Audirvana Plus 3 (official thread)

[jrflanne]

Roon is a horrible PITA on my system. A+ does everything I need, and I have tried just about all of them.

[bnbayer]

16 hours ago, Speed Racer said:

Roon sounds just as good as Audirvana 3.x and is so much better in every other way. I paid for Audirvana 3.x and now I am sorry I did. I love Roon and will never go back to A+. 

 

Just wondering why you didn't take advantage of the free trial period to hear whether you liked Audirvana before you paid for it?

[gaia]

18 hours ago, RunHomeSlow said:

 

Maybe you are looking for JRiver software, less sound, more bells and whistles  

hi

i know it's off topic ,about windows which player do you like?

i like foobar , somebody likes musicbee

[RunHomeSlow]

2 minutes ago, gaia said:

hi

i know it's off topic ,about windows which player do you like?

i like foobar , somebody likes musicbee

 

I don’t do windows, but if it would surely be HQPlayer... in a couple of months, A+ will be on Windows too ?

[Speed Racer]

1 hour ago, bnbayer said:

 

Just wondering why you didn't take advantage of the free trial period to hear whether you liked Audirvana before you paid for it?

 

I bought A+ before the 3.0 version came out and before Roon was even on my radar as an option. Roon's price was more than I was willing to consider at the time. Nothing beat A+'s sound quality. Roon doesn't beat it either. They sound the same to me now that I am not willing to hack macOS to allow A+ to have the full access it wants.

 

After having A+ for 9 months, dealing with the the bugs and problems with library management, I grew frustrated. MQA seemed like it was more important to the developer than existing bugs. Plus, I grew concerned that there was only 1 person working on the product. My experience in the software industry taught me that scenario is a dangerous one when it came to long term stability in regards to stability and support. This was born out in the fact that the developer would seem to go dark as support request would go unresponded to for a week or more.

 

I knew at some point I would want to use a network server/player setup. A+ was going to support that with version 3.1. That is when I decided to do the trial with Roon. The first moment I used Roon after setting it up showed me exactly what I had been missing with A+. The Library management didn't try to emulate iTunes and was immediately and obviously superior. The way meta data was used was significantly better. Hell, everything was better except the price! Even with that, I bought a lifetime license well before the trial was over and I have not regretted it one bit.

 

I was pointing out to @Charente that could get the same sound quality as A+ with more features as he was extolling the virtues of A+ sound versus other options and that the sound quality was a reason to put up with less features. So now, because you guys attacked that post, you get a more complete post about A+ and its problems.......

[Charente]

Everyone is entitled to prefer a product over another one and yes, one can get passionate about certain products .... I do ! For myself, I settled on Audirvana after trying the key alternatives, paying particular regard to cost of licence and supporting hardware, ease of installation, ease of operation, speed of operation, support of streaming services and, of course, most importantly to me, sound quality. 

 

Naturally, we all expect a perfect software product, not least of all in the environment in which it has to operate, or with the person operating it. Unhappily, such a software product has yet to rear its head ... in any marketplace.

 

Audirvana is the brainchild of an individual and it may (or may not) be simply supported by the same, single person (I don't know). As a software developer, I have had my fair share of experience of how software companies operate and I know for sure that the size of a software company is no guarantee of product, its stability or its support. In fact, quite the opposite in the vast majority of cases that I have seen. I now run my own small software house (not related to the audio industry). Do we produce perfect software ? We try our very best.

 

My own experience of the music player offerings, not naming names but including Audirvana, has not been without some degree of trial and tribulation. The more complex products have led to more frustration than the simpler ones ... or they would run better (or at all) if I bought specific hardware or software to run them on, etc. Sure, some of them had equal or better sound quality or had more impressive features. 

 

In the end, Audirvana had the best balance of the key criteria I was looking for ... as noted above ... and no particular hardware requirements, other than being on Mac OSX. Sure, if you need all the bells and whistles, there are others with similar sound quality, some at a higher cost of ownership or lesser ease of operation.

 

A personal viewpoint.

[azupan75]

Speed racer, it seems to us all you are just trolling.  You may find Roon to sound better than A+ than others here but you are pretty much alone in your sentiment. It just may be your system is biased toward thinner and noisier sound signature of Roon.

[Speed Racer]

45 minutes ago, azupan75 said:

Speed racer, it seems to us all you are just trolling.  You may find Roon to sound better than A+ than others here but you are pretty much alone in your sentiment. It just may be your system is biased toward thinner and noisier sound signature of Roon.

 

Trolling? I didn't say Roon sounded better than A+. I said that Roon sounds as good as A+ if you didn't want to hack your operating system.

 

By the way, Roon does not sound thinner or noisier....

