tgdinamo

I think this is a good idea. If Pono are going to attempt to make the case to the labels to release something labels may be able to deliver in 192/24 but don't want to bother because they don't believe it's worth their time - this could give Pono staff some ammunition in demonstrating there is demand. Also, releasing in 192/24 does not have to mean upsampling 96/24 - this would obviously only make sense if labels can go back to original tapes and start from there.

Album "Trio" by Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, and Emmylou Harris. I purchased the HD version from Pono store (link below) since nobody else had it in HD when I was looking at it. It's absolutely incredible music and SQ is top notch (demo type recording). This would be the first album I would recommend to anyone who thinks they don't like country. https://www.ponomusic.com/ccrz__CCPage?pageKey=product&oId=of%3Afb696d8f186842548134117896d8bcc1&type=Album&artistId=of%3A14dc9ad234ef451393e54be274fc5df5

Thanks for the info about deleting individual tracks. Preload does not seem to make difference in my case - cache turned on seems to be the culprit introducing random crashes, regardless of other settings (although I also don't use itunes integration so have no direct experience regarding what effect that may have - my guess based on reading some posts is that it can also be very problematic).

I'm running Yosemite as well and it works fine but only after I turn the cache off. If I have cache on then frequently when I launch the app I see long lasting spinning ball followed by application crash and asking me to send report to Apple (which I did several times as if that's ever going to make any difference - cause this is not Apple but Amarra specific problem).

On the other hand I would happily pay $299 to have Amarra SQ married with Audirvana app stability and just the ability to display most basic metadata available in my wav files (ie song name,album,artist,resolution - Audirvana displays all of this from wav files I purchase from HDTracks while Amarra only displays the song names and resolutions).

I agree but in my case I'm sticking with Amarra since I did manage to eventually get it to the point where it is stable so I can hit play and just plays (reliably). But I should not have had to turn off supposedly recommended functionality (ie cache) to get there, and also move 1TB worth of music files to internal SSD to achieve this stability. Also, while it now plays and is stable it would still be nice to at least see the name of artist and album of the song it's currently playing - that should not be too much to ask. At the end of the day the glorious SQ was just too much to give up so I decided to put up with these annoyances (however lack of stability if I could not have solved that issue would have been the deal breaker for me as well).

I'm a new Amarra user and have a few observations and questions (not sure if this is the best thread/forum but I can't find anything else that seems to have more recent conversations about this software). My feelings so far after about a week of using Amarra is that the SQ is quite an improvement over Audirvana Plus which I have been using for about a year or so (was happy with it and did not expect something else could significantly improve on it but I' happy to report I was wrong - stage, instrument separation, and detail are clearly a step up with Amarra). However the user interface and stability of the app is a very different story - Audirvana is much more stable. I find that I had to turn off Amarra cache completely to make it stable, as well as not loading playlist by default (I don't care about itunes integration and wish it was not even there but that's another story altogether - Audirvana seems to be better in terms of keeping itunes out of the way if you select not to use it in preferences). The most annoying Amarra issues for me is very poor display of meta-data. I mostly listen to wav files and it's very frustrating Amarra playlists only list song names and resolution but don't list the album and artists. I'm sure someone will say that wav's don't support this, but when I load the exact same folders with wav files into Audirvana all this info is clearly displayed - so it's there and Amarra could also use it if developers chose to do some work to make it happen. Other annoying issues are that once you add songs to playlist it seems individual tracks can never be removed - the only solution seems to be to clear the entire playlist! If there is a way to delete individual tracks (or blocks of tracks) from the playlist and I'm missing something please can someone let me know how this can be done. Also, I wish blocks of tracks can be moved up and down the playlist all at once (like Audirvana). And finally where is the random function (to randomize tracks in playlist)? So my overall impression is still very positive about Amarra (SQ is most important), but I find it strange that the developers got the most difficult stuff worked out perfectly (SQ), and seemingly very trivial to implement functionality is missing or unstable. By the way, my system is a very recent Macbook Pro (2014) with 16GB ram and 1TB SSD (and I play all tracks off of that SSD - had some issues when I tried playing off of network drives, or even regular external USB 3 connected hard drives). My dac is a very nice Hegel HD12 and is connected to the Macbook via USB interface (using Nordost Blue Heaven cord).

That's interesting. I feel exactly the opposite - I have been using Amarra over last week or so (after using A+ over last year or so) and feel that Amarra has pretty clear SQ advantage (better stage, separation, and detail as far as I'm concerned), but Audirvana is far ahead in other areas like user interface, and especially stability (although I'm not using remote so can't comment on that at all).

Completely agree and want to add that Rust Never Sleeps is also amazing (as good as those 3 you mentioned).

Thanks for this! I was waiting for this to be offered in 176.4 and apparently that's already the case. By the way, same thing is true with American Stars'n Bars where thumbnail shows 88.2 but when you click on it you can see all songs are 176.4.

I have no idea and personally don't care - there is certainly no info of any kind on the store attached to these or any other albums at this time. My approach is to assume if Neil is fine with his best albums being put up for sale on his own site in 192/24 those are all automatic downloads for anyone who is remotely a Neil Young fan (assuming money is no issue). And I do know by now these are the best versions of these albums I have ever heard - whether this is due to hires vs cd resolution, and/or different mastering - I could not care less.

I have both of those albums as well as all other Neil's 192/24 albums on Pono site covering 1968-1979 (all covering this period starting with his first album through Rust Never Sleeps). In my opinion all are phenomenal in hires and must have for any Neil Young fan, but 3 of these studio albums really stand out in terms of being a huge improvement compared to my CD's. These are 'Everyone Knows This is Nowhere', 'Zuma', and 'Rust Never Sleeps' (my personal favorite album by Neil Young). I still don't have two Neil's 88.2/24 Pono albums from this period (waiting for those to be released in 176.4/24 which is supposedly possible and going to happen eventually).

I purchased it last night (192/24). Sounds amazing - very clear with a lot of depth and nice instrument separation - much improved over my CD version of this album and already one of my favorite rock downloads from HDTracks so far.

Muddy Waters - Folk Singer Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Johnny Mercer Song Book David Grisman, Jerry Garcia, Tony Rice - The Pizza Tapes Talking Heads - Remain In Light Joni Mitchell - Ladies Of The Canyon

No problem at all. I participate in several other forums and have seen this being an issue every once in a while (where brand new members post once just to push something and then disappear never to be heard from again).