Audirvana 2.2 with iOS remote

[craighartley]

I'm sorry if you don't find it a compelling argument that I prefer to have a lossless streaming service included in my choice of music software player. You may personally not care, but that does not mean my position is less valid.

 

I'm sorry if I didn't make myself clear. Your personal preference is obviously at least as valid as mine. But my point was that it isn't necessarily good for A+ to follow the general trend when it's distinctiveness is one of its advantages and when the general trend is often for convenience over sound quality.

[craighartley]

I personally consider Qobuz, a lossless streaming service, as an essential source for audiophiles, and therefore appreciate the integration.

 

Surprised you make such a virtue of it being lossless. Obviously red book streaming is preferable to MP3, but it doesn't seem to me particularly lossless to stream as red book files that are otherwise available at their original (higher) recorded resolution.

[Musicophile]

Surprised you make such a virtue of it being lossless. Obviously red book streaming is preferable to MP3, but it doesn't seem to me particularly lossless to stream as red book files that are otherwise available at their original (higher) recorded resolution.

 

This is getting a bit OT, but at least 95% of all music out there is available at 16/44, and less than 5% was either recorded or remastered in higher res.

[craighartley]

This is getting a bit OT, but at least 95% of all music out there is available at 16/44, and less than 5% was either recorded or remastered in higher res.

 

Interesting statistics. It would be interesting and pertinent to know what % of music played on A+ is 16/44. I'm evidently atypical but I use it to play 1394 downloaded albums all of which are either 24 bit PCM at 88.2 kHz or above, or native DSD. (I also have a lot of CDs and a CD player).

[craighartley]

Interesting statistics. It would be interesting and pertinent to know what % of music played on A+ is 16/44. I'm evidently atypical but I use it to play 1394 downloaded albums all of which are either 24 bit PCM at 88.2 kHz or above, or native DSD. (I also have a lot of CDs and a CD player).

 

Sorry, I had a search filter inadvertently set: actually 19 of the 1394 albums are 16/44.

[Melvin]

I personally consider Qobuz, a lossless streaming service, as an essential source for audiophiles, and therefore appreciate the integration.

 

Streaming is here to stay if we like it or not (whether Qobuz is here to stay given their financial worries is a different topic).

 

A video integration like Jriver is a completely different story.

 

That said, while Damien is currently developing something close to the perfect product for my personal needs, I appreciate that others may have different priorities.

 

You'll probably never keep everybody happy!

 

Indeed no, Diamien (or anyone for that matter) will never be able keep us all happy. I am hoping A+ remains as lean and mean as possible and while streaming is important to me as well, I simply use it in a casual way only (like radio). To each his own. Personally, I do not want another iTunes or JRMC.

 

I apologize if this was too off topic but I just wanted to air my concern. Peace.

[Cycleman]

Sorry, I had a search filter inadvertently set: actually 19 of the 1394 albums are 16/44.

 

And 1973 of my 2026 albums -- or more than 97% -- are 16/44, nearly all ripped from CDs.

 

I wonder if you're atypical, like you write, how typical is my balance?

[Gonzbull]

Qobuz has quite a limited audience. I myself only stream when I want background music so quality don't matter so much. Much rather have A+ do what is doing that integrate all this other stuff and lower its quality.

Why do streamers have to go through A+ anyway?

[Musicophile]

Qobuz has quite a limited audience. I myself only stream when I want background music so quality don't matter so much. Much rather have A+ do what is doing that integrate all this other stuff and lower its quality.

Why do streamers have to go through A+ anyway?

 

Why does everyone assume adding another source automatically lowers the quality? It all feeds the same playback engine.

 

And to your last questions: it actually sounds really good listening to Qobuz though A+, I prefer it to what I get via Amarra SQ. As a result you have all your music in one place, whether it is virtual or on your own hard drive, and will be eventually controllable via remote.

 

And while 25,000 Qobuz users may not be a lot in absolute terms, a small company like Audirvana probably would be happy selling 25,000 licenses I'd assume.

