New Amarra 4

[DancingSea]

17 minutes ago, copy_of_a said:

Hi DancingSea,

 

may I ask... how is upsampling implemented?
Is it just on/off, as the screenshot of the interface suggests...

... or can you adjust the settings ... or select settings from a list of presets or so...? 

Many thanks!!

 

As far as I understand, its just a toggle to enable, or disable.  There is a gain setting as well, but I'm not sure that's directly to do with upsampling.  The actual Luxe settings window also has Tidal stuff.  The upsampling seems to be a work in progress.  I like the EQ though.  There are the 16 presets, but you can also create your own and adjust in real time as the music plays.

[quark]

5 hours ago, DancingSea said:

 

As far as I understand, its just a toggle to enable, or disable.  There is a gain setting as well, but I'm not sure that's directly to do with upsampling.  The actual Luxe settings window also has Tidal stuff.  The upsampling seems to be a work in progress.  I like the EQ though.  There are the 16 presets, but you can also create your own and adjust in real time as the music plays.

Sorry to ask as I don't want to get you in trouble with beta testing, not sure how much you're allowed to say.

But I am absolutely gagging for Luxe to come out because A4 Standard Edition is too much work for me to create playlists because of my disability. Shame as I absolutely love the A4 sound and have been an Amarra symphony with IRC user for many many years.

But anyway, can I ask is it easier to create playlists?

Can you create playlists or playing order using the iOS remote?

Do the playlist play in the correct order you select?

Playlists in A4 were terrible last time I tried, didn't play in the right order, didn't play all the songs, repeated some songs.

 Thanks

[copy_of_a]

5 hours ago, DancingSea said:

As far as I understand, its just a toggle to enable, or disable.  There is a gain setting as well, but I'm not sure that's directly to do with upsampling.  The actual Luxe settings window also has Tidal stuff.  The upsampling seems to be a work in progress.  I like the EQ though.  There are the 16 presets, but you can also create your own and adjust in real time as the music plays.

Thanks a lot!

Apparently we should not expect great things regarding SRC. If there are no settings to adjust or presets to chose from it's most likely a linear phase upsampling algorithm. That's really disappointing when you think about the competition (HQPlayer with an extensive set of really useful presets or A+ with the completely customizable iZotope resampler). As a matter of course also upsampling only by power of 2 should be available. Even $10 apps for iOS provide such a setting...

[Progisus]

I suggest that those who want to mess with sampling use another software. Amarra's engine is more musical already than the others. If Tidal integration is done, a remote and library management is implemented it would provide for a great program to allow listening to the music.

[DancingSea]

4 hours ago, copy_of_a said:

Thanks a lot!

Apparently we should not expect great things regarding SRC. If there are no settings to adjust or presets to chose from it's most likely a linear phase upsampling algorithm. That's really disappointing when you think about the competition (HQPlayer with an extensive set of really useful presets or A+ with the completely customizable iZotope resampler). As a matter of course also upsampling only by power of 2 should be available. Even $10 apps for iOS provide such a setting...

 

It is still in beta.  So lets see what happens.

[DancingSea]

4 hours ago, quark said:

Sorry to ask as I don't want to get you in trouble with beta testing, not sure how much you're allowed to say.

But I am absolutely gagging for Luxe to come out because A4 Standard Edition is too much work for me to create playlists because of my disability. Shame as I absolutely love the A4 sound and have been an Amarra symphony with IRC user for many many years.

But anyway, can I ask is it easier to create playlists?

Can you create playlists or playing order using the iOS remote?

Do the playlist play in the correct order you select?

Playlists in A4 were terrible last time I tried, didn't play in the right order, didn't play all the songs, repeated some songs.

 Thanks

 

I haven't tried the playlist feature yet.  Will let you know...

[copy_of_a]

3 hours ago, mancolh said:

I suggest that those who want to mess with sampling use another software. Amarra's engine is more musical already than the others. If Tidal integration is done, a remote and library management is implemented it would provide for a great program to allow listening to the music.

