Audirvana 1.5 Beta

[sidssp]

Sorry, but what is the purpose of using Audio Units with a software like Audirvana? Don't we all use it EXACTLY so we can listen to bit-perfect/unadulterated music?

 

Otherwise we can all return to iTunes...or not?

 

Good question. I was wondering about that too.

[elcorso]

Sorry, but what is the purpose of using Audio Units with a software like Audirvana? Don't we all use it EXACTLY so we can listen to bit-perfect/unadulterated music?

 

Otherwise we can all return to iTunes...or not?

 

I guess this is available since some people prefer a lot of gadgets than a bit perfect SQ. At the end the Audio Units use is not obligatory...

 

Roch

[wgscott]

Good question. I was wondering about that too.

 

If you have a less than perfect frequency response from your system and/or a less than perfect listening room, you aren't listening to unadulterated music.

[Sam Lord]

If you have a less than perfect frequency response from your system and/or a less than perfect listening room, you aren't listening to unadulterated music.

=Everyone. A little extra adulteration can do good, as long as people RTFM and avoid stupid acoustic mistakes like using excessive delays and spacing the transducers across Hell's half-acre.

[Bob Stern]

I can confirm that version 1.4.9.6 fixed the compatibility issue with the Firewire driver of the Metric Halo DAC. Thanks, Damien!

[petecare]

You need the latest 1.7.2 beta from Mytek for DSD128.

 

Damien

 

Damien

I have a strange issue with A+ 1.4.9.6 and mytek_stereo192-dsd-dac_firmware_V1.7.3.b2

When I launch A+ it cannot initialize my peripheriq ( an external Hard Drive Disk).

Playlist are displayed but cannot play any tune.

 

I repair authorizations (internal disk system+external HD where my music is)

At this time A+ can play music,(Pcm upsampling 176.4) but after 10 mn the displaying in Mytek show DSD

I try the beta mytek driver with A+ 1.4.6. ok

With Fidelia also

 

I downgrade the mytek firmware with the 1.7.1 version and try with the latest beta A+ with no Audio Unit in use and it's OK

 

I think that issue come from the duet "A+ 1 4 9 6 with AU in use & firmware _V1.7.3.b2"

 

Can you explain this, and/or solve this issue ??

 

Thanks you

Cheers

[brlawyer]

If you have a less than perfect frequency response from your system and/or a less than perfect listening room, you aren't listening to unadulterated music.

 

Sorry, but you're mixing two very different things.

 

It's obvious that perfect listening SCENARIOS are virtually impossible; but the WHOLE premise of using such software is EXACTLY to have as close to a pure/unadulterated SOURCE of music as possible, i.e., the next best thing to being at the musician's studio - in fact, the very first thing every hi-fi/bitperfect software preaches to users is to TURN OFF EQs, sound enhancers and the like.

 

That's why we buy DACs, amps, stop using iTunes and employ low distortion physical connections. For me, any use of Audio Units goes against that core principle - in other words, it would just be another player for Little Joe out there.

[kennyb123]

the WHOLE premise of using such software is EXACTLY to have as close to a pure/unadulterated SOURCE of music as possible, i.e., the next best thing to being at the musician's studio - in fact, the very first thing every hi-fi/bitperfect software preaches to users is to TURN OFF EQs, sound enhancers and the like.

 

That's why we buy DACs, amps, stop using iTunes and employ low distortion physical connections. For me, any use of Audio Units goes against that core principle - in other words, it would just be another player for Little Joe out there.

 

I'm assuming from this that you don't use upsampling in A+?

 

I offer this as an example where many of us accept not having bit perfect output as the benefits are so worthwhile. Likewise I can see EQ being a benefit where a room may be doing harm. The ultimate goal is to maximize one's enjoyment of the music - and that is what I see as the WHOLE premise of using software such as A+.

[wgscott]

Sorry, but you're mixing two very different things.

