OS X Snow Leopard Available Friday 8/28/2009

[cfmsp]

Lars said:

"I hope Amarra works with Snow Leopard."

 

 

Might be better to hope that your computer will BENEFIT from Snow Leopard's 64-bit architecture, as opposed to just being able to run it.

 

PowerPC hardware cannot run Snow Leopard, only those with Intel processors need apply, which shouldn't surprise too many people.

 

Anything with Intel processors can run Snow Leopard (albeit older machines will require 1 Gb of RAM).

 

However, for audiophiles expecting to benefit from the speculated improvements based on 64-bit kernel the news is not so good, unless you have hardware of recent vintage.

 

There's a complicated table posted on various sites which will indicate whether your computer is capable of 64 bit processing, as well as other re-written underlying technology.

 

Computers which apparently are NOT supported for 64-bit include:

Mac Mini (2006, 2007)

Mac Pro (pre-2008)

MacBook Pro (ATI graphics) through Late 2006

MacBook (2006-2008)

iMac (Intel, through 2007)

 

Computers which are supported include:

Unibody MacBook Pro

Mac Mini (2009)

Mac Pro (2008, 2009)

MacBook Air (Early 2008-present)

MacBook (2009-present)

Unibody MacBook

iMac (2008 with ATI, 2008 with Nvidia, 2009)

MacBook Pro (Nvidia graphics) from 2007-late 2008

 

I believe the dates listed are 'release dates', i.e., the dates refer to computer models which were released at this time, and later, until a new version was released.

 

Those most likely to lose out appear to be audiophiles who bought Mac Minis prior to the latest version released in 2009.

 

Please don't shoot the messenger, especially as the message might be wrong. I took this info from the table at this link:

 

http://blog.fosketts.net/2009/08/24/mac-os-106-snow-leopard-hands-august-28/

 

Note:

You can check your Mac by typing “ioreg -l -p IODeviceTree | grep firmware-abi” in a Terminal window. If it says “EFI64?, your system is capable of running 64-bit Snow Leopard.

 

 

Clay

 

 

[Lars]

Thanks for the info Clay. I'm ready!

 

[Andrew S.]

Well I am excited - this is the only time I have upgarded os for $29 or so.

 

[minzyman]

Regarding 10.6 -

Snow Leopard has not been fully qualified at this time by the Amarra Team. Our goal is to qualify it over the next few days.

We always recommend waiting a short while before installing any new operating system, as things can happen.

 

/Lee

Amarra marketing

Sonic Studio, LLC

 

 

[cfmsp]

"Snow Leopard has not been fully qualified at this time by the Amarra Team."

 

Whether intentional or not, your (curious) customers will now be the ones 'qualifying' Snow Leopard, or more accurately, 'qualifying' Amarra re it's ability to run on Snow Leopard.

 

Suggesting to your customers that they wait on installing an OS which is believed to provide improvements to audio playback in their own right seems like a bit of a copout to me - to cover for not having done the 'qualification' already.

 

Presumably it should work with the 32-bit kernel, in any event.

 

clay

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[minzyman]

Clay,

I would never suggest to anyone that they dive head first into installation of a brand new OS that has yet to come out, nor has it been tested on internal components/firmware, even one that is "said to provide improvements..", since this can often mean headaches for the user that just wants their system to work. This is just a simple and conservative approach on our part and certainly not a copout. In as soon as a few days, which may seem like an eternity to you, we will most likely release compatibility.

 

/Lee

Sonic Studio, LLC

 

[cfmsp]

 

Lee says:

 

"In as soon as a few days, which may seem like an eternity to you, we will most likely release compatibility"

 

(At least some) people who are currently using/testing Amarra are NOT going to wait for Sonic to do 'qualification' before installing Snow Leopard. People who are 'demoing' with 30-day trial will want to see if it works with Snow Leopard before the trial is over.

 

Will they be disappointed if it doesn't with the knowledge that Sonic could have done the qualification in the months that were available to do so?

 

 

clay

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[David N]

Received my copy of Snow Leopard today and installed it on my MacBook Pro.

The MacBook Pro was purchase in July 2009 and has a SS drive.It is used only for music.

There does not appear to be any glitches.The Weiss DAC 2 operates in firewire mode

and the CA sample rate software operates as before.

Apart from the Audio Midi Setup having a changed appearance nothing seems to have changed.

As yet I do not have Amarra so I can't comment on Amarra.

Does it sound better?Not that I can tell at present.

