Amarra DOES work through the optical digital output of a Mac.

[Currawong]

I don't recall exactly where, but some or other person incorrectly stated that Amarra doesn't work from the optical digital output of a Mac. However, this contradicted my own experiences when testing it. A friend of mine, the proud owner of a Berkeley Alpha DAC, interested in borrowing an Amarra dongle from his local hi-fi store, with which he is well acquainted, called up Amarra directly to confirm matters. The result, direct from the horses mouth is, yes, it works through the optical digital out of a Mac. It'd be pretty crazy not to, if you think about it.

 

[rosgr63]

Amos, the Amara Mini (on Trial) did not work with my Mac's optical output neither!

 

[Currawong]

It definitely does work as a number of us have been using it this way. Make sure you've set it up correctly, as it doesn't work if you don't.

 

[jude]

It does work through the optical output of my 17" MacBook Pro (model 4,1). However, my MBP does not support 88.2kHz output via optical (just 44.1kHz, 48kHz, and 96kHz); but it does support 88.2kHz through USB. (I believe this is true for many Macs.)

By the way, Amarra is the real deal, to my ears.

 

[rosgr63]

I understand Amarra is highly regarded, and is a fine product.
I tried the Mini with 3 systems and with my low end system I noticed improvement.
However with a mid level and a high end system there was no improvement to my ears that is.
Another thing is, I had to play each of my library's songs individually as it kept stopping at the end of each track.
Please note I am not saying it's not a great product, it definately is, it just doesn't work for me.
BTW SonicStudio support is first class.

 

[jude]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rosgr63;bt1648 ....Another thing is, I had to play each of my library's songs individually as it kept stopping at the end of each track....

I have not seen this problem over here. From my observations, I'll say that Amarra can be rather memory-intensive, and if I'm concurrently running several other memory-intensive apps on my MBP (which has 6GB of RAM), I will occasionally hear a brief glitch or skip.

 

[rosgr63]

I use a MacBook Pro Snow Leopard, critical listening, no other apps running.
That's why I never bought the Amarra Mini, I couldn't put up with having to play each and every song.
I remember another member reported that he had problems with gapless tracks?

 

[Currawong]

If it's not working properly, try completely un-installing it and re-install it. They had trouble with upgrades not working properly because of this.

 

[rosgr63]

I already did that.
Retrospectively I think I can make it work with my optical output by changing my Audio Midi Setup properties, I had to do that hor my hiFace.
However I didn't buy it because I didn't find any sound improvment with 2 of my systems.