 

It's obvious that perfect listening SCENARIOS are virtually impossible; but the WHOLE premise of using such software is EXACTLY to have as close to a pure/unadulterated SOURCE of music as possible, i.e., the next best thing to being at the musician's studio - in fact, the very first thing every hi-fi/bitperfect software preaches to users is to TURN OFF EQs, sound enhancers and the like.

 

That's why we buy DACs, amps, stop using iTunes and employ low distortion physical connections. For me, any use of Audio Units goes against that core principle - in other words, it would just be another player for Little Joe out there.

 

There is a very simple solution: Don't use it.

 

However, DSP is a lot more accurate than an analogue equalizer, so the comparison is a bit silly. The point of bit-perfect playback is simply that nothing is done to the sound without your permission. The user should feel free to do whatever he or she wants to. If someone has a hearing impediment, and wants to adjust the output at the digital level to compensate for frequency-dependent hearing loss, shouldn't they have that ability or right to do so? Similarly, if I don't have $50K to spend on my speakers, shouldn't I have the ability or right to try to correct for deficiencies in the speaker's frequency response, or my room response, etc?

[brlawyer]

There is a very simple solution: Don't use it.

 

However, DSP is a lot more accurate than an analogue equalizer, so the comparison is a bit silly. The point of bit-perfect playback is simply that nothing is done to the sound without your permission. The user should feel free to do whatever he or she wants to. If someone has a hearing impediment, and wants to adjust the output at the digital level to compensate for frequency-dependent hearing loss, shouldn't they have that ability or right to do so? Similarly, if I don't have $50K to spend on my speakers, shouldn't I have the ability or right to try to correct for deficiencies in the speaker's frequency response, or my room response, etc?

 

I am fine with my choices, and that's why I won't use AUnits - however, we should all stick to some intellectual honesty here. Once more, the MAIN argument for buying A+ and related software has ALWAYS been towards playing bitperfect/untainted music.

 

So either you admit that this essential premise means nothing and we should all go back to iTunes, or you accept the fact that these so-called audiophile players stick to what they are meant to do.

[jhwalker]

I am fine with my choices, and that's why I won't use AUnits - however, we should all stick to some intellectual honesty here. Once more, the MAIN argument for buying A+ and related software has ALWAYS been towards playing bitperfect/untainted music.

 

So either you admit that this essential premise means nothing and we should all go back to iTunes, or you accept the fact that these so-called audiophile players stick to what they are meant to do.

 

OR

 

you admit you want the best quality source for the best possible additional processing if desired.

 

For example, I definitely want the best possible data stream going into an AU that provides a slight "crossfeed" processing for use with headphones

 

Just because later on you're adding Kool-Aid doesn't mean you shouldn't *start* with pure, filtered water

[wwaldmanfan]

I am fine with my choices, and that's why I won't use AUnits - however, we should all stick to some intellectual honesty here. Once more, the MAIN argument for buying A+ and related software has ALWAYS been towards playing bitperfect/untainted music.

 

So either you admit that this essential premise means nothing and we should all go back to iTunes, or you accept the fact that these so-called audiophile players stick to what they are meant to do.

 

Not all commerical recordings are optimal to start with. Listen to Bob Dylan's CD, "World Gone Wrong". Something evidently went wrong in the recording or mastering of that one. It is jarringly thin-sounding, with an excruciatingly brittle high end.

Simply adding the AULowpass filter set at 7000kHz, -5.5 db, restored it to a much more natural, full, and pleasing sound.

 

In a perfect world, we wouldn't need to "taint" our "bit-perfect" music playback with filters to hear it as we'd like it to sound. So, I appreciate being given the tools to do so, when necessary.

[pl_svn]

Not all commerical recordings are optimal to start with. Listen to Bob Dylan's CD, "World Gone Wrong". Something evidently went wrong in the recording or mastering of that one. It is jarringly thin-sounding, with an excruciatingly brittle high end.