I suggest that those who don't want to mess with playing music in an audiophile player should use another software :-)

 

Seriously... Amarra 4 does NOTHING really right except for providing its excellent "analog" sound (that can be essentially achieved with plugins for instance in A+ as well BTW). And I think it's not an excessive demand to ask for some very basic features nearly all current audiophile players  provide.
I seriously would love to use Amarra 4 ... but I am also seriously disappointed about the poor feature set and the poor programming of the software.

 

[DancingSea]

13 minutes ago, copy_of_a said:

I suggest that those who don't want to mess with playing music in an audiophile player should use another software :-)

 

Seriously... Amarra 4 does NOTHING really right except for providing its excellent "analog" sound (that can be essentially achieved with plugins for instance in A+ as well BTW). And I think it's not an excessive demand to ask for some very basic features nearly all current audiophile players  provide.
I seriously would love to use Amarra 4 ... but I am also seriously disappointed about the poor feature set and the poor programming of the software.

 

 

What plugins achieve the same sound in A+?  I'm genuinely curious.

[ddalmas]

Yeah folks..... i greatly agree with you! A4 only offera a good sound and nothing more! All the rest is a real disaster!!!!dancing sea,who is clearly part of A4 staff ,can say what he wants but he surely can't chance reality! A4 really does NOT work  at all but the sound!

I'd suggest to Sonic studio to sell it as simple  plugin for other apps....or, maybe better, force its programmers to finally do a very simple effort to became wise and repair their errors done while building a software full of problems in using it....we are in the year 2017 not in the times of Atari computer as it seems looking to A4 in action!!! The ridicolous  is is that even loading 1 album only ,as i do and not saving it when closing,A4 still does errors! Incredible!

A4 almost seems to be intended and then  programmed to generate random errors! Unbelievable!

ciao to everybody and have a good week.

[DancingSea]

8 minutes ago, ddalmas said:

Yeah folks..... i greatly agree with you! A4 only offera a good sound and nothing more! All the rest is a real disaster!!!!dancing sea,who is clearly part of A4 staff ,can say what he wants but he surely can't chance reality! A4 really does NOT work  at all but the sound!

I'd suggest to Sonic studio to sell it as simple  plugin for other apps....or, maybe better, force its programmers to finally do a very simple effort to became wise and repair their errors done while building a software full of problems in using it....we are in the year 2017 not in the times of Atari computer as it seems looking to A4 in action!!! The ridicolous  is is that even loading 1 album only ,as i do and not saving it when closing,A4 still does errors! Incredible!

A4 almost seems to be intended and then  programmed to generate random errors! Unbelievable!

ciao to everybody and have a good week.

 

Oh gee, not this again.  I'm not part of the Sonic Studio staff!  I'm just a beta tester, like several other folks on CA.  We get neither paid nor a discount.  I just like Amarra's sound and put up with the quirks.  After all, its all about the sound.  And to my ears, and my system, A4 sounds the best of the lot.

 

We've been over this before ddalmas - please pay attention this time.  Ciao!

[foodfiend]

On 30/05/2017 at 0:25 PM, ddalmas said:

Yeah folks..... i greatly agree with you! A4 only offera a good sound and nothing more! All the rest is a real disaster!!!!dancing sea,who is clearly part of A4 staff ,can say what he wants but he surely can't chance reality!

ddalmas: I hope that everyone here maintains some civility, rather than to level unfounded remarks at other users. DancingSea is just another user here. Just because he talks about Amarra in a more positive light, does not make him a member of staff of Sonic Studio, nor makes him the enemy (he is the one who coined the description of "idiot savant" to describe Amarra 4 - which is very apt).

