPlay, as been measured by some folks.
  2. Alex, Congratulations if that helped you with sales (seriously). But your example can be explained with a well known placebo effect. I agree that dirty power supply may introduce some non-linear distortions to the sound but it is very unlikely that another person can easy tell one from another during short listening session. He has to be very familiar with the sound of the very given audio system to really tell the difference by replacing single component. I think we cannot advance further in discussion so let's finish with it. Everybody will keep his opinion And I wish you good luck in selling hi end (no kidding).
  3. Well, I was thinking about DACs with their own power supply (as the one I'm using). DACs powered by USB may be a different point. If USB voltage is not stable then it *may* affect digital-to-analog performance - assume that ground level (GND) is drifting then output may not be as precise as it should. This might be possible when: 1) Computer's PSU is not well designed. Good one should handle 0.05 watts vs 6 watts without any spikes. And please note SSD can also generate power spikes during some operations (erase is most power consuming, and there are background tasks to relocate data on flash) 2) There is no power stabilization in USB-powered DAC So if there is a *real* difference in sound quality then there should be some sort of explanation why. But with my SSD knowledge I can't imagine difference yet. The only thing comes to my mind is performance. HDD may be late to provide required data causing audio dropouts or freeze. This is why advised to have big memory buffers for track preloading.
  4. sandyk, You're trying to explain digital audio system with analog means where indeed power supply quality or line noise may affect the signal. Whatever file source you use: internal SATA HDD, internal SATA SSD, external USB HDD, etc will produce exactly same byte stream to external devices (DACs). One should start worrying about signal quality from the DAC layer and beyond (up to speakers and room acoustics). However, why do I care?... I will be happy when SSD sales are up I spent a lot of time reading this forum. Subjective reported impressions are never treated as scientific reliable data. I will agree with any of these reports if effect of replacing HDD with SSD can be measured. Let's say one can capture USB audio stream in case #1 (HDD) and case #2 (SSD) in logic analyzer. I *know* (don't believe, know) that audio streams will be same.
  5. Hi Chris, no means to insult anyone. Just wanted to explain the matter in a logical way. Sorry if being read as insulting.
  6. sandyk, People are reporting audible difference because they spent money on new SSD and expect to get a gain of it. We're talking about digital domain here, right? Yes, 16 years ago when I got my first cheap China made SoundBlaster, I have heard distortions in speakers when HDD's head moved. Also I heard noise even moving the mouse. But in this forum everyone's talking about audiophile-grade equipment, which at least includes external DAC connected through USB or optical or other digital interface. No one in this forum is connecting amp to the headphone out on Mac. So if we're about digital output from Mac to the external DAC, the bit stream will be bit exact between SSD and HDD sources. No electrical noise (within allowed range) or presence/absence of capacitors will affect digital stream. Many "audiophiles" think the sound is something like black magic. But everything made for sound reproduction, starting from Edison's phonograph, is based on science and engineering. No miracles.
  7. ericgriffin, almost everything is correct except that modern drives usually use DMA (e.g. data is not going through CPU registers). Everyone saying that SSD sounds better than traditional HDD is either liar, or have high imagination, or suffers from hearing hallucinations. I am a firmware engineer developing SSDs and can assure there is no difference in bits and bytes transferred from either medium. Yes SSD is faster to read but this only matters in high load server applications (are you building Google cloud?). And of course it is good for fast boot for the same reason.
  8. Did anyone suggested Vox? I was using it to play FLACs until switched to Audirvana+. Although its development seems abandoned, it still works OK. The main reason I switched to Audirvana+ is ability to playback DSD ISO files.
  9. That's just your imagination. If you compare same file from both drives you won't find any bit difference. Yes, performance may be affected if one drive suddenly goes to sleep and will need a time to spin up. You'll hear music freeze or dropout, that's it. No other "worse" sounding.
  10. 4GB is more than enough for music playing, even hi-res, unless you do some other tasks while listening (e.g. surfing or working with documents). I've got Mac Mini 2012 with stock memory configuration and use Audirvana. However you can buy 16GB as cheap as $70 so why not?
  11. Also experiencing dropouts with 1.3.9.10 version. Looks like some buffer issue as it happens with the same period. Only happen on Mac Mini + Mountain Lion, doesn't seems to happen on Macbook Air + Snow Leopard. BTW I've got an impression that MBA 2010 + Snow Leopard (natural integer mode) sounds better than Mac Mini 2012 (bypass CoreAudio), but I can't claim this for sure
  12. Damien, thank you for the response. So it is pretty clear that when I select 'initial dCS method' or 'DSD over PCM' Audirvana implicitly switches to the simple decimation mode. I forced simple decimation mode and started to hear same clicks, mostly in right channel, sometimes in both channels. Could it be a bug in the algorithm? Now I am more confident that I hear clicks at same samples. 64-bit multistage algorithm is free from that. Does anyone has the same experience? Could it be slow macbook performance?