 

... not to mention post ∼2000 CDs (the loudness war), and that means almost all of them, purposely mastered to "sound better" on low-end gear and/or in mp3 =:-/

[elcorso]

I am fine with my choices, and that's why I won't use AUnits - however, we should all stick to some intellectual honesty here. Once more, the MAIN argument for buying A+ and related software has ALWAYS been towards playing bitperfect/untainted music.

 

So either you admit that this essential premise means nothing and we should all go back to iTunes, or you accept the fact that these so-called audiophile players stick to what they are meant to do.

 

I'm in the same school as you are.

 

When you touch 'equalization', being in analogue or digital DSP domain, you touch, in some way, time domain: The hardest (for me) to get, and where Audirvana Plus is a real champ. It's like digital volume control, that I don't use either, for the same reason. BTW, getting an excellent volume control is also very difficult (or expensive) in analogue.

 

I ratter like better to play with speaker and listener position, plus making the listening room furniture working for acoustics and not against it, it doesn't matter if nobody in my home is pleased with the visual (esthetic) setup. I see so many music gear setup with a huge TV monitor in middle of the speakers, that I wonder how they get a decent music image... Could be good for home theater only!

 

If I want to drink Kool-Aid I don't care about the water, anyway I like better better pure water, and here in the tropic we are "amoeba resistant".

 

Roch

[Jud]

I am fine with my choices, and that's why I won't use AUnits - however, we should all stick to some intellectual honesty here. Once more, the MAIN argument for buying A+ and related software has ALWAYS been towards playing bitperfect/untainted music.

 

So either you admit that this essential premise means nothing and we should all go back to iTunes, or you accept the fact that these so-called audiophile players stick to what they are meant to do.

 

It's odd you would be so much more doctrinaire about this than the program developer.

 

Audirvana has never been limited to the idea of "bit perfect." It isn't an accident that the white paper Damien authored in Audirvana's early stages was entitled "Beyond Bit Perfect...." Audirvana has always been about maximizing the opportunity for best sound through the system. Integer mode, the subject of "Beyond Bit Perfect...," and the bundled oversampling that came with Audirvana Plus offered the opportunity to maximize performance from the computer-DAC portion of the system. Plugins will now offer not only the usual frequency response tweaks, but also time domain operations, sample rate conversion, and various other quite sophisticated capabilities.

 

I do use the bundled software upsampling capabilities currently because it results in better sound than the internal upsampling in my DAC chip. Right now I don't contemplate using plugins, but why be religious about it? What if some plugin someday offered the opportunity for better interpolation filter tweaking and better overall sound than the bundled iZotope (doubtful perhaps, but not impossible)? Why would I refuse to use it? And why would I begrudge anyone else the chance to experiment to his or her heart's content with plugins? Who knows, they may teach me a thing or two.

[Superdad]

I do use the bundled software upsampling capabilities currently because it results in better sound than the internal upsampling in my DAC chip.

 

+1 to your whole post Jud.

 

I'd like to relay an interesting experience I had over the weekend. A friend brought over a sigma-delta chip based DAC, which, while it up/oversamples everything internally to either 352.8KHz or 384KHz, the parameters of its digital filters are just average. The rest of the design is very good (async-XMOS USB input, low phase-noise clocks, nice output stage, quiet power supply), so this DAC has excellent dynamics, detail, and timing. Many people would be quite impressed with it.

 

While it sounded nice to start, it just did not have anywhere near the spooky-real presence and intonation that I get with my PCM1704 NOS ladder DAC--fed 24/88.2 or 176.4 from fine-tuned A+ iZoptope settings. At first we were just feeding it 16/44.1 from A+ (the wonderful 1.4.9.5 of course). When we first tuned on A+'s upsampling, I left the parameters just as I had tuned them for my NOS DAC. Certainly it was better, as we were essentially taking the new DAC from 8x oversampling down to 2x oversampling, and looking at the filter response of the particular DAC chip it uses, we could see how much better all its internal digital filters (they were selectable) perform with higher sample rate input. If the USB input could have taken 352.8/384, we would be eliminating the chip's DF entirely.

