Amarra - anyone using it? - Page 36

Quote:

Originally Posted by sterling1 

No, I have not yet tried JRiver Media Center. I've tried Media Monkey and Foobar. Initially, I thought Foobar sounded better but I did not think it was as versatile or intuitive as iTunes. Now, I'm also convinced it does not sound better but is just louder. At any rate does JRiver have a free trial program? 

Yes.

I hope Tim's right about Mountain LIon. Gonna try the GM in a couple days. Yeah, that sounds like Apple. And besides derailing the developers, they don't want people getting the crazy idea that they could be experiencing better sound simply by buying and ripping a cd into lossless that's roughly the same price as their compressed downloads.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silent One 

 

The developer of the app BitPerfect (Tim) feels Mountain Lion is better for audio than either Lion or Snow Leopard. With Apple, their only concern is with iTunes and making money. They found all the activity from designers and users circumventing iTunes and manipulating Core Audio disturbing. And would like nothing more than to derail these efforts. It is my belief Lion was designed the way it was due to these activities.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silent One 

Formerly in my system, Pure Music always led the pack of OS X players I had installed. Once I heard Amarra, I never looked back. This spring will be time for a complete evaluation. 

Pure Music guy here, reporting in on his first experience with Amarra, running the 2.4.1 demo with Snow Leopard. The interface is a bit weird and it's not as convenient as PM, but dang it, it really does sound better. I am experiencing zero playback issues, and the menus/dialogs are pretty intuitive so loading a playlist was relatively pain-free. It won't run on my "supplementary" macs, (Tiger, Leopard), but I think Amarra's license is single-machine anyways unless they changed that as well.

I have resisted trying Amarra until now because I was afraid this would happen, looks like I will have to pay for this

I'm glad I waited though. The available options(s) seem to offer more value and less confusion than they used to.

Pure Music has many more tweaks available, will run on older OS's, and will let you do three installs, and works much better with iTunes and (I'm guessing here from what I have read) handles FLAC files much better.

Too bad it doesn't sound quite as good as Amarra

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silent One 

Mountain Lion has been said by the developer of BitPerfect to be way better as an OS for audio than any other big cats before it. And will be worth getting (downloading).

 

Currently, I have Lion & Snow Leopard on the Solid State Internal Drive. And Snow Leopard on the External Hard Drive. Amarra sounds a bit different on each.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silent One 

 

The developer of the app BitPerfect (Tim) feels Mountain Lion is better for audio than either Lion or Snow Leopard. With Apple, their only concern is with iTunes and making money. They found all the activity from designers and users circumventing iTunes and manipulating Core Audio disturbing. And would like nothing more than to derail these efforts. It is my belief Lion was designed the way it was due to these activities.

Looks like I'll be skipping Lion anyways, pfft to that. But I probably won't feel the need to upgrade from SL unless I get another iOS device. If I still had an iPad I would already be there but I don't so I'm not.

Quote:

Originally Posted by grokit 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silent One 

Formerly in my system, Pure Music always led the pack of OS X players I had installed. Once I heard Amarra, I never looked back. This spring will be time for a complete evaluation. 

 

Pure Music guy here, reporting in on his first experience with Amarra, running the 2.4.1 demo with Snow Leopard. The interface is a bit weird and it's not as convenient as PM, but dang it, it really does sound better. I am experiencing zero playback issues, and the menus/dialogs are pretty intuitive so loading a playlist was relatively pain-free. It won't run on my "supplementary" macs, (Tiger, Leopard), but I think Amarra's license is single-machine anyways unless they changed that as well.

 

I have resisted trying Amarra until now because I was afraid this would happen, looks like I will have to pay for this

 

I'm glad I waited though. The available options(s) seem to offer more value and less confusion than they used to.

 

Pure Music has many more tweaks available, will run on older OS's, and will let you do three installs, and works much better with iTunes and (I'm guessing here from what I have read) handles FLAC files much better.

Too bad it doesn't sound quite as good as Amarra

 

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silent One 

Mountain Lion has been said by the developer of BitPerfect to be way better as an OS for audio than any other big cats before it. And will be worth getting (downloading).

