Few audiophiles are aware of a lurking danger that may be very costly. I've know about this danger for several months now, but was re-energized to write about it over the weekend. I was listening to the Raconteurs through the new Bryston BDA-1 DAC at a pretty high volume. My music server was booted to Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit. I stopped playback for a second, made a few changes to the Windows audio settings and hit play. As soon as I hit play a very loud tone blasted through my speakers and sent Chloe, one of the Computer Audiophile cats, running away very puffed up. I jumped up to turn down the volume on my preamp. My heart was racing and I couldn't stop saying to myself, "What the heck just happened?"
The application I've been dropping hints about for several months has finally been publicly announced. Amarra from Sonic Solutions is really a special application. I've always thought iTunes and the list of other applications sound very good. Until I heard the difference Amarra made at RMAF 2008. I wasn't a big fan of the speakers in the room, but the improvement in sound quality was immense.
The anticipated iTunes 8 release is now available for download. So far the updates appear mostly cosmetic despite Apple's insistence that this is a big release deserved of the 8.0 version number. Audiophiles will most likely appreciate the new Grouping feature. According to Apple, "If you’re a fan of classical music, you know that certain works — whether symphonies, concertos, operas, or oratorios — should be played together. And they can be with Grouping. Select the tracks you want to group. Choose Get Info from the File menu. Enter the name of the work in the Grouping field and click OK." Read more for some other bits of iTunes 8 info and screenshots.
Those of us who often switch between several high resolution albums know that the current iTunes / Audio Midi situation is less than ideal. Even switching between outputs can be inconvenient. SoundSource 2.0 from Rogue Amoeba does not solve the auto sample rate recognition issue, but does make life a little easier for OS X users.
Just a quick update with some screenshots of the new iPhone / iPod Touch remote control application from Apple. Read more for the shots.
iTunes 7.7 is finally here! The highly anticipated remote control feature is officially part of this release. However we'll have to wait for the iPod/iPhone 2.0 software release on Friday July 11th to take advantage of this feature. Will this be the end of Remote Buddy and Signal software? EDIT: Word on the street says this app is available through the iTunes store now!
Some of the Computer Audiophile members have made it clear that they want information about converting the Linn Records Studio Master FLAC files on their Macs. Linn suggests people use the MAX application and I agree 100%. So, without further ado I present a step by step guide to converting Linn Records Studio Master FLAC file on a Mac with the MAX application.
Just a quick note for the Mac users around here. Apple has release a major update to Leopard. The 10.5.3 update could have some real benefits for audiophiles using Mac music servers. Read more for the specific details.
I have two pretty cool updates for those using an iPod Touch as a remote. The popularity of using an iPod Touch or iPhone as a remote control for music servers appears to have peaked Apple's interest. In addition there has been a really neat update to Remote Buddy that had me giddy last night.
Computer Audiophile readers are well aware that I was not a big fan of using the iPod Touch or iPhone as a remote control. However, after a little more research and using the iPod Touch to control iTunes I soon pulled the "John Kerry" and flip-flopped by joining the iPod remote control fan club. Since then I have spent a considerable amount of time using a few of the applications commonly used to control an iTunes library. In this review I am focusing on Remote Buddy from IOSpirit.