[craighartley]

Indeed no, Diamien (or anyone for that matter) will never be able keep us all happy. I am hoping A+ remains as lean and mean as possible and while streaming is important to me as well, I simply use it in a casual way only (like radio). To each his own. Personally, I do not want another iTunes or JRMC.

.

 

Ah yes, radio! - now I'd love to be able to stream BBC Radio 3 live concerts over A+, like I can over JRiver; then I can stop using JRiver....

[pl_svn]

And 1973 of my 2026 albums -- or more than 97% -- are 16/44, nearly all ripped from CDs.

 

I wonder if you're atypical, like you write, how typical is my balance?

 

had no idea so I checked right now: just 200 out of my 1300 albums are Hi-Res

but the ratio will increase as I stopped buying physical CDs and buy online HiRes versions if/whenever available

(even though some of my 16/44 ripped CDs do sound way better than many HiRes ones. but that's another story )

[franz159]

... Audirvana Plus is for audiophiles, not the masses. If Damien chooses to develop the program for the masses, so be it. I have iTunes for that, and it's quite good at all things media IMNSHO...

 

Sorry, but I found this quite funny.

Maybe not "for the masses", but I'm sure that Damien would be happy if A+ sales grow....not necessarily with the same number of iTunes.

 

Personally, I would be very happy if after Qobuz the next service to be integrated could be Tidal.

 

Having said that, the judgement on development priorities (eg streaming vs DSD upsampling) is of course to the Audirvana team.

[franz159]

Sorry, I had a search filter inadvertently set: actually 19 of the 1394 albums are 16/44.

Out of curiosity, how could you generate that statistics so easily?

I would be curious to do the same on my 40000+ files collection: all I know is that I have 16/44, 24/48, 24/96, 24/88.2, maybe some 24/176.4, less than ten 24/192 album and a couple album each of DSD64 and DSD128

[sifata]

Try finding a Crossfader Audio Unit plugin, and use it into A+. Or even with anything out of the Mac if using Audio Hijack to route the signal.

 

+1

[pl_svn]

Out of curiosity, how could you generate that statistics so easily?

I would be curious to do the same on my 40000+ files collection: all I know is that I have 16/44, 24/48, 24/96, 24/88.2, maybe some 24/176.4, less than ten 24/192 album and a couple album each of DSD64 and DSD128

 

just create a Smart Playlist using Bit Depth and Sample Rate as criteria

[orgel]

Out of curiosity, how could you generate that statistics so easily?

 

A+'s smart playlists are your friend, supplemented/complemented by judicious selection of values for the structured filter browser.

 

In my case, I currently have a total of 1,537 albums in my A+ library. Of these, 633 albums are PCM with better than Redbook resolution, and 344 are DSD/DSF. So with my terrible math skills, I'm thinking ~63.5% of my A+ library is high-res.

 

--David

[RunHomeSlow]

Out of curiosity, how could you generate that statistics so easily?

I would be curious to do the same on my 40000+ files collection: all I know is that I have 16/44, 24/48, 24/96, 24/88.2, maybe some 24/176.4, less than ten 24/192 album and a couple album each of DSD64 and DSD128

 

If you set your main window a bit like mine, you can see how many tracks of each Depth or Sample Rate you have

 

[BobP63]

IMO Support for "any" streaming service should be an optional add on to A+, not something integrated into to application itself. Streaming services can come and go, or make changes that render them incompatible with A+. Why integrate a service which is totally beyond the developers control into the application?

[RickDastardly]

That's hardly a compelling argument. I found Roon less convenient because I prefer the simple elegance of A+ and the prioritisation of SQ. Maybe it's good sometimes to keep distinct from the way 'things are moving' (cf MP3, dynamic compression, etc).

 

I'm a Qobuz subscriber, so I'm curious to see how integration affects A+. But I hope there's a way of turning off the Qobuz element because I don't necessarily want my serious listening setup connected to the Internet, and the Qobuz element complicating the interface. (I use Qobuz mainly for sampling new releases and took out the subscription partly to give me discounts off high res downloads).