[ddalmas]

apologize for the misunderstanding !! i am italian so not all idiomatic sentences mean the same in english language ! i meant to say that ,how can i explain, dancing sea is a fan of the ss staff...and neither this explains good what i meant , maybe keeps part of the staff is better..i am not sure anyway! what is the rule of dancing sea is already known by me since some time ...what i meant is that i always found him too permissive to SS errors! YES Amarra 4 SOUNDS very WELL,but on the other part IT IS A REAL MESS of PROBLEMS!!! this IS please forgive some of my phrases the maybe are not so correct in US languages i never wanted to hurt somebody's sensibility

everybody have nice day

ciao

[GregWormald]

When anyone asks about a music player, I always recommend that they give A4 a try and see if they can live with the bugs (manually adding and deleting tracks/albums for each play or dealing with the mis-filings in larger library reads, the lack of features, etc.) and lack of features.

 

I can deal with those. Some are willing to deal, others aren't. Do I wish the bugs weren't there and the advertised features were? Absolutely. Using A4 is like driving a clumsy manual car in heavy traffic. I'd love to be able to be able to recommend it unhesitatingly, but I can't.

 

At the same time I enjoy the music presentation enough that (for the moment at least) I'll put up with it.

 

Greg

[quark]

 I also am in love with the sound, but unfortunately I am heavily dependent on playlists, as this is where I get my enjoyment and escape from the daily pain and frustration of being tetraplegic. This of course is not their fault.

 But the joy of creating playlists, selecting songs that I'd love to hear to at that time and mood is joyfully distracting :-) 

A4 playlist function was terrible last time I tried it :-(  can't get the tracks to play in the order I want them to, repeats some tracks, doesn't play others and difficult to construct personally because of no iOS app. 

 

Unfortunately I took the large step of replacing all my AIFF conversions with the original flac downloads in excited preparation for A4, which to my ear sound more detailed (please there's no need for anybody to jump in and say that's impossible, that's what I've done and I'm happy with it and can hear The difference on my very revealing system).

So I can't go back to my symphony with IRC because stubbornly awkward Apple won't let iTunes play flac files and I have a lot.

 Also, I don't know about anyone else but strangely for me the new A4 sounds better than the far more expensive symphony, at least when not using IRC. 

 

I need to use an iPad app to create playlists as it is the most comfortable and easiest process for me.

 So, probably silly :-) I'm getting a little bit excited about the upcoming Luxe release as it has an iOS app I believe and probably naïvely hoping the playlist function is fixed, please please please Sonic Studio :-)

I've missed the beautiful Amarra sound, so can't wait to try Luxe.

[foodfiend]

Yes, I think we Amarra 4 users here only put up with the software because of its inherent musicality and likeness to analogue playback. Otherwise, we would have given up on the poor library management, buggy software that crashes, yada-yada...

 

Meanwhile, we can support each other with any tricks that we may use to make A4 more palatable!

[DancingSea]

10 hours ago, ddalmas said:

apologize for the misunderstanding !! i am italian so not all idiomatic sentences mean the same in english language ! i meant to say that ,how can i explain, dancing sea is a fan of the ss staff...and neither this explains good what i meant , maybe keeps part of the staff is better..i am not sure anyway! what is the rule of dancing sea is already known by me since some time ...what i meant is that i always found him too permissive to SS errors! YES Amarra 4 SOUNDS very WELL,but on the other part IT IS A REAL MESS of PROBLEMS!!! this IS please forgive some of my phrases the maybe are not so correct in US languages i never wanted to hurt somebody's sensibility

everybody have nice day

ciao

 

Ha ha ha, you crack me up - you kooky Italian audiophile.  I'm imagining what it must be like to be a fan of the Sonic Studio staff.  Would I wear a jersey with Sonic Studio on the front, a number zero on the back, with "Ralph" emblazoned across the top and go into the audiophile world cup each season with high hopes soon to be dashed on the field?

 

I've simply made peace with the reality that Amarra is what it is.  Excellent sound quality with many functional flaws.  I provide them feedback on the beta versions, but I don't allow myself to get all worked up about it.  Is being angry and frustrated going to help Sonic Studios be better programmers?  I believe the only result of that anger and frustration will be to make myself miserable.

 

As far as being a fan, yes, I'm rooting for all of humanity - including ddalmas and Sonic Studios.

[DancingSea]

17 hours ago, quark said:

 I also am in love with the sound, but unfortunately I am heavily dependent on playlists, as this is where I get my enjoyment and escape from the daily pain and frustration of being tetraplegic. This of course is not their fault.