 

Currently, I have Lion & Snow Leopard on the Solid State Internal Drive. And Snow Leopard on the External Hard Drive. Amarra sounds a bit different on each.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silent One 

 

The developer of the app BitPerfect (Tim) feels Mountain Lion is better for audio than either Lion or Snow Leopard. With Apple, their only concern is with iTunes and making money. They found all the activity from designers and users circumventing iTunes and manipulating Core Audio disturbing. And would like nothing more than to derail these efforts. It is my belief Lion was designed the way it was due to these activities.

 

Looks like I'll be skipping Lion anyways, pfft to that. But I probably won't feel the need to upgrade from SL unless I get another iOS device. If I still had an iPad I would already be there but I don't so I'm not.

Your move was great to hear! If I'm fortunate, the new kitty will be offered some milk and the sofa in about 10 days.  I can't quite put my finger (ear?) on Sonic Studio's secret sauce. But while my other OS X players and Linux players sound good, Amarra sounds a bit more effortless and engaging. 

And by all means, this isn't huge over the other players. What really makes the differences stand out to me is time - over time this preference looms much larger. Be it an 8 hour session vs a playlist of 8 favs. Or even 8 weeks vs 8 days. It just seems the longer the timeline, the more appreciation I have for Amarra's sound. Unfortunately, it still has issues but remains my #1 audio player for now.

One cool thing about Amarra is I would be listening to whole albums more, because of the pre-load limitation.

But if I want to put all 11,000 songs or so on random play I will have to go back to PM. I really like to do that when I'm in the mood for "discovery".

Talk about a first-world problem!

Yeah, the whole concept of music on tap (HDD/Music Server) has us sometimes skimming cream off the top. Where listening to whole works of a group or singer can allow us to get deeper into what their message is. I rarely listen to vinyl directly, but a few weeks ago I did just that. I felt like Jack-in-the-Box!  No sooner than I got comfortable,   Side A/B needed my attention. This one-time ceremony use to be automatic...until computer audio found its way into my listening room.

Maybe deep into autumn when the weather cools, a Gaiwan full of delicate green tea could help smooth the activity of changing records. 

We will see how Sonic Studio handles software compatibility with the impending release of Mountain Lion. I'm much less likely to delay upgrading my Apple system as I had done with Snow Leopard to Lion--all for the sloth of one application (Amarra). Their new product line marketing may very well indicate an increased desire to maintaining Amarra, but I'm not holding my breath.

I on the other hand will definitely wait for the Mountain Lion bugs to work themselves out as happens with new releases and wait for Amarra to adapt in the mean time.  My computer is used for work and surfing the net but music is probably the biggest use and that is tied to the best sound i have found, and that is Amarra.  I have suffered from fatigue in the past and Amarra helped with it dramatically, so i am not going back.

I'll also wait for the .x Mountain Lion update that seems to give the level of stability I want. Sonic Studio still needs to step up to the plate.

So has anyone tried Amarra 2.4 or 2.4.1 with the 10.8 GM?

Mountain Lion --

Me? Wait?! I've got a bowl of milk right here for kitty! Gonna roll with the release, bugs and all... 

Just tested the new cat gm with 2.2.3, It's no different than lion. Moreover, itunes alone in ML as compared to itunes alone in SL, is lacking. The bass is weaker, the soundstage is further off, not wider in a good way. I used my usual test tracks, Springsteen's Point Blank intro and Rush's YYZ (hdtracks). I can't speak for the overall sound, since the bass is the make or break issue with me. 

The culprit still seems to be core audio in mac os x. Maybe it will be different when someone tests 2.4, but my first impression is that snow kitty is still king of the mountain.

Finding 2.4.1 way way more responsive than 2.3.3, I actually don't mind using it now :)

It sounds like there is all the more reason to stay with Snow Leopard for now

For me, even if Lion had delivered as promised, I would have kept SL on a separate drive as Plan B. Updates mid program can be sneaky.