Innocent Bystander

Has the lack of browsing/searching by file name/structure been implemented in Studio, long requested in vain? If not then it is finally time to move on and find an alternative to Audirvana. It has been frustrating working around it for years, and despite @damien78once acknowledging that he understood the problem leading to the request, nothing has ever been done to implement this simplest of requests. As for subscription, it would be better to offer a lifetime option, as subscription is a bitter pill to swallow for people who don’t see merit in subscribing to online streaming services but prefer to have their own secure collection.

Apologies if this has been asked before, but a quick search hasn’t found for me. I have not yet upgraded from 2.6 however I’ve been trialling 3.5. I think i want to upgrade to 3.5, however whilst I am happy to pay the upgrade cost, I would like to retain my 2.6 install unaltered, just in case I change my mind (the trial period is a bit short to really decide). I have taken the trial of 3.5 as a stand-alone, not upgrade, and it only gives the option of buying at the full price. Alternatively I can go from within 2.6 and select upgrade - but I assume that will replace 2.6, which isn’t what I want. Any ideas for how to do it? Thanks

I’ve had that in v2, right up to 2.6.9, and put it down to a metadata glitch, though no amount of scrutiny found the cause. It was one of my reasons for wanting browsing by file structure, and forever frustrated. Now that with the new version I can set the first search criterion to be file location, my split albums have magically unsplit. (Thanks, Damien!). If only everything including filenames could be as in my file structure all would be perfect, imperfect metadata be blowed!

Is that running as a renderer, feeding a DAC direct, or UPnP player?

I’m unclear why a software developer should tell us every internal change he has made. As for your concerns surely the proof of the pudding is in the eating: does the latest version sound better or worse than the previous? If better, or the same, what does it matter what changes have been made? However If the new version sounds worse, and there is clearly an issue and that would need reporting to Damien and in the meantime reverting to the last good version. And if Audirvana does sound good, as indeed it does, If that is without dither, then ckearly for not having dither doesn’t mean the program is rubbish ! Apologies if somewhere I have misunderstood your point.

Not sure if that means that’s as far as you got? If you didn’t get further: when you select your DAC in the pop-up, you should see an arrow to the right of it. Clicking that brings up another menu...

I wonder if that is the issue - maybe using direct mode there would be no changes with different ios releases, as otherwise you are susceptible to whatever changes Apple makes to the drivers.

I stuck with El Capitan because of the direct mode issue. (Yes, I know that there is a work-around, but I couldn't be bothered, and as the Mac Mini is dedicated to Audirvana playing music there seems no reason yet to change.) Are you using direct mode and with the workaround? If not, I wonder if doing so would make A immune to whatever Apple may have changed affecting the sound.

There is a partial solution, advised by Jud, which I have just tried. See post 600 on the Audirvana Plus 3.5 thread:

OK, this whetted my appetite, and I have installed a trial version of 3.5. And, indeed, setting local library albums first sort criterion to be Audio File Location works wonders! Not as flexible as full file structure browsing with drilling down because it is all presented in a linear way. However, although cumbersome (even with my fairly modest collection of about 1200 albums), the genres I assign through file structure are at least grouped now so I can to scroll through to the one I want. (Metadata genres are a PITA as there are far too many, requiring editing of almost everything) Now at least I can readily see albums that are duplicated or split, sitting side by side, which facilitates checking their metadata to find out why. Whether any albums are still missing or if this now shows them will take me a while to discover. Thanks to Damien for this facility - albeit I know because of Jud’s response: thanks, Jud BUT - it only works in the program itself, not from the remote app, and as I run my Mac Mini Headless, and using VLC to control is more of a hassle than the remote, I hope it will be incorporated into the app very soon. Now I just have to decide if sonic differences between 2.6 and 3.5 are either negligible or positive!

