[omasciarotte]

Quote:

I downloaded the free trial of Audirvana yesterday. I like it, but it was skipping a bit…
 
Any solutions besides more ram?

 
Hey Mackat,
 
More RAM would prevent your host from running out of unallocated RAM and resorting to virtual memory. With 4 GB, the simple solution is to restart the host which frees up, ahem “Free” memory, and don’t run other apps until your listening session is finished.
 
You may want to set up Activity Monitor to display memory allocation for you so you know when you’ve run out of free RAM…

 

[omasciarotte]

Quote:

Sorry, "so" not "tough".
 
If both iTunes + Amarra and just Amarra sound different at least one of them does not give a bitperfect signal.

 
Hey odyssey2001,
 
The "bits is bits" argument is simply untenable. Even if you don’t believe any of the gazillion HeadFiers & others who have confirmed that leading audiophile software produces bit perfect output as advertised, one has to assume you haven’t tried the (free) demo version of any of the audiophile players to see if you do perceive a difference. Depending on your room, hardware and wetware (what’s between your ears), you may find that;
 
a) you do hear a difference between iTunes in bit-perfect mode and one or more audiophile players, also in bit-perfect mode
b) you actually prefer the sound of one of the audiophile players

 

[mackat]

Hi, as of a few weeks ago, I now have a total of 12GB.
 
But of course my free trial expired today so I have to find the cash for that!

 

[Currawong]

Quote:

Sorry, "so" not "tough".
 
If a signal is modified it is not bitperfect anymore. If iTunes + Amarra sounds better to you than just iTunes, either iTunes modifies the signal so it's not bitperfect or Amarra has some build in equalizer that modifies the signal so it's not bitperfect anymore, too.
 
If both iTunes + Amarra and just Amarra sound different at least one of them does not give a bitperfect signal.
 
On my rig iTunes already gives a bitperfect signal so there is no need for any of these applications. (Except I want USB file buffering, automatic sample rate switching, ...).
 
Quote:

 
What do you mean by "Fidelia: "Data is accurate" tough BitPerfect."?
 
 
If a signal is modified can it still be bitperfect? How does it get modified?

 Have you read the white paper from the maker of Audirvana? That explains what is supposedly going on.

 

[liamstrain]

 

Quote:

one has to assume you haven’t tried the (free) demo version of any of the audiophile players to see if you do perceive a difference. Depending on your room, hardware and wetware (what’s between your ears), you may find that;
 
a) you do hear a difference between iTunes in bit-perfect mode and one or more audiophile players, also in bit-perfect mode
b) you actually prefer the sound of one of the audiophile players

 
 
 
Don't forget:
c) you do not hear a difference

 

[omasciarotte]

Quote:

 
Don't forget:
c) you do not hear a difference

 
Sure, that may be the case as well. My point is there can and, to my perception, are audible differences in bit-perfect data streams.
 
  -- OMas

 

[liamstrain]

Quote:

 
Sure, that may be the case as well. My point is there can and, to my perception, are audible differences in bit-perfect data streams.
 
  -- OMas

 
Doing level matched, blind comparisons? Or comparing via your own sighted switching?

 

[miceblue]

I purchased Audirvana Plus about 20 minutes ago and I am really impressed with its resource management. The Free version took a while to pre-buffer/load songs, but Plus is extremely fast, taking muuuuuuuuuch less CPU to load than Free did. I haven't done critical listening yet, but from my brief listen, the soundstage seems wider and the treble is much smoother overall.

 

[omasciarotte]

Quote:

Doing level matched, blind comparisons? Or comparing via your own sighted switching?

 
“Blind” [someone else, pencil & paper-equipped, doing the switching with their back to the listener], w/one DAC. Since it's the same DAC & same bitstream, there's no need to level match. Only the software (bit perfect, no processing) changes. Easy to try with an “assistant“ and demo versions of ’ware.
 
Granted, tests like this are very dependent on listening skills, hearing mechanism, quality of gear, room acoustics (fancy headphone rigs make it much easier to hear subtle distinctions) but, it's an easy & fun test and only costs your time if one of the two participants owns a high quality rig already.
 
