[WarriorAnt]

 
Quote:

Hey, I'm experiencing clicking and skipping Audirvana and Fidelia with an E10 DAC, I've disabled the Max I/O buffer size option and Integer Mode and it's still an intermittent problem. It's a 2010 i5 Macbook Pro so CPU power really shouldn't be a problem and with Fidelia anyway being multithreaded there should be plenty of spare CPU clock cycles for on-the-fly conversion of bitrate etc. 
 
Any thoughts? Oh and hi, long time lurker, first time poster etc.  
 
Edit: And oh, not a defective headphone jack on the E10, I can move the plug around as much as I want without anything negative happening to sound quality. Thankfully. 

How much memory do you have installed.  I was getting a lot of skipping from bitperfect  and then I added iCleanMemory to the mix and things got better. I can't say if it will help you or not.  I've never had any trouble with Audirvana Plus or Fidelia but plain Audirvana was extremely buggy for me. I could not use it.    I also went from 4 to 8 GB memory afterwards
 
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/icleanmemory/id439277582?mt=12

 

[uelover]

Full version I think you mean, since that's the one with independent playlist. Mini just says playlist probably meaning itunes playlists. Standalone is a nice feature, but not enough to warrant the cost for most. And how many of us have 384khz recordings. Looks like Mini is the sweet spot. 

Amarra mini can be used either with itunes integration or as a standalone player by adding files into the amarra playlist.

Why don't you download the trial instead of playing the guessing game here?

 

[nesf]

Quote:

 


How much memory do you have installed.  I was getting a lot of skipping from bitperfect  and then I added iCleanMemory to the mix and things got better. I can't say if it will help you or not.  I've never had any trouble with Audirvana Plus or Fidelia but plain Audirvana was extremely buggy for me. I could not use it.    I also went from 4 to 8 GB memory afterwards
 
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/icleanmemory/id439277582?mt=12

 
Only 4GB. For some reason I'm not getting the clicks if I set the device to 16 bit playback in Fidelia. I was getting the clicks and pops with Audirvana Plus too unfortunately. I'll listen for a few hours now that I've gotten my kids to sleep to see if the bit setting was causing the problems or not. At the moment in Audio MIDI setup the input is set to 16 bit and the 24 bit is the output, in case that matters for you, complete noob to higher than 16/44.1 resolution here. 
 

 

[Anthony1]

Ive got:
 

1. Songbird
2. Fidelia
3. audirvana
4. audivana plus
5. Amarra

 
And so far I prefer Fidelia for a whole range of reasons including SQ and ease of use and interface. Anything that touches iTunes aka "The Devil's Work" IMO makes me feel the sudden need to shower  immediately. I concur with other posters here that I found Amarra flakey and wasn't into the whole Fluke thingy with my FLACS. 
 
 
 

 

[nesf]

Quote:

 
Only 4GB. For some reason I'm not getting the clicks if I set the device to 16 bit playback in Fidelia. I was getting the clicks and pops with Audirvana Plus too unfortunately. I'll listen for a few hours now that I've gotten my kids to sleep to see if the bit setting was causing the problems or not. At the moment in Audio MIDI setup the input is set to 16 bit and the 24 bit is the output, in case that matters for you, complete noob to higher than 16/44.1 resolution here. 
 

Right so after an hour and a bit of listening: no clicks if set to 16 bit and no upsampling, clicks if set to upsampling. Going to try 24 bit now with no sampling to see if this makes a difference. Will try upsampling with a lot of memory free after that to investigate whether it's a memory problem. Insomnia is a bitch but at least I've a project to occupy me. 
 
Edit: Right, after further testing, seems to indeed be a memory problem caused by oversampling. Audirvana seems to want around half a Gig to do it's thing flawlessly and that's a bit tight on a 4GB Macbook if you're doing other things without iCleanMemory. 8GB is on my shopping list anyway, I've regretted going with 4GB since I got this machine earlier this year. 

 

[nesf]

Actually, does Audirvana Plus have a memory leak? After an hour or two's play it goes from needing half a gig of memory to needing a full gig. If I then exit it and restart it on the same song it goes back to needing 400 MB or so again. Or am I misunderstanding how these players work? This is only with oversampling enabled. 

 

[uelover]

Quote:

Ive got:
 

1. Songbird
2. Fidelia
3. audirvana
4. audivana plus
5. Amarra

 
And so far I prefer Fidelia for a whole range of reasons including SQ and ease of use and interface. Anything that touches iTunes aka "The Devil's Work" IMO makes me feel the sudden need to shower  immediately. I concur with other posters here that I found Amarra flakey and wasn't into the whole Fluke thingy with my FLACS. 
 

Actually I find that anything that uses the iZotope processing sounded very similar, if not, the same.
 
My preference for each software changes as any single part of my audio chain change. It is hard to say which software sounds the best. It is much easier to say which software is the most user friendly and aesthetically pleasing.

 

[mbhauzer]

Very helpful thread - lots to research now.  Will start by looking at Fidelia.