Thanks, Jud. This is not an option in my version of A+ (2.6.8 - I didn’t upgrade to 3 because I have no interest in MQA, and until now I don’t recall mention of this facility in v3.x ). I wonder how well it would work where albums have bad or missing metadata. A couple of questions: 1) Does that view start at the highest level and allow drilling down to where the albums are (e.g. if there are folders for each artist, each containing the individual albums as folders, can it show the artist level, then when one is selected show the albums in it? 2) Then having selected a folder containing albums, do the album folder names then appear as you had named the folders, or do they at that stage appear using the metadata album name (which might not be the same)? If you, or anyone else reading this, has albums stored in a conventional nested folder file structure, e.g. Genre\Artist\Album name is there any chance, please, of posting screenshots of say the level showing albums, and the one above (artists in my example)? Many thanks!

I’m a bit unclear how you’re trying to connect here: do you mean feeding the DAC direct from the USB output of the Mac? (Elsewhere I understood you to say you were feeding via network.) If you are talking about feeding direct, I found the optimised setup as given in the A+ manual gave excellent sound quality and commend that - BUT given the inevitable RF contamination of the Mac’s output (even with fancy power supplies), using direct to a DAC requires either the DAC to be immune to RF, or you need to use an effective blocker in between. I now use Chord Dave DAC, which has been designed specifically to be as immune as possible from adverse effects due to RF, but when I originally used A+ with a Hugo, it didn’t sound good direct. I ended up feeding through a Gustard U12 converter/isolator, which is an inexpensive unit that fixed the problem, and it sounded great.

Has v3.5 added the ability to browse and search by file structure, a facility that sadly has been missing to date? if not, does anyone know why it seems to be such an elusive goal? This feature, which I have highlighted before and others have on the A+ forum, would nicely complement the metadata-based library function. It would open A+ to enjoyable use by those with extensive collections having missing, incomplete, inconsistent or incorrect metadata, with neither the time nor energy to go through and add/correct the data on hundreds of albums, instead wanting to use all too precious time to simply listen and enjoy music.

Julsay, this is a problem with the otherwise wonderful Audirvana - I have asked before on the official Audirvana thread, and others have pursued this on Audirvana’s own forum, apparently to no avail. For those of us with missing, incomplete, inconsistent or incorrect metadata, varying across large numbers of files, metadata-based searching simply doesn’t work well: With Audirvana some of my music doesn’t appear at all, which is hopeless if you simply want to browse through what you have and pick something that catches your eye, as not everything shows up. Then some albums are strangely split into two or more, not necessarily appearing in the same view, making it challenging playing as a complete album. I think about 80% of my music generally appears acceptably in A+, though not always where I would expect it. For browsing, or to find one of the missing things, I use a workaround, going into Finder, doing my browsing there, then copying the album I want into Audirvana’s play queue. It works, but is not neat, and my wife simply gives up, which is a great shame. I have tried various metadata editors, and, yes, I can add/amend to my heart’s content - but it is a laborious, time-consuming, and if you have hundreds of albums to do soul-destroying process. Some people my enjoy it - others of us do not, and do not have the time or energy to do so. I did a trial of Roon a couple of years ago, not for use to play, but because it claimed to be able find all music files and add any missing metadata; it failed - indeed it didn’t recognise much of my music. I keep hoping that one day @damien78will recognise the issue and enable searching and browsing via file structure, which, after all, is simple, logical, readily tailored by any individual to suit their preferences, fits well with those of us who built collections before being aware of metadata and its significance, and doesn’t require time to check and amend or add metadata when a new album is added. Simple, convenient and it would make Audirvana shine as the most user-friendly software as well as the best sounding when used as a renderer.

I, too, have remained with the old v2 - with no interest whatsoever in MQA or A+ as a UPnP server I am more interested in whether @damien78 has yet facilitated browsing by file structure to supplement metadata browsing, for situations where metadata doesn't conform to A+ expectations (a particular issue with a some classical music, but also other). It was requested many times, and at one point Damien seemed to recognise the issue but AFAIK it has not progressed. WIthout that I am remaining with 2.6.8, until I find another player that sounds as good and does have that feature. Sound quality changes concern me, because if it was excellent, will the change be better or just a different presentation, and if so different in what respects?