[AVU]

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[SonicStudio]

Hello All,
 
This is great discussion and we wanted to offer a few points of clarification regarding Amarra.
 
- Amarra does provide bit-perfect output, it's a basic premise we believe strongly in. 
 
- Amarra does not process the sound in any way unless the user does so via adding EQ, using DIther or other manual adjustments to the sound stream.  Tracks are played back at their native sample rate, no real-time up or down-samplilng occurs.
 
- "Amarra works with almost all Core Audio Interfaces" means that Amarra uses the same audio protocols that core audio does.  This allows us to talk to devices that are recognized in Audio Midi Setup.  The signal Amarra presents to those devices is just a better signal than iTunes and other players using core audio can provide.
 
- Amarra comes in 3 versions
   - Junior is $99
   - MINI is currently on sale for $195
   - Amarra is currently on sale for $495
 
- One last note - Use of cracked versions of the software is illegal.  We request that you immediately cease using these copies and remove them from your disk drive.  Continued use may result in legal action being taken on behalf of Sonic Studio.
 
Best regards,

__________________________________________________

Sonic Studio Customer Support .:. <support@sonicstudio.com>
Sonic Studio, LLC .:. Trust the transparency

 

[KingStyles]

Welcome sonic studios. Nice to see you may post here.

 

[Jaywalk3r]

- Amarra does provide bit-perfect output, it's a basic premise we believe strongly in. 
…
- "Amarra works with almost all Core Audio Interfaces" means that Amarra uses the same audio protocols that core audio does.  This allows us to talk to devices that are recognized in Audio Midi Setup.  The signal Amarra presents to those devices is just a better signal than iTunes and other players using core audio can provide.

If Amarra is bit-perfect, then how is its bit-perfect signal "better" than iTunes' bit-perfect signal? If Amarra's signal is bit-perfect, then it should sound identical to iTunes' bit-perfect signal. (While I heard a difference with default Amarra settings, I would not describe Amarra's sound as "better.")

 

[Willakan]

Don't suppose the differences between iTunes when bitperfect and a "better" bitperfect signal are quantifiable?

 

[MayaTlab]

Quote:

Have you tried downloading a demo copy and using the uninstall script from it? Also, are you trying to run the uninstall script in a user account that has administrator privileges?

Yes indeed. I'll try to reinstall the software over the older one this WE and see what happens.
 
I think our disagreement comes mainly from the fact that I personally distinguish between "effects" and "processing" - to me an effect is a modification of the file with the intention to add something, while processing is just the way the music file is handled - I personally think that even the later one can bring differences, even among bit-perfect softwares. I don't know why, but Amarra, iTunes, Decibels, Fidelia, etc. all sound very slightly different to me, despite all being supposedly bit-perfect. Some theorised they may have an influence over jitter, but that's one thing I highly doubt as, if I remember correctly, jitter mainly is the result of hardware components. I think it's weird that somebody would qualify Amarra as adding a reverb effect to anything, to me I just feel it's a tiny bit more detailed and natural / effortless sounding than iTunes, and that may be the reason why I think it's easier to pick sound location cues in the recording (yes, I'm one of those who think Amarra may indeed be "better" sounding than iTunes, although not by a huge margin).
 
Quote:

Hello All,
 
This is great discussion and we wanted to offer a few points of clarification regarding Amarra.
 
- Amarra does provide bit-perfect output, it's a basic premise we believe strongly in. 
 
- Amarra does not process the sound in any way unless the user does so via adding EQ, using DIther or other manual adjustments to the sound stream.  Tracks are played back at their native sample rate, no real-time up or down-samplilng occurs.
 
- "Amarra works with almost all Core Audio Interfaces" means that Amarra uses the same audio protocols that core audio does.  This allows us to talk to devices that are recognized in Audio Midi Setup.  The signal Amarra presents to those devices is just a better signal than iTunes and other players using core audio can provide.
 
- Amarra comes in 3 versions
   - Junior is $99
   - MINI is currently on sale for $195
   - Amarra is currently on sale for $495
 
- One last note - Use of cracked versions of the software is illegal.  We request that you immediately cease using these copies and remove them from your disk drive.  Continued use may result in legal action being taken on behalf of Sonic Studio.
 
Best regards,

__________________________________________________

Sonic Studio Customer Support .:. <support@sonicstudio.com>
Sonic Studio, LLC .:. Trust the transparency

Thank you for intervening in that discussion.
 
The thing is, many of us would like to know, especially for Amarra's price, what are the reasons why it sends a "better signal" to DACs. I'm sure there is a way to explain that in more details without violating IP. And indeed, measurements would be better as well. Steve Nugent of Empirical Audio claims he measured less jitter when using Amarra, but that's something I seriously doubt until I see some measurements / graphs coming up.
 
Also, as I said a bit earlier, there is much work to do to improve the software's UI and coding - because right now the only advantage Amarra has over the competition is (for those who think so - like me) its better SQ. As soon as it looses this edge, you will loose customers, as the rest of the software doesn't have much added value. First of all, I think you should avoid using iTunes simultaneously with the software - something like Fidelia or Decibel would be much better and easier to code and implement without much drawbacks (the only one I see is that somebody wouldn't be able to edit Tag infos while listening to Amarra, but I don't think that's much of an issue for most of us). The playlist mode is a good start, but it's still too limited in UI friendliness and functionnalities to be the equivalent of the aforementioned softwares (and only the top version has the playlist window). If on top of that it could have a more elegant design, that would be nice (because now it looks like something that comes from computer prehistory).
 