 But the joy of creating playlists, selecting songs that I'd love to hear to at that time and mood is joyfully distracting :-) 

A4 playlist function was terrible last time I tried it :-(  can't get the tracks to play in the order I want them to, repeats some tracks, doesn't play others and difficult to construct personally because of no iOS app. 

 

Unfortunately I took the large step of replacing all my AIFF conversions with the original flac downloads in excited preparation for A4, which to my ear sound more detailed (please there's no need for anybody to jump in and say that's impossible, that's what I've done and I'm happy with it and can hear The difference on my very revealing system).

So I can't go back to my symphony with IRC because stubbornly awkward Apple won't let iTunes play flac files and I have a lot.

 Also, I don't know about anyone else but strangely for me the new A4 sounds better than the far more expensive symphony, at least when not using IRC. 

 

I need to use an iPad app to create playlists as it is the most comfortable and easiest process for me.

 So, probably silly :-) I'm getting a little bit excited about the upcoming Luxe release as it has an iOS app I believe and probably naïvely hoping the playlist function is fixed, please please please Sonic Studio :-)

I've missed the beautiful Amarra sound, so can't wait to try Luxe.

 

Aloha Quark,

 

I appreciate your dilemma.  Yes, Luxe does have the iOS app, which works fairly well.  The only improvement I see to the Luxe playlist function is the ability to delete a song.  Same with the library, can delete a song, as in 1 song at a time - which is better than A4 non Luxe in which songs couldn't be deleted without clearing the whole library (oh the simple victories).  Songs can be added to a given playlist, once again, one song at a time.  There's still no way to select multiple songs or albums, which makes the playlist feature too tedious.

 

Thus if A4 didn't work for you, and the only playlist improvement (that I can find) in Luxe is the ability to delete one track at a time, perhaps its time to look for a different solution?

 

Another user in this thread sent me a PM regarding his theory about Amarra's sound.  He believes Sonic Studios is adding some sort of coloring/ filter to create the organic, analog sound.  He found a plugin for Audirvana that has a feature to add analog sound at varying strengths.  It costs $39, but has a 30 day free trial.  I haven't had a chance to try it.  http://pspaudioware.com/plugins/equalizers/psp_preqursor2/

 

Hopefully it could give you enough of the analog type sound to make A+ satisfying.  And with A+, you'd get a much more friendly library management system.  And if you converted a copy of your FLACs to ALAC, you'd get the superior iTunes playlist system - both of which have great iOS apps.

 

I'm concerned that Amarra is too quirky to work well with your challenges. 

[ddalmas]

to do make A4 more palatable there are 2 ways:

1 throw it out of the Mac

2 try to use it  this way: load only 1 or few albums or playlists at once , listen to music and then close A4 without saving! no album remains it its futile memory, then re-open A4 and load other albums or playlists you want to listen to.This way don't expect perfection as A4 is still able to have bugs even with few songs loaded, but it could be an acceptable compromise for the sound it gives to you, but remember that sound is the only thing that A4 could expect A4 would give to you ! all the rest is not included in A4 pack( management ,freedom of choosing you how to work with, not having acceptable number of faults  and so on)

I am sometimes  in the temptation to use the first solution ,but i still remain in the second chance helping myself to listen to music whit other Hi end players like Audirvana + when i do not want to get in trouble using A4.

ciao to everybody

Ah i forgot  ....ciao to you dancing sea... you seem to be "SIMPATICISSIMO"(said in the italian

maybe there is no US translation but could mean very nice and likable, but i m not sure) and full of good humor

[quark]

4 hours ago, DancingSea said:

 

Aloha Quark,

 

I appreciate your dilemma.  Yes, Luxe does have the iOS app, which works fairly well.  The only improvement I see to the Luxe playlist function is the ability to delete a song.  Same with the library, can delete a song, as in 1 song at a time - which is better than A4 non Luxe in which songs couldn't be deleted without clearing the whole library (oh the simple victories).  Songs can be added to a given playlist, once again, one song at a time.  There's still no way to select multiple songs or albums, which makes the playlist feature too tedious.

