ppennock Posted February 27, 2012 Share Posted February 27, 2012 Hi There, I am new around here and trying to wrap my head around a few things. I am running Amarra through an iMac into a pair of B&W MM-1 speakers. Here's my problem. I have joined and downloaded some albums from the B&W Society of Sound. These 48/24 files play as expected in Amarra. I can switch between sources (iTunes and Amarra), hearing the difference between the two sources. When playing through Amarra, I can see that the file is playing at it's natural sample rate (48000). With albums from HD tracks though, they all seem to downsample to 44100. I can't wrap my head around this. The majority of the files are 96/24 files, although one of the albums is 48/24. In all instances though, the ability to switch between the Amarra source and iTunes is disabled (only iTunes is available as the source), and the sample rate is identified as 44100, while the majority of the tracks are actually 98000. Do I have a setting wrong here, or is the DAC in the MM-1's the limiting factor. What am I missing? In the meantime, I have tried for days to find a reference stating the sample rate limit on the MM-1's, with no luck. I have sent my questions to Amarra, but have heard nothing back as yet. Any help would be appreciated! Link to comment
mwheelerk Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 What is the connection between the iMac and your powered speakers? Are you connected with a 1/8 to 1/8 jack? If so I wonder if the ability of Amarra to auto switch rates might be limited versus a USB or Toslink connection. That's nothing more tha a guess. "A mind is like a parachute. It doesn't work if it is not open." Frank Zappa Link to comment
wgscott Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 Yes, that is the limiting factor. It is only capable of 16 bit, 44.1 kHz. I have them in my home office. They also do DSP. If you want to improve them without spending a lot more money, you can either run them via analogue out from your computer's built-in DAC, or for $100 get a nuForce microDAC and use that thing's analogue out to the MM-1. Link to comment
mwheelerk Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 Duplicate "A mind is like a parachute. It doesn't work if it is not open." Frank Zappa Link to comment
ppennock Posted February 28, 2012 Author Share Posted February 28, 2012 Thanks... this is helpful. I was led to believe that the MM-1's DAC was vastly superior to the computer's, and that therefore using the included USB connection was the way to go. I guess you are suggesting otherwise. I really want to take advantage of the higher bit rate recordings, so am thinking of investing in a Peachtree product.... maybe the Decco65 or Nova Pre. Any thoughts on those products? Link to comment
wgscott Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 I have the Peachtree Nova. If I were starting today, I would give a very serious look at the Nova Pre + their class D amp, or their iNova, or Grand Integrated. Get the best speakers you can afford. I had the same initial impression and let-down with the MM-1 speakers, by the way. They aren't terrible, but they are a bit of a rip-off at $500. I still use the USB connection, fwiw. Link to comment
latitude94941 Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 I bet the problem is that you are trying to play the FLAC files from HDtracks. Transcode them to AIFF using XLD and you'll be good to go. Link to comment
ppennock Posted February 28, 2012 Author Share Posted February 28, 2012 Cool. I've been reading up on Peachtree for a few days, and saw their equipment at a retailer a few weeks ago. I'm really enthused by what I'm reading. I'm thinking of starting with a Nova Pre in my home office, which is where I do most of my listening. Eventually I could see starting a second system with the Nova Pre + a Nova amp... but first things first. Now to begin looking into speakers :-) I like the MM-1's... they are for sure the best computer speakers I've owned, but they are still just computer speakers. Link to comment
ppennock Posted February 28, 2012 Author Share Posted February 28, 2012 Nope.... I am listening to AIFF's ripped from FLAC and deposited into iTunes using the Amarra software. Do you think that transcoding using XLD would make a difference? Link to comment
latitude94941 Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 "Do you think that transcoding using XLD would make a difference?" Yes, I suspect that this will solve your problem. Give it a go and report back. Link to comment
sonic studio Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 To offer some clarification, converting the file using the Amarra convert FLAC to AIFF commands is not the issue. We have seen a small number of isolated cases where tracks ripped with XLD into ALAC format has issues and the workaround is to use the internal ripper on your Mac in those cases. The primary issue why Amarra is not playing back is likely the 44.1k support of the internal DAC. Amarra will not do realtime downsampling as this results in non-bit perfect output and potentially inconsistent results. We recommend downsampling the file offline using the Amarra Background Manager and then play the new file back at it's new native sample rate. Thank You, Sonic Support[br][email protected][br]__________________[br]Sonic Studio, LLC .:.[br]__________________[br] Link to comment
sonic studio Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 Just a note, we've run into some instances where 44.1k files downloaded from HD Tracks were being identified as 44k, but were actually 48k files. We've alerted HD Tracks to this. Thank You, Sonic Support[br][email protected][br]__________________[br]Sonic Studio, LLC .:.[br]__________________[br] Link to comment
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