I wouldn't mind the price much if it retained its SQ potential, had a great, well-coded, simple, straightforward but powerful UI, and was elegantly designed, but right now even the Mini is a bit hard to swallow when one sees what the competition can do at a lesser price. I'm lucky enough to have quite extensive resources at my age, but most people aren't in the same boat and will be much more discriminating customers than me when it comes to price / quality ratio.
 

 

[Currawong]

Quote:

Don't suppose the differences between iTunes when bitperfect and a "better" bitperfect signal are quantifiable?

 
This may go some way to answering that question:
 
http://www.amr-audio.co.uk/large_image/MAC%20OSX%20audio%20players%20&%20Integer%20Mode.pdf

 

[MayaTlab]

Quote:

 
This may go some way to answering that question:
 
http://www.amr-audio.co.uk/large_image/MAC%20OSX%20audio%20players%20&%20Integer%20Mode.pdf

Thank you. Does Amarra run in "hog mode" and in "integer mode" ?

 

[Willakan]

 
Quote:

 
This may go some way to answering that question:
 
http://www.amr-audio.co.uk/large_image/MAC%20OSX%20audio%20players%20&%20Integer%20Mode.pdf

Thanks for the link. I'm afraid I still can't see the logic behind it. My points of contention are mainly:
 
1) Sources: Stereophile does not constitute a valid source!
2) Their argument. It seems to split into two forks, one implied, the other stated. They are:
           -Things getting in the way of the audio is bad.
           -Anything much happening whilst music is playing back affects the computer's power supply, which in turn affects clock generation for the sound card, which in turn affects jitter, which is in turn audible.
 
Ignoring the first point, which is more of an appeal to irrationality than a point (if it is indeed meant to be there at all) and is rendered completely irrelevant by the method of data transmission inside the computer and the presence of buffers, the second point has to have huge numbers of assumptions made, all of which stretch credulity individually, let alone in bulk.
 
Assumption 1: The CPU is heavily utilised under normal music playback conditions, to an extent that it draws considerably more power. The first seems unlikely, the second more so.
Assumption 2: This places sufficient strain on the power supply to have a measurable affect upon its performance. It seems rather unlikely: light CPU usage during music playback.
Assumption 3: Meanwhile, all manner of strange interference creeps in from hard drive usage and has the same effect. This seems to play to paranoia more than anything, rather like those who refuse to have switching power supplies in the same room as their hi-fi equipment lest something creeps from them into the mains and hence ruins the performance of everything else...
Assumption 4: The effect on the power supply is so pronounced as to have an effect on the power rails that indirectly supply the clocks for your audio interface. This seems hugely unlikely.
Assumption 5: The effect on the quality of the power supplied by these rails is so huge that even after passing through the voltage regulator that feeds the audio interface, there is still a big difference in the power supplied in terms of noise/purity/ect. This seems staggeringly unlikely.
Assumption 6: This results in the clock generation process being profoundly more jittery than usual. Again, without huge differences in what it gets this seems unlikely.
Assumption 7: This results in such vast quantities of jitter as to produce an audible difference. This, again, seems very unlikely.
 
In fact, I would bet inordinate sums of money on this not being the case, in the same way that I do not fear for the performance of my DAC if a television happens to be on somewhere in my house.
The whole thing is also, as mentioned before, infuriatingly vague and wishy-washy.
 
 
 
         
 

 

[Team]

SonicStudio,
 
You guys make a great product, there's no denying that. However I stand by my earlier comments that your pricing doesn't accurately reflect the actual value of your product (i.e. the time/money taken to develop it) versus the value/pricing structure of your competitor's products. $500 or even $300 are out of reach for many people. Your prices appear to have less to do with intrinsic value than they do with charging the absolute maximum of what you believe the market will bear. That market is people who think $2,000 stereo cable sounds better than the $30 Blue Jeans variety. I don't blindly accept that cost = value, which is why I believe Amarra, though great, is massively overpriced.

 

[KingStyles]

Overpriced for the headfi community doesnt mean it is overpriced for the speaker community. Better quality tends to be able to command a higher price. It sure would be nice if Ferrari lowered there price so Honda drivers can afford it just because the honda drivers say it is overpriced. If you cant afford it, then there are plenty of lowered price options with good sq.

 

[MayaTlab]

Quote:

Overpriced for the headfi community doesnt mean it is overpriced for the speaker community. Better quality tends to be able to command a higher price. It sure would be nice if Ferrari lowered there price so Honda drivers can afford it just because the honda drivers say it is overpriced. If you cant afford it, then there are plenty of lowered price options with good sq.

Amarra is like a Ferrari with terrible handling and leaf-spring suspensions. It's true that better quality commands higher prices, but that's precisely the problem with Amarra as, even for those who think it is an improvement over all other softwares (I'm one of those), it still remain below them in terms of UI, function and stability, while being much more expensive in its most interesting version (Mini).
 

 

[KingStyles]

Iwas sort of thinking the same thing when I chose the Ferrari. Needs lots of maintenance compared to the honda. Likewise, amarra has the sound quality but its gui and quirks end up being the thing that is keeping people from liking it. The people who do use it just end up learning to live with the quirks rather than getting frustrated and not use it at all.

 

[Currawong]

Willakan: Many people who use Amarra have a dedicated music server for it that does nothing else so that any possible interference from the computer is minimised. It might simply be more valuable to build something along the lines of the Computer Audiophile music server and use software that shuts down the other Windows OS functions during playback. However, for me, I'm not interested in having a non-Apple computer running, so something like a Mac Mini, Amarra MINI (or other software) + an isolated USB hub or interface is of more interest to me. Determining the gain and value of any one of these things is not an easy task.

 

[pigmode]

FYI: The $495. sale price of Amarra is scheduled to conclude at the end of Mar. It remains to be seen if they extend it or not, but frankly it makes sense to adopt it as the regular price.