David N

Australia

 

[minzyman]

David,

 

Your setup with FW to the Dac 2 should provide excellent results. I encourage you to log on to Amarraaudio.com and trial Amarra with this configuration. You should be pleased.

 

/Lee

Sonic Studio, LLC

 

[ted_b]

Macbbook 4Gb with SSD, Weiss DAC2 via FW, Amarra.

 

FedEx hasn't arrived yet, but to my knowledge (and reported on Cnet article today) Snow Leopard installs as 32 bit by default, not 64 bit anyway. An excerpt David (Rydenfan) alerted me to:

____________

"Apple's Snow Leopard operating system, released Friday, by default loads with a 32-bit kernel, despite running 64-bit applications.

 

While Mac OS X version 10.6 ships with a number of 64-bit native applications, the kernel itself defaults to 32-bit, unless the user holds down the "6" and "4" keys during boot time, at which point the 64-bit kernel is loaded. Only Apple's X-Serve products, using Snow Leopard Server, boot into a 64-bit kernel by default.

 

"For the most part, everything that they experience on the Mac, from the 64-bit point of view, the applications, the operating system, is all going to be 64-bit," Stuart Harris, software product marketing manager at Apple Australia said.

 

Harris said that at this stage there were very few things, such as device drivers, that required 64-bit mode at the kernel level but the option is available.

 

"But we're trying to make it as smooth as possible, so people don't end up finding that 'oh, that doesn't work' because it's not available yet," he said.

 

There appears to be no way within the GUI to make this change permanent, requiring the editing of the com.apple.Boot.plist file to make the change--a text-based configuration file. Users have already released applications to address this issue.

 

Older Macs with a 32-bit EFI chipset are prevented from loading the 64-bit kernel, although there are claims that this is an arbitrary decision by Apple rather than a technical concern, with a hack using the Chameleon boot loader devised to get around the lockout. "

________________

Dunno what all this means really. iTune still 32 bit, while Quicktime X is capable of 64 bit?

 

[Tog]

and ... would a 64 bit itunes sound any better?

 

yours, in bits, tog

 

[Tog]

Snowy now installed and purring quietly ... all going well .. except as trailed on the web the brilliant Max is now broken and lifeless ... the guys at sbooth are working on it as we speak.

 

yours, Maxless, tog

 

[jtwrace]

Tog

 

Ouch! That's not what I wanted to hear...I went to the sbooth site and see that there's a .9 release. Does that solve this issue? I was going to install Leopard tonight but will wait until you report that all is OK and that Amarra is working well.

 

[rlodad]

Hi all,

Apparently there has been a lot of misunderstanding about Snow Leopard running on 32 vs 64 bit native macs. I am out of my personal knowledge base, but the fact apparently is that most Intel macs can run 64 bit applications in Snow Leopard. A good explanation for those potentially confused by Clay's post might look here:

 

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2128052&tstart=135

 

(No offense intended, Clay...)

 

Brad

 

[Tog]

Nope Max .9 is the one causing all the issues .. but rolling back to previous versions won't work either - lets hope the guys can fix it.

 

 

yours, on tender hooks, tog

 

[cfmsp]

 

"(No offense intended, Clay...)"

 

and none received.

 

Allow me to clarify why I posted my comments.

 

It has been speculated that a 64-bit rewrite of Core Audio / Quicktime might improve the sound of iTunes.

 

The point of my post was not to confuse, or be alarmist, but to point out that only certain hardware will be able to run 64-bit applications natively.

 

IOW, those expecting iTunes to sound better should check to see if their hardware is actually 64-bit capable.

 

I fully expect that most applications will run successfully on any machine that Snow Leopard can be installed on.

 

Apologies if that was misunderstood - apparently it was.

 

Clay

 

 

 

 

[emmodad]

i seem to recall info (somewhere) that the iTunes application itself is one of the items specifically not rewritten to 64-bit native code in time for SL release. can anyone confirm this with definitive information, and an attributable source?

 

before general audiocardial infarction results in those obsessing on how iTunes processes audio data.... recall this issue means (pending clarification, and CompSci guys pls excuse the poor terminology) only that the "instructions" in the iTunes "program" would not be in the "new" native 64-bit instruction set. It does not mean that the program would be somehow deficient in handling of audio data.

 

several senior software folk from a certain large fruit company live in my neighborhood.... if i happen to have any audio-obsessive conversation with them while walking the dog, i'll post relevant info.....