 

Then we spent 1/2 hour tuning the iZotope settings for this particular DAC. And holy cow did it ever respond! We took a $1,700 DAC and made it punch WAY above its price point. I know that price correlations bother some people and don't really mean anything, so let's just say it made a good DAC (see the solid elements listed above) sound almost like a mind-blowing assault on state-of-the-art.

 

When we switched back to my DAC, I was still very happy (the very refined discrete output stage of my unit was not going to fall to an op-amp stage that easy), but so was my friend. His DAC (with better clocks and USB isolation than mine) came awfully close, and boy was he surprised at how lifelike upsampled Redbook could sound (this was also his first time in my room; tight, deep bass was a shock to him too).

 

It sure seems to be a new day (audiophile-wise) when a $60 piece of software can turn a respectable DAC into a giant killer. BTW, my friend is a Windows and Linux user, but after seeing what A+ and the iZotope engine accomplished, he may be saving up for a Mac.

 

Bravo again to Damian. The latest version is another leap forward. My engineer friend and I have some general ideas about what Damien might be optimizing to make these improvements to an already "bit-perfect" player, but I'll share those another time.

 

Cheers,

ALEX

[elcorso]

+1 to your whole post Jud.

 

I'd like to relay an interesting experience I had over the weekend. A friend brought over a sigma-delta chip based DAC, which, while it up/oversamples everything internally to either 352.8KHz or 384KHz, the parameters of its digital filters are just average. The rest of the design is very good (async-XMOS USB input, low phase-noise clocks, nice output stage, quiet power supply), so this DAC has excellent dynamics, detail, and timing. Many people would be quite impressed with it.

 

While it sounded nice to start, it just did not have anywhere near the spooky-real presence and intonation that I get with my PCM1704 NOS ladder DAC--fed 24/88.2 or 176.4 from fine-tuned A+ iZoptope settings. At first we were just feeding it 16/44.1 from A+ (the wonderful 1.4.9.5 of course). When we first tuned on A+'s upsampling, I left the parameters just as I had tuned them for my NOS DAC. Certainly it was better, as we were essentially taking the new DAC from 8x oversampling down to 2x oversampling, and looking at the filter response of the particular DAC chip it uses, we could see how much better all its internal digital filters (they were selectable) performed with higher sample rate input. If the USB input could have taken 352.8/384, we would be eliminating the chips DF entirely.

 

Then we spent 1/2 hour tuning the iZotope settings for this particular DAC. And holy cow did it ever respond! We took an $1,700 DAC and made it punch WAY above its price point. I know that price correlations bother some people and don't really mean anything, so let's just say it made a decent DAC (see the solid elements listed above) sound almost like a mind-blowing assault on state-of-the-art.

 

When we switched back to my DAC, I was still very happy (the very refined discrete output stage of my unit was not going to fall to an op-amp stage that easy), but so was my friend. His DAC (with better clocks and USB isolation than mine) came awfully close, and boy was he surprised at how lifelike upsampled Redbook could sound (this was also his first time in my room; impact of bass was a shock to him too).

 

It sure seems to be a new day (audiophile-wise) when a $60 piece of software can turn a modest DAC into a giant killer. BTW, my friend is a Windows and Linux user, but after seeing what A+ and the iZotope engine accomplished, he may be saving up for a Mac.

 

Bravo again to Damian. The latest version is another leap forward. My engineer friend and I have some general ideas about what Damien might be optimizing to make these improvements to an already "bit-perfect" player, but I'll share those another time.

 

Cheers,

ALEX

 

I agree with you and Jud and also applaud hard Damien to his incredible effort to please every one, even with the plug-in gadget. Regarding iZotope it's a very different matter than the "Audio Units", but as I said in my first reply, you have the choice to use it, or not. I guess @brlawyer is in my same way of thinking, if not, we disagree.

 

Roch

[wgscott]

So either you admit that this essential premise means nothing and we should all go back to iTunes, or you accept the fact that these so-called audiophile players stick to what they are meant to do.

 

I'm trying to read this as an assertion, rather than an edict, but the wording is definitely pushing it.