[Jud]

4 hours ago, Speed Racer said:

 

I bought A+ before the 3.0 version came out and before Roon was even on my radar as an option. Roon's price was more than I was willing to consider at the time. Nothing beat A+'s sound quality. Roon doesn't beat it either. They sound the same to me now that I am not willing to hack macOS to allow A+ to have the full access it wants.

 

After having A+ for 9 months, dealing with the the bugs and problems with library management, I grew frustrated. MQA seemed like it was more important to the developer than existing bugs. Plus, I grew concerned that there was only 1 person working on the product. My experience in the software industry taught me that scenario is a dangerous one when it came to long term stability in regards to stability and support. This was born out in the fact that the developer would seem to go dark as support request would go unresponded to for a week or more.

 

I knew at some point I would want to use a network server/player setup. A+ was going to support that with version 3.1. That is when I decided to do the trial with Roon. The first moment I used Roon after setting it up showed me exactly what I had been missing with A+. The Library management didn't try to emulate iTunes and was immediately and obviously superior. The way meta data was used was significantly better. Hell, everything was better except the price! Even with that, I bought a lifetime license well before the trial was over and I have not regretted it one bit.

 

I was pointing out to @Charente that could get the same sound quality as A+ with more features as he was extolling the virtues of A+ sound versus other options and that the sound quality was a reason to put up with less features. So now, because you guys attacked that post, you get a more complete post about A+ and its problems.......

 

Of course we did not “attack the post.”  I did suggest there was probably a more appropriate thread for your repetitions of this theme.

 

 I wanted to note for anyone following that you’re discussing what you heard from A+ without most of the facilities for improvement of sound that it offers.

[Speed Racer]

1 minute ago, Jud said:

I wanted to note for anyone following that you’re discussing what you heard from A+ without most of the facilities for improvement of sound that it offers.

 

No, not true. The only "facility" I don't have turned on is "Direct mode". I do have "Exclusive access mode" and "Integer mode" enabled which my DAC hardware supports.

 

Most people don't hack their systems installing an old El Capitan kext file anyway. Many do and it does offer a slight, and I mean slight, increase in sound quality but it is not dramatic and not worth hacking the system to do it. I am a Unix admin and know what I am doing and I don't think it is worth it.

 

At some point using that old kext file is going to break the sound facility in macOS one way or another. Apple no longer offers tools to fix permissions that get screwed up and relying on third-party apps to do that correctly is not necessarily wise.

[Jud]

15 minutes ago, Speed Racer said:

 

No, not true. The only "facility" I don't have turned on is "Direct mode". I do have "Exclusive access mode" and "Integer mode" enabled which my DAC hardware supports.

 

Most people don't hack their systems installing an old El Capitan kext file anyway. Many do and it does offer a slight, and I mean slight, increase in sound quality but it is not dramatic and not worth hacking the system to do it. I am a Unix admin and know what I am doing and I don't think it is worth it.

 

At some point using that old kext file is going to break the sound facility in macOS one way or another. Apple no longer offers tools to fix permissions that get screwed up and relying on third-party apps to do that correctly is not necessarily wise.

 

Ah, I thought you were referring to the facilities that allow turning off various macOS processes, and granting A+ priority.  What were or are your settings there?  (I assume you have A+ set to operate without iTunes’ library management.)

[Speed Racer]

6 minutes ago, Jud said:

 

Ah, I thought you were referring to the facilities that allow turning off various macOS processes, and granting A+ priority.  What were or are your settings there?  (I assume you have A+ set to operate without iTunes’ library management.)

 

I've had those set a variety of ways but always had it set to "optimize audio performance". I never used "iTunes Integrated Mode".

[Jud]

23 minutes ago, Speed Racer said:

 

I've had those set a variety of ways but always had it set to "optimize audio performance". I never used "iTunes Integrated Mode".

 

For anyone wondering about this, I’d personally recommend checking all the boxes and setting A+ priority to Extreme.

 

I’m also assuming you use your DAC’s internal upsampling rather than Audirvana’s.  Is that correct?

[azupan75]

Let’s revisit your complaints Speed racer. You are complaining about the product you purchased for 1/10th of the price your current favourite software which doesn’t sound any better but adds bells and whistles that former never promised just proper SQ ( in opinion of users who tried both still quite better , including Yours truly...)

 

Yep, trolling, I say.

[Speed Racer]

15 minutes ago, Jud said:

I’m also assuming you use your DAC’s internal upsampling rather than Audirvana’s.  Is that correct?

 

Yes. I always preferred Yggdrasil's upsampling by itself versus what A+ offered. I don't use Roon's upsampling or filters either for the same reason. I think you know there is no way to turn off upsampling in Yggdrasil. Even if you send it 24/192 content, it will still be upsampled 2x.