 

Refining the A+ remote (eg access to PDF album booklets) is far more important to me than streaming integration.

 

I just wanted to say that I am in the same boat regarding Qobuz integration. I took out my current subscription for the same reason as you, on also mainly use it for sampling albums before I buy them. I would therefore also hope that the Qobuz integration can be turned on or off to suit the user.

[franz159]

A+'s smart playlists are your friend, supplemented/complemented by judicious selection of values for the structured filter browser.

 

In my case, I currently have a total of 1,537 albums in my A+ library. Of these, 633 albums are PCM with better than Redbook resolution, and 344 are DSD/DSF. So with my terrible math skills, I'm thinking ~63.5% of my A+ library is high-res.

 

--David

 

Thank you!

 

.... and 76% of mine is CD quality!

 

[TABLE=width: 339]

[TR]

[TD]Bit depth/Sample rate[/TD]

[TD]# of items[/TD]

[TD]%[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]16/44.1 kHz[/TD]

[TD]27614[/TD]

[TD]76,27%[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]16/48 kHz[/TD]

[TD]4184[/TD]

[TD]11,56%[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]24/96 kHz[/TD]

[TD]1979[/TD]

[TD]5,47%[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]24/48 kHz[/TD]

[TD]694[/TD]

[TD]1,92%[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]24/44.1 kHz[/TD]

[TD]649[/TD]

[TD]1,79%[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]24/88.2 kHz[/TD]

[TD]643[/TD]

[TD]1,78%[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]24/192 kHz[/TD]

[TD]250[/TD]

[TD]0,69%[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]DSD64-DSD128[/TD]

[TD]93[/TD]

[TD]0,26%[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]24/176.4 kHz[/TD]

[TD]67[/TD]

[TD]0,19%[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]24/352.8 kHz[/TD]

[TD]30[/TD]

[TD]0,08%[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]16/96 kHz[/TD]

[TD]4[/TD]

[TD]0,01%[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD][/TD]

[TD]36207[/TD]

[TD]100,00%

[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

 

 

[Leeuwarden]

What software do you use to check this?

[Musicophile]

I just wanted to say that I am in the same boat regarding Qobuz integration. I took out my current subscription for the same reason as you, on also mainly use it for sampling albums before I buy them. I would therefore also hope that the Qobuz integration can be turned on or off to suit the user.

As said before, if you don't sign up to Qobuz on A+, you won't even see it. It is just one more source to select in the left hand side bar, just below play queue and library.

[Melvin]

Why does everyone assume adding another source automatically lowers the quality? It all feeds the same playback engine.

 

Good question. It's because as audiophiles and not "the masses" (funny? @franz159), we are a ridiculous and pedantic lot who obsess over everything. (Just glance at the various REGEN threads or one of the USB cable threads.) There has been much talk over the years about removing the "bloat" from audio software in order to "quiet" the computer processes and yes, we obsess perhaps needlessly. Nonetheless, here I sit thinking of just that .. will these additions to A+ negatively impact the sound quality?

 

While at first put off by Sonic Studio's approach to streaming, in time I realized my preference for stand-alone streaming-type apps (sQ+, Amarra for Tidal). Of course, this all may change in the future.

[franz159]

What software do you use to check this?

 

If the question was for me and for the pie chart I posted in post #670, I originally created various smart playlist based on bit depth and sample frequency in A+, as explained to me just a few posts before.

I was so amazed having "discovered" the great power and flexibility of Audirvana smart playlist that I felt the urgency to post my "statistics" (which admittedly are surely of interest to no-one )

Than I put the numbers for all bit depth/sample frequencies in Excel and created the chart.

[Leeuwarden]

Thanks Franz, I was hoping some kind of smart application did the trick. Too bad for me... (I'm a bit lazy to create such smart playlists )