 

What if I like Audirvana because it does memory play, upsampling, and automatic sample frequency matching? That doesn't fall so neatly into your rubric, does it?

[Musicophile]

Guys, is it really worth starting another philosophical discussion about a nice new feature?

 

I'm probably not going to use the AU plugins in Audirvana either (instead in Logic, where to me they make more sense), but it's nice to have the option.

[philouu]

Guys, is it really worth starting another philosophical discussion about a nice new feature?

 

I'm probably not going to use the AU plugins in Audirvana either (instead in Logic, where to me they make more sense), but it's nice to have the option.

 

Hello

Some of you were mentioning ACR System 2, FuzzMeasure or FabFilter... to optimise sound in the digital domain (digital room correction) using the new AU feature.

Could you give more details about how you have integrated it with A+ ? Are you satisfied ?

It would add more concrete facts to the "philosophical discussion"...

thanks a lot in advance

philouu

[damien78]

I've just released 1.4.9.7 that brings:

• Audio Units presets load/save
  
• Option to limit bitdepth to 24bit for bridges the offer both 24 and 32bit bitdepth
  
• Fix issue leading to crash in Direct Mode on some Bluetooth devices
  
• and other minor fixes
  

 

Remains the per sample rate upsampling settings to have the feature set for 1.5

 

It is available at the same place: Download Audirvana Plus BETA | Audirvana

 

Damien

[damien78]

Forgot to add the 1.4.9.7 also contains the IK Multimedia, Fabfilter plugins recognition

[petecare]

Damien

I have a strange issue with A+ 1.4.9.6 and mytek_stereo192-dsd-dac_firmware_V1.7.3.b2

When I launch A+ it cannot initialize my peripheriq ( an external Hard Drive Disk).

Playlist are displayed but cannot play any tune.

 

I repair authorizations (internal disk system+external HD where my music is)

At this time A+ can play music,(Pcm upsampling 176.4) but after 10 mn the displaying in Mytek show DSD

 

I try the beta mytek driver with A+ 1.4.6. ok

With Fidelia also

 

I downgrade the mytek firmware with the 1.7.1 version and try with the latest beta A+ with no Audio Unit in use and it's OK

 

I think that issue come from the duet "A+ 1 4 9 6 with AU in use & firmware _V1.7.3.b2"

 

Can you explain this, and/or solve this issue ??

 

Thanks you

Cheers

[petecare]

Forgot to add the 1.4.9.7 also contains the IK Multimedia, Fabfilter plugins recognition

 

Hi Damien

Thanks you, this release works with the IK Multimedia ARC 2 & Fabfilter.

But with the TC Electronic AU " Assimilator Native, Integrator, M40 Reverb, ResFilter Native" nothing appear in the list.

 

With Apple Logic Pro, this AU passed and are displaying...

 

Have a nice day !

[damien78]

Damien

I have a strange issue with A+ 1.4.9.6 and mytek_stereo192-dsd-dac_firmware_V1.7.3.b2

When I launch A+ it cannot initialize my peripheriq ( an external Hard Drive Disk).

Playlist are displayed but cannot play any tune.

 

I repair authorizations (internal disk system+external HD where my music is)

At this time A+ can play music,(Pcm upsampling 176.4) but after 10 mn the displaying in Mytek show DSD

 

I try the beta mytek driver with A+ 1.4.6. ok

With Fidelia also

 

I downgrade the mytek firmware with the 1.7.1 version and try with the latest beta A+ with no Audio Unit in use and it's OK

 

I think that issue come from the duet "A+ 1 4 9 6 with AU in use & firmware _V1.7.3.b2"

 

Can you explain this, and/or solve this issue ??

 

Thanks you

Cheers

 

You have another beta version of the Mytek drivers than the one I have. Maybe they are the cause of this conflict. The main difference between A+ and the other players for the Mytek usage is that A+ recognizes the 4 channels used for DSD128.

Hopefully it will be sorted out with Mytek's next release of drivers.

 

Damien