  13. How to tell if dCS mode or DSD over PCM works correctly? When playing back DSD ISO files, automatic setting switches to "convert to PCM" which results in 44.1kHz / 24 bit DAC setting (it doesn't support 88kHz). However if I manually select either 'initial dCS' or 'DSD over PCM' methods, the music is there, at 96kHz / 24 bit. The problem is that in these modes I hear pops and clicks. Sometimes often, sometimes pretty rare. Or maybe every time on same offsets (need to confirm this). I am pretty sure this is not connection problem because no such effect when playing FLAC 96/24, problem only appears on DSD data. Is this a sign of improper coding or transfer? Does clicking mean that DAC detected DSD marker frame and skipped? Or Audirvana is sending samples which may be decoded as mute on DAC side? Actually I doubt that my Marantz SA8004 can decode DSD over PCM stream because it is older than that, however it plays whatever Audirvana is sending, and plays it pretty nice. Here is my debug info. Playing fromMacbook Air late 2010 to Marantz SA8004: ----- Audirvana Plus rev. 1.3.9.8 debug information:running on Mac OS X 10.6.8 User preferences: Remote control: IR: off, Media Keys: on (with volume control: on) Playlists: Use UTF-8 for all: on Start playback at launch with audio file: on Remember playlist: off Volume knob control in vertical direction Sample rate converter used: iZotope 64bit SRC Polarity inversion: global=off, per track=on Volume control: DAC only Max volume limit = 100.0% SysOptimizer is disabled iTunes settings: Completely deactivate iTunes playback: on iTunes volume control: off iTunes play position control: off Audio settings: Use Max I/O buffersize: on Max Mem for audio buffers: 256MB Max Sample rate limit: None Sample rate switching latency: None Direct Mode audio path Currently playing in Integer Mode: Device: 2ch Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 24bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 24bit, 6 bytes per frame @96.0kHz Active Sample Rate: 96.0kHz Hog Mode is on Devices found : 2 List of devices: Device #0: ID 0x104 Built-in Output Manufacturer:Apple Inc. Model UID:AppleHDA:61 UID:AppleHDAEngineOutput:8,0,1,1:0 Device #1: ID 0x15e SAKIPEARLLITE/SA8004 Manufacturer:Tenor Electronics Model UID:AppleUSBAudioDevice:SAKIPEARLLITE/SA8004 UID:AppleUSBAudioEngine:Tenor Electronics:DigiHug USB Audio:6200000:2,3 Preferred device: SAKIPEARLLITE/SA8004 Model UID:AppleUSBAudioDevice:SAKIPEARLLITE/SA8004 UID:AppleUSBAudioEngine:Tenor Electronics:DigiHug USB Audio:6200000:2,3 Selected device: ID 0x15e SAKIPEARLLITE/SA8004 Manufacturer:Tenor Electronics Model UID:AppleUSBAudioDevice:SAKIPEARLLITE/SA8004 UID:AppleUSBAudioEngine:Tenor Electronics:DigiHug USB Audio:6200000:2,3 6 available sample rates up to 96000.0Hz 8000.0 16000.0 32000.0 44100.0 48000.0 96000.0 Audio buffer frame size : 512 to 24576 frames Current I/O buffer frame size : 1024 Physical (analog) volume control: No Virtual (digital) volume control: Yes Preferred stereo channels L:1 R:2 DSD capability: DSD via PCM 1.0 Simple stereo device: yes Channel mapping: L:Stream 0 channel 0 R:Stream 0 channel 1 1 output streams: Stream ID 0x1 2 channels starting at 1 23 virtual formats: Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32bits little endian Float @8.0kHz Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 16bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 16bit @8.0kHz Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32bits little endian Float @16.0kHz Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 16bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 16bit @16.0kHz Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32bits little endian Float @32.0kHz Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 16bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 16bit @32.0kHz Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32bits little endian Float @44.1kHz Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 16bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 16bit @44.1kHz Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32bits little endian Float @48.0kHz Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 16bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 16bit @48.0kHz Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32bits little endian Float @96.0kHz Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 16bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 16bit @96.0kHz Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32bits little endian Float @8.0kHz Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 24bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 24bit @8.0kHz Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32bits little endian Float @16.0kHz Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 24bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 24bit @16.0kHz Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32bits little endian Float @44.1kHz Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 24bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 24bit @44.1kHz Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32bits little endian Float @48.0kHz Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 24bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 24bit @48.0kHz Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32bits little endian Float @96.0kHz Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 24bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 24bit @96.0kHz Non-PCM format: cac3 23 physical formats Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 16bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 16bit @8.0kHz Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 16bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 16bit @8.0kHz Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 16bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 16bit @16.0kHz Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 16bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 16bit @16.0kHz Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 16bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 16bit @32.0kHz Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 16bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 16bit @32.0kHz Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 16bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 16bit @44.1kHz Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 16bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 16bit @44.1kHz Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 16bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 16bit @48.0kHz Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 16bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 16bit @48.0kHz Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 16bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 16bit @96.0kHz Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 16bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 16bit @96.0kHz Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 24bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 24bit @8.0kHz Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 24bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 24bit @8.0kHz Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 24bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 24bit @16.0kHz Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 24bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 24bit @16.0kHz Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 24bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 24bit @44.1kHz Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 24bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 24bit @44.1kHz Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 24bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 24bit @48.0kHz Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 24bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 24bit @48.0kHz Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 24bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 24bit @96.0kHz Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 24bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 24bit @96.0kHz Non-PCM format: cac3
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