If the listener fails to hear a difference, then he or she can say, “For me, I didn’t hear a difference.” It’s not right to say, “There is/can be no difference,” especially without trying a test. Sure, I don’t yet have a quantifiable cause(s) for the effect but, that doesn’t negate one’s experience.
 
After all, as John Atkinson said the other night at our local ASM meeting (also at RMAF), “(Stereo) is all in your head.” His point was that stereo audio reproduction is a psychoacoustic phenomenon and our ear/brain cannot be discounted when discussing listening experiences. I’ll add that, having worked in the audio industry for 30 years, I've been taught more than once that our hearing is a better measurement device than has yet been devised by engineers, and I am an engineer!
 
Anyway, just try it yourself, then you can be Liam “Doubting Thomas” to your heart’s content.

 

[RBSund]

I tried Audiovarna, Decibel, Fidelity and Bitperfect... I like Decibel and Bitperfect best and while they seem about equally good to me, soundwise, Bitperfect runs smoother, costs less, I can use the license on all my computers plus I don´t have to mess with two interfaces. Clear winner. I´m really enjoying this sudden change in quality, it feels just like a little hardware upgrade! Much more texture, especially in the lows! 

 

[liamstrain]

Quote:

I’ll add that, having worked in the audio industry for 30 years, I've been taught more than once that our hearing is a better measurement device than has yet been devised by engineers, and I am an engineer!
 

 
I have been in the audio industry a good while too. I disagree with you - our ears are a good tool, but they are inherently flawed in many respects, not the least of which is the finicky processing engine between them. I am not suggesting we should throw out what we hear, but if what we hear does not jive with the objectively measured data, the error is more likely to be in us, than in the data. Just my $.02
 
 
 

Anyway, just try it yourself, then you can be Liam “Doubting Thomas” to your heart’s content.

 
I have. And I do level match anyway, since I discovered that "no processing" doesn't always mean that, and some software actually does kick out different pre-amp settings even when it says it is set to 0 (historically - it has not been the case with the latest round of programs I've tested).

 

[omasciarotte]

Quote:

 
I have been in the audio industry a good while too. I disagree with you - our ears are a good tool, but they are inherently flawed in many respects, not the least of which is the finicky processing engine between them. I am not suggesting we should throw out what we hear, but if what we hear does not jive with the objectively measured data, the error is more likely to be in us, than in the data. Just my $.02

 
Agreed & agreed. I wrote “better” and I should have written “different” in that we can hear things that we haven’t yet been able to figure out how to measure. Yup, our wetware is highly adaptable and, we have no conscious control over it. That makes “measurement” with our hearing impossible but our hearing is useful [from an “objective” aspect] nonetheless.

 

[albertzeyer]

Hi,

I was also disappointed by the available music players for Mac. On Linux, I have used Amarok 1.4 earlier. When I switched to Mac, I have mostly used iTunes and Songbird but I had my problems with both.

What I wanted was basically a player which is simple, can handle an infinitely large music directory and has a PartyShuffle/DJ-mode function. It should also support all most important sound formats (flac, ogg, mp3, m4a, wma, ...) and maybe some other things.

Because I didn't found that, I started my own Open Source project: http://albertz.github.com/music-player/

It is simple and is all centered around a main queue (looks a bit like the old Winamp, XMMS or other simple players). The main queue is always in PartyShuffle-mode, though. I.e. it shows some of the recently played songs, the current songs and the upcoming songs. It plays always the songs from the top of the queue and then removes it from there. Once the queue becomes too empty, it intelligently adds new songs to it (based on context and ratings).

It is also powerful, e.g. it has its own volume loudness normalization algorithm. And is has Last.fm scrobbling support. And some other basic things.

It supports basically all existing sound formats.

Because it is Open Source, everyone can contribute and make it better. The code is simple and mostly Python, so it is easy to work on it.

 

[liamstrain]

It supports basically all existing sound formats.

Because it is Open Source, everyone can contribute and make it better. The code is simple and mostly Python, so it is easy to work on it.

 
Sounds like a cool project. Good luck. 
 
 
 

It is also powerful, e.g. it has its own volume loudness normalization algorithm. 

 
Will there be an option to disable this, and any other pre-amplifier type adjustments? 
 

 

[rosgr63]

Very impressive, will try it soon.
Thanks for letting us know.