Audirvana Plus: Direct Mode

[BobP63]

Hi Damien,

First I'd like to add my compliments to those already posted, the new direct mode/integer mode option release really sounds great! I definetly sensed an improvement in the 3D nature of the soundstage, very nice indeed.

 

Knowing this is a public beta I wanted to pass along that I too experienced a problem similar to that reported by David; however my audio dropout lasted for more than 15 seconds, it too was a 24/192 file. The dropout occurred after more than 90 minutes of trouble free listening also with various 24/192 files. After closing the application and restarting I was trouble free again, sorry I can't provide more details.

 

-- I've also heard a couple of dropouts. Music stops for significantly less than a second, then resumes with a slight crackle. (The dropout is definitely not in the track itself.)

 

Both of these issues were observed when playing 24/192 ALAC.

 

--David

[Jud]

Knowing this is a public beta I wanted to pass along that I too experienced a problem similar to that reported by David; however my audio dropout lasted for more than 15 seconds, it too was a 24/192 file. The dropout occurred after more than 90 minutes of trouble free listening also with various 24/192 files. After closing the application and restarting I was trouble free again, sorry I can't provide more details.

 

I had a similar dropout; mine was perhaps 5 seconds, then the music resumed where it had stopped. Don't recall whether this was RedBook or hi-res.

[Mercman]

Damn, I have been lucky! The Wavelength dac loves this program. No issues!

 

Lion and Direct Mode/Integer is audio heaven.

 

Thank you Damien.

[Musicophile]

Question to Damien: with Mountain Lion coming closer, will Direct/Integer work there as well?

[wgscott]

Hi Damien,

First I'd like to add my compliments to those already posted, the new direct mode/integer mode option release really sounds great! I definetly sensed an improvement in the 3D nature of the soundstage, very nice indeed.

 

Knowing this is a public beta I wanted to pass along that I too experienced a problem similar to that reported by David; however my audio dropout lasted for more than 15 seconds, it too was a 24/192 file. The dropout occurred after more than 90 minutes of trouble free listening also with various 24/192 files. After closing the application and restarting I was trouble free again, sorry I can't provide more details.

 

Yeah, I am still getting this, very occasionally. This time no upsampling on 24/96. 10.6.8. iTunes-independent (default) mode.

[haujobb]

No issues, no hick-ups on Peachtree Grand Pre under Lion and Snow Leopard Outstanding sound which takes my chain to the next audio level !

On the other hand can't get a single beep out of A+ when using Direct Mode on M2Tech Young. Usability seems to depend on hardware.

 

Anyway ... Chapeau, Damien !

[jerry_rig]

Damien,

 

The sound is spectacular and I just can't say enough about the improvement. I'm running in Direct Mode and Integer Mode (OSX 10.7.4) with my Playback Designs MDP-5. As others have noted, there seems to be a stability issue, with minor skips and occasional problems with the Remote. When moving from a PCM file to a DSD file, my Mac Mini froze on me. This just happened once so far.

 

Please keep up the great work!

 

Jerry

[damien78]

Question to Damien: with Mountain Lion coming closer, will Direct/Integer work there as well?

 

Absolutely it will

[Musicophile]

Absolutely it will

 

Great news! Wouldn't like to go back.

[BobP63]

Hi Damien,

I've now experienced the audio dropout several more times since my first posting, the most recent occurrence was with a 24/44.1 file whereas the previous occurrences had been with 24/192 files. The reason I'm posting again is due to an observation my son made regarding this issue. He noted it doesn't seem to be a function of time i.e. length of play or sample rate, but more related to the number of track changes between occurrences. I can't confirm the specic number of track changes, but based upon my recollection of what I'd been playing when the dropouts occured it certainly seemed plausible.

 

The problem with beta testing this version of A+ is the music's so engaging I simply forget to be analytical and simply enjoy the music ;-)

[wgscott]

I wonder if this is happening because the core-audio-bypass doesn't get the priority of a root process?

 

I'll try some stress tests later today. (I have a lot of compiling to do).

[qualiton69]

awesome sound !!

if i leave only A+ running (Lion, direct mode) without any music, i hear pops/drops in every 10-15 sec . no issues to play any kind of music (245 bit, iso-dsd) .

great work damien !

[BobP63]

I'm stumped trying to find a repeatable scenaro that reproduces the audio dropouts I've been experiencing; unfortunately they keep occurring. The most recent incident didn't self recover and was accompanied by an inability to reconnect to my headless Mac Mini. I needed to power down the mini to reconnect again which is a new, in the past I could reconnect but A+ usually recovered before I needed to intervene. After restarting I ran the A+ debug screen the results are below, I don't have anything to compare my results to so maybe someone with a similar setup to mine can spot sometime within the debug results.

 

I'm listening to A+ again while typing this post and it really sounds good so I really don't want to go back to 1.3.5 hopefully this issue can be resolved without too much difficulty.