[Speed Racer]

46 minutes ago, azupan75 said:

Let’s revisit your complaints Speed racer. You are complaining about the product you purchased for 1/10th of the price your current favourite software which doesn’t sound any better but adds bells and whistles that former never promised just proper SQ ( in opinion of users who tried both still quite better , including Yours truly...)

 

Yep, trolling, I say.

 

You mean 1/6.74th the price? Also, I will never have to pay for an upgrade....

 

A+, even though it sounds great, doesn't deliver on the promise of proper library management. Lots of bugs......which caused me to look elsewhere. If A+ would delivered on it promises I probably never would have looked at Roon......

[mazuly]

Hello Damien
When will you work on the A+ remote?  It is really getting outdated now.
I would really appreciate it if you could get it closer to what you have on the computer software.

 

Thanks 

Maziar

[zackthedog]

FWIW, since we're doing comparisons, I tried Roon today on my Mac Mini, with my CAPS renderer directly connected to the Mac via ethernet bridge (a trick that has proved highly beneficial in my system.)  To be brief, Roon is smooth, clean and throws a big wide image.  And it's fun.  I have a Tidal account and watching Roon toss out adjunct albums to my own collection is a hoot.  And there's something fun about just browsing through the colorful album art and landing on things I'd forgotten I had.  OTOH, I have a very large collection and a lot of it is poorly tagged or not tagged at all--shared historical LPs and 78s, broadcasts, huge OOP Korean box sets, lots of stuff like that.  I shudder to think how much of it Roon isn't seeing.  I guess I could claw through it all and start tagging, but Oy.

 

But here's the kicker, and it's clear as day on my system.  A+ is not as clean on top, it throws a smaller image, but there's a near complete absence of digital artifacts.  It's the most analogue-like sound I've ever gotten from my digital front end.  With A+  and the SOtM USB card, I can almost see *behind* the instruments.  Performers are where the recording says they are--hugging the mic, at the back of the room, whatever.  With Roon the empty space between performers is occupied by a digital haze.  It's like all the performers are glued together with a stretchy grey film, if that makes sense.  This is completely absent with A+.  That difference makes for highly compelling listening.  With A+ a 1948 piano recording suddenly sounds more realistic than it has any right to. ;-)

 

I will tinker with Roon during the trial to see if I can get it sound as analogue-like as A+.  Suggestions are welcome.  With A+ I am linking to MPD on the CAPS, and MPD is without peer as a renderer, IMO.  I don't know what Roon uses to link with ALSA, it's own trick I guess.  Is there a way to get it to play with MPD, or are you stuck with their own methods?  Anyway, enough OT, just thought I'd add my .02.

[rickca]

@damien78 have you tested A+ with the dCS Network Bridge?

[Charente]

4 hours ago, mazuly said:

I would really appreciate it if you could get it closer to what you have on the computer software.

 

 

I would have to respectfully disagree. A remote is simply a controller for music playback. IMO it fulfils that role.

[Zakus]

I am an early adopter of ROON and lifer. Loved it until a passage of music was muffled. Listening with A+ it was clear and well defined. Further A/B I found A+ much superior. Using HQPlayer's computer upsampling  Roon's SQ improved to rival or excel A+. However I found using A+ on its own much easier and have not found it buggy. However I use both happily on all my systems around the house as an improvement on Itunes.

[bnbayer]

6 hours ago, Charente said:

 

 

I would have to respectfully disagree. A remote is simply a controller for music playback. IMO it fulfils that role.

 

There were many suggestions and requests for improvements to the iOS remote on this list and its V2.x  predecessor, going back many months if not a year. There has never been any response, let alone upgrade. 

 

I'm glad it fulfils the role you need it to fill. Yes, it's a controller for music playback. (What else do you use A+ for? Me, I use it to play music...)

 

For me, the iOS remote is not close to adequate, and is only the reason I would look for an alternative to A+. As one who listens to classical music almost exclusively (my own files, not streaming), the fact that it still won't play a group is a major pain. The overwhelming majority of classical pieces are multi- track groups, and the iOS controller allows no way to play, for example, a Symphony without going on and playing other tracks following it. (A+ iOS displays groups beautifully, but without the ... control popup that full albums and individual tracks have.)

[Charente]

Appreciate that your requirements are different to mine and I support any calls for improvement relating to playback ... but I feel that trying to get the remote to replicate any other functionality of the desktop version would make the application overly complex. 

[gaia]

hi

but A+  scans continually my folders ,why?

i have connected 2 portable hard disk ,both ntfs and a+ continues to scan them

is there a way to stop  auto sync of my volume?

thanks

[Musicophile]

Guys, this is an old outdated thread, we have a dedicated one on v3.1. 

 

Can we close this and get back to the new one?