I don't have any issues with Amarra crashing. It did skip a lot when I used a network drive to store music. Switched to an attached usb drive and have almost no issues now.

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

<p>Happy New Year!

<p> <p>Thanks a lot for the especially detailed review. It's nice that your review was based on single ended setup with what I'm assuming were stock headphone cables. Makes for a much more objective comparison.

I think you're right on the AD chip being the upsampling circuit only, the site isn't too clear when it comes to the "max dac". The Ultra Desktop Amp uses the same dac as the Ultra Micro that you have.    The desktop dac was pulled due to the usb implementation. There is a thread on it in...

The ESS chip is in the Ultra Desktop Dac, a standalone balanced dac currently being updated.   The Ultra Desktop Amp uses the AD1896 I believe, with the Desktop Amp using the CS4398.

You might want to call or email HeadRoom directly.

When I was 13 audiophile sound wasn't cool. All I wanted was pumped bass and a tweaked treble. Loved the "smile" style EQ. Dr. Dre's certainly match that criteria.       

Haven't heard the HD448 but If you do travel a lot on airplanes I would consider getting in ear headphones. The noise isolation will be substantially better than regular headphones.   There are many options in your price range. Etymotic, Shure and Head-Direct are all known to perform well. 

They sound ok through my RSA Tomahawk. Substantially better through my headroom amp. Awful unamped.

I'm going to second getting a DAC. Anything in 200-300 range will be way better than the iPhone. With the HD800s you'll notice a tremendous difference. The portable HR desktop amp is supposed to one of the best portable amps on the market. Pretty sure it uses the same electronics as the regular...

Any plans to bring in more Audio-Gd gear?

Amarra's integration with iTunes is its best selling feature. Call me crazy but I really like having a play count and only iTunes does a nice job of keeping that synced between my iPods and computer. I tried PureMusic (demo) but found the integration to be pretty bad and I hated the stupid bar...

I think they fixed the problem with version 2.0. I only got around to upgrading from version 1 recently. Still great software regardless of a few of the imperfections, truly improved the quality of my computer audio experience.

Quote: It speeds up cause of the audiomidi settings not getting changed. It happens to me too once in a while when switching from 24/96 back to regular. All you have to do is open audiomidi and change the format to 44.1 and 16bit and the problem is fixed instantly.