 

[DarknightDK]

Quote:

Ive got:
 

1. Songbird
2. Fidelia
3. audirvana
4. audivana plus
5. Amarra

 
And so far I prefer Fidelia for a whole range of reasons including SQ and ease of use and interface. Anything that touches iTunes aka "The Devil's Work" IMO makes me feel the sudden need to shower  immediately. I concur with other posters here that I found Amarra flakey and wasn't into the whole Fluke thingy with my FLACS. 
 
 
 

How does Fidelia sound compared to Audivana plus? Is there a sonic difference between the two (I note they both use the same iZotope 64 bit SRC)? 
 
I have downloaded the trial versions of Audivana plus and Amarra and I note that Amarra's SQ is better as compared to Audivana plus in my system. I'm interested in your thoughts on Fidelia's SQ.
 

 

[thread]

Where is the magic in these "audiophile" players?

It seems to me that one of the chief reasons these fancy players sound so nice is for their upsampling/downsampling techniques (and the convenience of automatically changing the OS sampling rate preference). I can see how some software can add a unique dithering algorithm and for that reason actually sound better or worse to a person, but all my source material is 16/44 for now, so I don't really see this as much of an issue for me.

To my knowledge, enabling "exclusive access" to the sound device will only prevent other apps from making sound. So while that might be a good thing for your musical enjoyment, it shouldn't exactly add to the sound quality itself. This is corroborated by the PDF I found.

I'm not certain of all the implications of "integer mode", though... according to this PDF, it seems that integer mode allows the computer to skip a couple steps in getting the audio to the DAC which seems like it could reduce jitters if you computer is weak or under load.

Through my Googles, I found this really enlightening whitepaper PDF from the Audirvana author:

http://www.amr-audio.co.uk/large_image/MAC%20OSX%20audio%20players%20&%20Integer%20Mode.pdf

In a footnote, he even says that iTunes can be bit perfect. I just don't see where there is any more opportunity for sound quality if you have a decent player doing bit-perfect playback with the OS and DAC both accepting the recording's native sample rate.

Does anyone have a better idea than me just where the "magic" lies?

My most sincere apologies if my discussion has upset any devout believers. I like to believe things too, but I'm not one for being dogmatic.

 

[WarriorAnt]

http://www.izotope.com/tech/src/
 
http://www.izotope.com/tech/mbit/
 
Izotope technology is often licensed by some of the music player designers.   Give them a read and then send them some questions.  They'll have in depth answers for you.  

 

[thread]

Thanks for the links, WarriorAnt! That stuff looks really neat and no doubt can make a difference vs other algoritms for dithering. (That is, upsampling or downsampling in a way that is smoothest and sounds the best and most transparent.)

But I was referring to my own situation (which I presume to be somewhat common, even among audiophiles) where my entire chain from FLAC to DAC is all in 16/44.1 mode.

I guess I'm comfortable using MPD as an "audiophile" player. The sheer number of options for interface software and the fact that it's so quick and lightweight have me quite satisfied. I recognize it's a little trickier to set up than your average OS X app, though.

Here's a screenie of another favorite (web-based) client of mine, Client175.

 

[mtkversion]

Quote:

No I did not recoup most of the cash on my amps I lost $1500 on the resale.

Ouch.
 
Regardless you got something back, no return on Amarra's $700 if you're unhappy with the bugs/support that seem to plague it.
 
Although a quick search in the dark underbelly of the interwebs comes back with some interesting results ..... just saying.

 

[WarriorAnt]

Quote:

Ouch.
 
Regardless you got something back, no return on Amarra's $700 if you're unhappy with the bugs/support that seem to plague it.
 
Although a quick search in the dark underbelly of the interwebs comes back with some interesting results ..... just saying.

I don't seem to have the bugs that plague others been using Amarra for 2 days straight without a problem but regardless of that you still assume that just because someone paid a high price for something it means they will be unable and unwilling, to say something negative about their purchase and criticize it fairly.    
 
Plus anyone can try out any version of Amarra free for 15 days.   Not too many hardware companies offer something like that without a 15% restocking fee.    If you can't figure out if you like or want or hear any difference in 15 days or if there are bugs in the program then you haven't lost anything.
 
 

Q: How can I trial the Amarra products prior to purchasing?

A: All of our Amarra products are free to download from our website and have a free demo capability included in the software.

1. All Amarra products except Amarra VINYL provide a free Full 15 day Evaluation.

 
 

 

[WarriorAnt]

 

Thanks for the links, WarriorAnt! That stuff looks really neat and no doubt can make a difference vs other algoritms for dithering. (That is, upsampling or downsampling in a way that is smoothest and sounds the best and most transparent.)
But I was referring to my own situation (which I presume to be somewhat common, even among audiophiles) where my entire chain from FLAC to DAC is all in 16/44.1 mode.

These players are not just upsampling and down sampling, in my setup the players sample whatever rate the file is unless I instruct them to upsample and downsampling which I do not I play the files at whatever their sample rate is.   Pretty much the general population has a library that is dominated by 16/44 files.