[miceblue]

I like how Audirvana Plus automatically down-samples music so you can actually play it with your gear (i.e. DSD) instead of getting an error message or no playback at all.

 

[JHern]

Thanks again for the feedback! There is one other thing that has cropped up with Audirvana that I've never before experienced...
 
My shelf audio system at home (Marantz M-CR603 with Dali Zensor 1's) is AirPlay capable and I have often played music via AirPlay from iTunes. But I usually prefer to use the optical connection from the headphone jack to the unit, and it sounds very nice.
 
Yesterday my wife's laptop was hooked up to the M-CR603 by optical, while I was using my laptop across the room, Audirvana was open but not playing. When I received my next error beep from my MBP for something it went through the stereo via AirPlay and it was LOUD! My whole family literally jumped out of our chairs. I realize that volume control via AirPlay can sometimes be iffy, but if I'm purposely sending something via AirPlay then I know that I need to adjust the volume in advance.
 
The first strange thing is that AirPlay was activated, even though I never activated it. I never told anything to play anything through AirPlay, it just decided to switch over, for some reason. I'll switch it back to the regular output, and it will be OK for about 10-ish minutes, but then the music stops as my laptop again switches the Marantz over to AirPlay.
 
The second strange thing is that my system audio was playing through AirPlay. This is supposed to be impossible, since I tried to do it before on purpose, but couldn't find a way to turn it one…I concluded that Apple only wants you to be able to use AirPlay from iTunes (otherwise nobody would buy AppleTV, right?). But somehow, it did play system sounds from AirPlay, a first in my experience. Also, if I'm playing a song through the standard output optical connection, the music will go silent even as th player indicates it is still playing…I ONLY receive system audio, but no music.
 
It keeps happening from time to time when I'm at home, but is growing quite annoying. I was curious to know if Audirvana had anything to do with it, so I quit Audirvana…and indeed it stopped swtiching to AirPlay. I've tried it several times now, and every time the problem goes away when I quit Audirvana.
 
So…there is some kind of bug with Audirvana and AirPlay…does anyone know how to fix it?

 

[littletree76]

I suppose playing through AirPlay protocol is handled in Apple CoreAudio framework rather than iTunes. So check the output selection in Apple's Audio Midi Setup utility as this is the setting which affect audio output system wide (so called system audio). The more popular AirPlay protocol is the better for Apple to promote its products (I remember Steve Jobs mentioned this in one of Keynote speeches to launch AirPlay), so I don't think Apple will ever restrict AirPlay to iTunes alone.
 
Since Audirvana Plus bypass CoreAudio framework completely (what make it so different from iTunes), settings in Audio Midi Setup should not affect it at all. This is particularly true when exclusive access mode has been turned on in Audirvana Plus.
 
To those posters who believe that same audio source file playing through different software media players should not have any difference at all, this is not true as different software are developed with different objectives and they process the so called bit-perfect bit stream differently. Apple develops CoreAudio just like other Core frameworks: CoreStorage and CoreGraphic, to provide unified/convenient/flexible system calls to developers for media processing. This is just the opposite of Audirvana Plus as it stripes away all unnecessary software components to focus on sound quality alone. So heuristic testing on sound quality with your own ears is simple: use the same audio hardware setup to compare among different software media players, the higher end are the audio equipments (external DAC) the easier to hear the difference. In reality (from engineering and business perspectives), it is hard to have audio processing behave as single wire with gain.

 

[JHern]

  I suppose playing through AirPlay protocol is handled in Apple CoreAudio framework rather than iTunes. So check the output selection in Apple's Audio Midi Setup utility...

 
No luck with that, I've tried it several times before launching the apps and turning on the stereo system, and then monitoring it while the system boots. No matter what I tell it to do, Audirvana WANTS to play through the AirPlay, even when I tell it to not do so. And unfortunately Slayer "Killing Fields" is the first song in my playlist so we've gotten thrashed in the face several times while trying to run Audirvana in the vicinity of this AirPlay stereo (the volume is at 50, 60 is max)…I should probably put something gentle instead.
 
In any case, it seems like some kind of bug. I simply can't play Audirvana near any AirPlay device without it automatically attempting to take over that device and blast somebody's skull to smithereens. This does not occur with other software, and I never experienced anything like it with iTunes.

 

[bixby]

Send Damien at Audirvana an email with the issue described and see if he can help.  He is very responsive

 

[jallen89]

Can anyone recommend a player that can use my itunes library? So I can add hi res flac files and still play my itunes library and not fill up my 3 ipods with flac.

 

[NinjaHamster]

Can anyone recommend a player that can use my itunes library? So I can add hi res flac files and still play my itunes library and not fill up my 3 ipods with flac.

Kind of hard when you don't state whether you are using Linux, OSX or Windows ... but if you are using Mac, try Audirvana Plus.

 

[bixby]

Easy, stop using flac.  Pick a format that is supported on everything like Wav and convert to that.  Storage is so cheap it makes sense to use full res standard format.  And if you are stuck with smaller memory just rotate out some stuff once in a while.  You do not need to carry around a years worth of listening when it only takes ten minutes to swap stuff out once in a while.
 
And then you can be open to whatever comes down the pike in new stuff since they all will play wav.  I should talk though, since I chose aiff and I have to use players that play that.  Almost as rare as flac.  

 

[snowshoe]

FLAC is much more common than wav. If you buy lossless music, more often than not FLAC is the format on offer. I buy from Boomkat quite often, for example. They only offer mp3 or FLAC. If you really have a problem with FLAC, you can use XLD to convert it or, my preferred method, use Toast to create a disk image, then mount the image and import into iTunes. I prefer this because it's easier to get album artwork.

At any rate, Audirvana is the way to go. Excellent app. Just needs a redesign!

 

[miceblue]

I personally hate WAV simply because it does not support metadata tags. I don't want to rename every single one of my files to:
artist - album - track# title.wav
Especially with Asian names, where I often put the unicode characters, romanisation, and English translation.

 

[StudioSound]

Just about anything that will play FLAC will also play ALAC. If you insist on using iTunes, convert your files.
I would just switch over to a better player like JRiver which will play anything.

 

[bixby]

I personally hate WAV simply because it does not support metadata tags. I don't want to rename every single one of my files to:
artist - album - track# title.wav
Especially with Asian names, where I often put the unicode characters, romanisation, and English translation.

I think XLD will do that for you.  I use it to rip from CD to aiff and all the tags are there and it dumps the new files into itunes automatically.  
 
Then I use Audirvana Plus to play.

 

[kazsud]

Same here

 

[Silent One]

Same here (XLD>AIFF>A+)

 

[aamefford]

VOX just sent an email. Looks like a major interface update, still free and leading to an in-app purchase for an internet radio.

Anyone try it out yet? I'll download it shortly and give it a try.