 

Thus if A4 didn't work for you, and the only playlist improvement (that I can find) in Luxe is the ability to delete one track at a time, perhaps its time to look for a different solution?

 

Another user in this thread sent me a PM regarding his theory about Amarra's sound.  He believes Sonic Studios is adding some sort of coloring/ filter to create the organic, analog sound.  He found a plugin for Audirvana that has a feature to add analog sound at varying strengths.  It costs $39, but has a 30 day free trial.  I haven't had a chance to try it.  http://pspaudioware.com/plugins/equalizers/psp_preqursor2/

 

Hopefully it could give you enough of the analog type sound to make A+ satisfying.  And with A+, you'd get a much more friendly library management system.  And if you converted a copy of your FLACs to ALAC, you'd get the superior iTunes playlist system - both of which have great iOS apps.

 

I'm concerned that Amarra is too quirky to work well with your challenges. 

 Thank you DanciingSea for your kind reply. 

 

 I've been using Audirvana since giving up on A4 a while back. But I have always used symphony with IRC, so I will definitely be trying out luxe as I am eager to use Sonic Studio simplistic IRC function.

Hopefully I can make it work playlist wise also. I don't have saved playlists as I like to browse my library and select the songs I'm in the mood for at that time, it's just a lot easier on an iPad. 

 I spent a lot of time and effort correcting and tidying up the meta data on lots of tracks to make A4 Library display them better, so I will return to A4 when Luxe releases with an open mind trying to adapt to its quirks because of that oh so beautiful sound, detail and IRC.

 Little things like audiophile players  updates and new releases help me immensely to get excited about and look forward to. Hopefully the wait is almost over :-) 

[DancingSea]

3 hours ago, quark said:

 Thank you DanciingSea for your kind reply. 

 

 I've been using Audirvana since giving up on A4 a while back. But I have always used symphony with IRC, so I will definitely be trying out luxe as I am eager to use Sonic Studio simplistic IRC function.

Hopefully I can make it work playlist wise also. I don't have saved playlists as I like to browse my library and select the songs I'm in the mood for at that time, it's just a lot easier on an iPad. 

 I spent a lot of time and effort correcting and tidying up the meta data on lots of tracks to make A4 Library display them better, so I will return to A4 when Luxe releases with an open mind trying to adapt to its quirks because of that oh so beautiful sound, detail and IRC.

 Little things like audiophile players  updates and new releases help me immensely to get excited about and look forward to. Hopefully the wait is almost over :-) 

 

Ok, cool.  The Luxe app does seem to work, so hopefully that will do the trick.  For me, selecting one song at a time makes me cuckoo.  Hence my long held system of clearing the A4 library, creating a playlist in iTunes, and importing the whole list into A4 using its library as the playlist.

 

And I just wanted to take a moment to offer my effusive, unquestioning, eternal praise for the entire Sonic Studio staff.  Without Amarra, my life would be a barren landscape.  (ciao ddalmas) 

[copy_of_a]

7 hours ago, DancingSea said:

Another user in this thread sent me a PM regarding his theory about Amarra's sound.  He believes Sonic Studios is adding some sort of coloring/ filter to create the organic, analog sound.  He found a plugin for Audirvana that has a feature to add analog sound at varying strengths.  It costs $39, but has a 30 day free trial.  I haven't had a chance to try it.  http://pspaudioware.com/plugins/equalizers/psp_preqursor2/

That's me.

First... $39,- was the launch price for version 2 of preQursor... the plugin now costs $69,-.

 

To briefly outline my "theory" about Amarra's sound...

ALL other players sound different. But while every single player has its own sound they are basically all pretty similar to each other (not only audiophile players like Fidelia, HQ Player, Audirvana, Pure Music etc. but also iTunes, VLC, VOX, Quicktime and you name it). Amarra is the only player that sounds "colorful", "analog", "bold" ... as if every tone has some "energy" pumped into it. And it sounds just great!

