[buonassi]

oh, and for the drums, I'd listen to

the two newer 'pineapple thief' (artist) albums
From 'your wilderness' try cut 2 'no mans land' - 2nd half of the song, Gavin Harrison does his thing - sublime fills!
From 'dissolution' try cut 2 'try as I might' - at 3:25 there is a very musical drum fill. Also cut 6 'far below' about halfway through there is another great drum section, very melodic drumming - you don't often associate drums with melody, but there you go.

Also 'circle of illusion' (artist) - his floor tom here has sub bass that becomes VERY centered and believable with canopener active:
from album 'jeremias' cut 2 'the beginning' - 2:37 > 2:54 - also a quick fill at 3:14 - this fill demos how the floor toms can sound too off to one side WITHOUT canopener - sub bass in one ear isn't natural. go listen again with canpener and you become the drummer, centered right at the kit.
actually this whole album is amazing if you like drums - cuts 2,3,4 are just out of this world.

just remember that the better your cans can image, the better canopener can make them sound.

 

[derekphone]

@buonassi maybe I mistyped that, I have it set at the highest realism. My headphone rig will be through a Rega Dac > Woo WA6. No other fancy things other than what we’ve talked about here. So maybe I will be fine without that hack. Would you say the same applies to Amarra vs Tidal on its own, regarding difference in SQ? As @martyp87 mentions, I can use AU plugins (Goodhertz) with anything.

 

[buonassi]

I didn't get too far down the ammara rabbithole. But consensus on audirvana over at another forum I can't name here (but can via PM) is that it's one of the best available. And that's coming from 2 ch folks with bigger wallets and presumably better ears than me! But we're talking very subtle difference once you get into software territory provided they are bit perfect IMO.

Honestly, the biggest bang for the buck I've ever spent wasn't on Audirvana or any player software for that matter, but rather on a good DDC. Schiit eitr was one of those life changing moments for me. Even USB reclockers and 5volt cleaners didn't do as much for the sound quality. Coax from the eitr clearly bested even 'treated' USB with my Metrum DAC. I'm not saying that's the case with yours, but for $130 used, it can't hurt to try it out .sell it if it doesn't improve things . If I had to do it all over again I would do that first.

It's a journey man, but you never know what you're missing until you hear it. I'm always amazed about each veil I remove believing "that's it, it can't possibly get any better than this". I've eaten those words several times now .

Sounds like you're well on your way to Sonic bliss. Very nice components you're putting together. For now, just enjoy the gear you have and more importantly, the music .

 

[derekphone]

I didn't get too far down the ammara rabbithole. But consensus on audirvana over at another forum I can't name here (but can via PM) is that it's one of the best available. And that's coming from 2 ch folks with bigger wallets and presumably better ears than me! But we're talking very subtle difference once you get into software territory provided they are bit perfect IMO.

Honestly, the biggest bang for the buck I've ever spent wasn't on Audirvana or any player software for that matter, but rather on a good DDC. Schiit eitr was one of those life changing moments for me. Even USB reclockers and 5volt cleaners didn't do as much for the sound quality. Coax from the eitr clearly bested even 'treated' USB with my Metrum DAC. I'm not saying that's the case with yours, but for $130 used, it can't hurt to try it out .sell it if it doesn't improve things . If I had to do it all over again I would do that first.

It's a journey man, but you never know what you're missing until you hear it. I'm always amazed about each veil I remove believing "that's it, it can't possibly get any better than this". I've eaten those words several times now .

Sounds like you're well on your way to Sonic bliss. Very nice components you're putting together. For now, just enjoy the gear you have and more importantly, the music .

I'll definitely check out the Schiit eitr DDC. So I tried Audio Hijack to use the CanOpener & Mid Side AU's. I've set up a session but how does it actually take effect. All I see is an option to "record". What am I missing here?

 

[buonassi]

Maybe @martyp87 can help here. I haven't used that software before.

 

[Darksoul]

Looks like these plugins are meant to be used with a Digital Audio Workstation, I don't think I can use this with good ol' Foobar. Oh well, moving on.

 

[martyp87]

I'll definitely check out the Schiit eitr DDC. So I tried Audio Hijack to use the CanOpener & Mid Side AU's. I've set up a session but how does it actually take effect. All I see is an option to "record". What am I missing here?

As long as the Session looks like (System Audio > Goodhertz AU plugins > Output Device then, just hit record. This will let the plugins take effect although as you are not outputting to a file it won't actually record anything.

 

[martyp87]

Looks like these plugins are meant to be used with a Digital Audio Workstation, I don't think I can use this with good ol' Foobar. Oh well, moving on.

Unfortunately, you can't add these to FooBar. I tried to no avail for hours to find something that would let me add them to a Windows machine.

 

[derekphone]

As long as the Session looks like (System Audio > Goodhertz AU plugins > Output Device then, just hit record. This will let the plugins take effect although as you are not outputting to a file it won't actually record anything.

Do I have to hit record every time I listen to music?

 

[martyp87]

No. Once you hit 'record' to activate the plug-ins you have in that session you can just minimise the app and it will run until you quit it or press record again.

You can also adjust the AU plug-ins in realtime without any issues so you can still adjust it to your preference in realtime.

 

[derekphone]

No. Once you hit 'record' to activate the plug-ins you have in that session you can just minimise the app and it will run until you quit it or press record again.

You can also adjust the AU plug-ins in realtime without any issues so you can still adjust it to your preference in realtime.

By “every time I listen to music” I mean a session. So then yes, I’d have to open audio hijack and hit record to make the plugins work. That’s one more thing I need to do ...ugh. With audirvana it was automatic. I guess these kind of obstacles make the final set up sweeter. But what a hassle.

Audirvana with automatic use of Canopener so I can get crossfeed but crappy use of tidal

Or

Audiohijack where I have to manually press record when I want to listen to music and be able to use tidal on its own.

I wish Amarra would do what Audirvana does with the AU. Maybe Amarra can use the other formats? VST?

Sigh...or maybe other players can use canopener that have a nice tidal integration. Then that opens me up to try the Meier Cross feed with foobar. Maybe there’s a reason why this didn’t work! Lol, the hobby rabbit hole.

 

[martyp87]

Well in that case yes, you do need to open the application then click 'record' but it only takes a few seconds and lets you enjoy the plugins in all programs. Eg. web browser when watching YouTube, Netflix, Games etc.

Personally I don't like Audirvana so Audio Hijack is worth the extra 5 seconds to use when I want to listen to music on my cans.

 

[buonassi]

If you want to create your own digital interpolation filters, Audirvana does that too. Can even convert and upsample to DSD. I've had good results with upsampling to DSD 128 in A+

It also has the best software volume control .You set the dither algorithm to your liking.

Yeah, the tidal interface is basic and blah

 

[derekphone]

If you want to create your own digital interpolation filters, Audirvana does that too. Can even convert and upsample to DSD. I've had good results with upsampling to DSD 128 in A+

It also has the best software volume control .You set the dither algorithm to your liking.

Yeah, the tidal interface is basic and blah

Unfortunately, I don’t know what any of that is. What are the end benefits before I brush up on understanding all of that.

 

[buonassi]

Well, A+ is a genuine audiophile tool. That's why it costs what it costs. It's the only software I know of that can stream tidal through AUs then upsample that to DSD 1-bit format (if you have a DSD capable DAC) and send it to your DAC bypassing the OS audio mixer layer.

I think I'm getting too off topic but would be happy to tell you more about DSD and upsampling by way of PM.