 

******************

 

Audirvana Plus rev. 1.3.9.1 debug information:

running on Mac OS X 10.7.4

 

User preferences:

Remote control: IR: off, Media Keys: off (with volume control: on)

 

Playlists:

Use UTF-8 for all: on

Start playback at launch with audio file: on

Remember playlist: on

Volume knob control in vertical direction

 

Sample rate converter used: iZotope 64bit SRC with Power of Two oversampling

Polarity inversion: global=off, per track=on

 

Volume control: DAC only

Max volume limit = 100.0%

 

SysOptimizer enabled:

Spotlight: on

TimeMachine: on

iDevices USB: on

 

iTunes settings:

Completely deactivate iTunes playback: on

iTunes volume control: on

iTunes play position control: on

 

Audio settings:

Use Max I/O buffersize: on

Max Mem for audio buffers: 5120MB

Max Sample rate limit: 192kHz

Sample rate switching latency: 0.5s

 

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 @0.0kHz

 

Active Sample Rate: 192.0kHz

Hog Mode is on

Devices found : 2

 

List of devices:

Device #0: ID 0x25 Built-in Output Manufacturer:Apple Inc. Model UID:AppleHDA:35 UID:AppleHDAEngineOutput:1B,0,1,2:0

Device #1: ID 0x22 audiophilleo2 v1.20 SN00993 Manufacturer:Audiophilleo Model UID:audiophilleo2 v1.20 SN00993:8605:5023 UID:AppleUSBAudioEngine:Audiophilleo:audiophilleo2 v1.20 SN00993: 00993:2

 

Preferred device: audiophilleo2 v1.20 SN00993 Model UID:audiophilleo2 v1.20 SN00993:8605:5023 UID:AppleUSBAudioEngine:Audiophilleo:audiophilleo2 v1.20 SN00993: 00993:2

 

Selected device:

ID 0x22 audiophilleo2 v1.20 SN00993 Manufacturer:Audiophilleo

Model UID:audiophilleo2 v1.20 SN00993:8605:5023 UID:AppleUSBAudioEngine:Audiophilleo:audiophilleo2 v1.20 SN00993: 00993:2

 

6 available sample rates up to 192000.0Hz

44100.0

48000.0

88200.0

96000.0

176400.0

192000.0

 

Audio buffer frame size : 512 to 49152 frames

Current I/O buffer frame size : 512

Physical (analog) volume control: No

Virtual (digital) volume control: No

Preferred stereo channels L:1 R:2

DSD capability: Unhandled

Simple stereo device: yes

Channel mapping: L:Stream 0 channel 0 R:Stream 0 channel 1

 

1 output streams:

Stream ID 0x0 2 channels starting at 1

16 virtual formats:

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 @88.2kHz

Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 24bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 24bit @88.2kHz

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

Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32bits little endian Float @176.4kHz

Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 24bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 24bit @176.4kHz

Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32bits little endian Float @192.0kHz

Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 24bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 24bit @192.0kHz

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

 

16 physical formats

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 @88.2kHz

Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 24bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 24bit @88.2kHz

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

Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 24bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 24bit @176.4kHz

Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 24bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 24bit @176.4kHz

Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 24bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 24bit @192.0kHz

Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 24bits little endian Signed Integer aligned low in 24bit @192.0kHz

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

[ctle]

Damien is aware of the audio dropouts issue. He plans to release a new beta version on the weekend.

[BobP63]

Damien is aware of the audio dropouts issue. He plans to release a new beta version on the weekend.

 

Great!

[findog3103]

An issue developed tonight:

 

On Random play

Moving from a Japandroids mp3 to Stones 24/88 song resulted in only static hiss being played.

[Rambaud]

Noticeable improvement in SQ.

 

No problems so far, apart from a few drop-outs - could be due to running Lion from a firewire drive.

 

Well done, Damien.

[Musicophile]

Damien, encountered one more issue: several times now when selecting a new track to play, the software correctly plays via the USB Dac, but then several seconds later starts playing the same on the IMacs internal sound system.

[jamesg11]

No problems at all with Lion (fw) on earlier version - but this beta is causing heaps of dropouts & the odd freeze/ re-start of program. Looking forward to fixes - the quality is definitely a step up with Direct mode!

[eternaloptimist]

Hi Damien. Thanks for all your work... but... doesn't work with Lion and Wyred-4-Sound DAC2.

No playback of any file and intermittent program crash.

With just Direct mode ticked and Integer mode not ticked, some 16/44 files play but sporadic. No higher bitrate files play.

Have gone back to 1.3.5.

[One and a half]

Quick overview

 

Few problems

- Launched, tick tick tick from speakers, then little window, to restart computer, didn't even get out of the starting block.

- Restarted, no troubles

- INT mode flagged, working on Lion

- Plays little ticks, can pick up on headphones easily, had this before from A+.

- SQ wise...sorry, doesn't excite, sounds kinda flat, dynamics are lost, this is AIFF redbook or Hires. Both Pure Music and Amarra current versions are a lot better, more engaging.

[ted_b]

I had two issues today, running Lion with my Mac Mini to Meitner MA-1 (integer mode working).

1) in iTunes integration mode, at one point the song playing was not the song listed in iTunes, nor showing in iTunes window (using VNC via iPad), but instead the song playing on the "player GUI" behind iTunes.

2) I have reported before that the console GUI setup (i.e no iTunes integration) sounded ever so slightly better than the iTunes integration. Well, now that gap has widened significantly. There is no aspect of iTunes integration I prefer, other than convenient browsing.

[Esprit]

For listeners to DSD: do you prefer, with A+, ISO or individual DSF files?

[Mercman]

I find AR+ sounds ever so slightly better without iTunes integration with my setup. Perhaps differences in computer specs accounts for this difference from Ted's findings of a large difference.

[ckpiv]

Hi Damien. Thanks for all your work... but... doesn't work with Lion and Wyred-4-Sound DAC2.

No playback of any file and intermittent program crash.

With just Direct mode ticked and Integer mode not ticked, some 16/44 files play but sporadic. No higher bitrate files play.

Have gone back to 1.3.5.

 

The W4S Dac 2 is not integer capable with their USB drivers. I have the W4S dac 2 along with a audiophilleo 2 to get integer mode. The A+ sounds fantastic! Like others have had occasional issues that are mentioned throughout this thread. Closing out A+ and restarting clears the problems. Overall for the first beta release I could not be more pleased. Keep up the good work Damien.

 

Have not tried A+ in only direct mode over the W4S USB - will have to try and see if I get your same results.