As Amarra sounds so distinctively different to all other players I think it's pretty save to assume that the sound is somehow "tuned". Either due to a special audio driver or maybe because the audio gets passed through the built in Equalizer unit (that also may affect the sound even when EQ is switched off).

Now, if this is true, it's also possible to recreate a similar sound with other tools. The above mentioned plugin can produce a similar sound (for instance when loaded in Audirvana) if you don't use the actual EQ section but only the "analog" pre-amp section. The plugin is completely transparent and supports audio up to 384kHz.

 

[ddalmas]

hi  people who love good vibrations...i have just downloaded the PSPpreQursor2 plugin and started in demo mode and then loaded as an audio unit in Audurvana+ . Well from the first listening i can say that it gives a sound to A+ very very similar to A4,just using it as an analog filter. it seems to me that it gives more dynamics to the sound than A4 ,that still has it different sound and still maybe better ,but i believe that this plugin after some further efforts would be great! A+ is nearly compared in sound to A4. I would invite many of you to try it in demo just to exchange opinions  ,created  presets and all what is possible to have nice sounds from our Macs! i advertise that to load it in demo mode is a bit laborious as you have to download the iLok app to activate it but believe me it is worth to work a little, i know it is not cheap but.... what wouldn't we do for our sacred ears !!i remain waiting for your opinions and suggestions. for the moment ,even if difficult to say A4 still sounds slightly better ,but not much at all...please try it and let me know

ciao to you all

[DancingSea]

58 minutes ago, ddalmas said:

hi  people who love good vibrations...i have just downloaded the PSPpreQursor2 plugin and started in demo mode and then loaded as an audio unit in Audurvana+ . Well from the first listening i can say that it gives a sound to A+ very very similar to A4,just using it as an analog filter. it seems to me that it gives more dynamics to the sound than A4 ,that still has it different sound and still maybe better ,but i believe that this plugin after some further efforts would be great! A+ is nearly compared in sound to A4. I would invite many of you to try it in demo just to exchange opinions  ,created  presets and all what is possible to have nice sounds from our Macs! i advertise that to load it in demo mode is a bit laborious as you have to download the iLok app to activate it but believe me it is worth to work a little, i know it is not cheap but.... what wouldn't we do for our sacred ears !!i remain waiting for your opinions and suggestions. for the moment ,even if difficult to say A4 still sounds slightly better ,but not much at all...please try it and let me know

ciao to you all

 

Good work!  I'll check it out.  Can the adjustments be made in real time as music plays, or is it like most A+ plugins that can only be adjusted when nothing is playing?

[ddalmas]

all in real time !! i have also downloaded the retro eq and i am trying the both one after the other just for experimentation...i think that at SS they have found a very great eq setting to  get their sound ...but i also believe that it ,with patience , could be reached with other ways freeing so,who wants it, from A4 

[Lio_B]

1 hour ago, ddalmas said:

hi  people who love good vibrations...i have just downloaded the PSPpreQursor2 plugin and started in demo mode and then loaded as an audio unit in Audurvana+ . Well from the first listening i can say that it gives a sound to A+ very very similar to A4,just using it as an analog filter. it seems to me that it gives more dynamics to the sound than A4 ,that still has it different sound and still maybe better ,but i believe that this plugin after some further efforts would be great! A+ is nearly compared in sound to A4. I would invite many of you to try it in demo just to exchange opinions  ,created  presets and all what is possible to have nice sounds from our Macs! i advertise that to load it in demo mode is a bit laborious as you have to download the iLok app to activate it but believe me it is worth to work a little, i know it is not cheap but.... what wouldn't we do for our sacred ears !!i remain waiting for your opinions and suggestions. for the moment ,even if difficult to say A4 still sounds slightly better ,but not much at all...please try it and let me know

ciao to you all

Hi everybody,

I had just tried this plugin with A+ with only analog mode, I'm agree, it sound really better, less agressive, thanks for this information and I'm waiting for some of your presets.

I'm also a A4 user for the sound quality.