Need Help With Audirvana Questions

[steklo]

Hello,

there is much talking in this thread about new Audirvana features like streaming and upsampling to DSD, which definitively are nice to have. But for the moment they do not apply to me: I have a large enough local library to explore for quite some time into the future and my system is restricted to PCM CD resolution (AR-T Legato USB/SPDIF converter into Audio Note nonos DAC).

Until now I use Amarra in iTunes mode in order to control my headless MacMini over the iOS Remote app. I got used to it but for sure it could be better in terms of usability. The last time I tried Audirvana was 1.5.x in iTunes mode but now with version 2.x including its own library management and remote Audirvana might turn out to be a smoother choice. Some short questions which could make the difference for me:

1) I do all metadata editing in iTunes. One essential thing for me in iTunes is the "sort by" tab, because I want my albums being sorted by the last name of the artists. E.g. I type "John Lennon" into the artist and album artist tab and "Lennon, John" into the sort by tab. With albums sorted by artist's name "John Lennon" appears in the L region. That is the way used to store my vinyl and CDs all those years and I want my digital library to be sorted just that way.

Will Audirvana automatically read iTunes' sort by tab and sort my albums the same way? And will this show up the same way in Audirvana's remote app?

2) I understand that I can import my iTunes library into Audirvana or, alternatively, link Audirvana to my iTunes library. As I want to keep my iDevices synced to my music library I'd prefer the latter. Does that have any disadvantages as compared to an import into Audirvana?

3) If I link Audirvana to my iTunes library and edit metadata in iTunes, the changes will show up in Audirvana the next time I launch it, right? What about metadata editing done in Audirvana? Will those changes appear in iTunes too? In other words, does Audirvana write into the music files or does it store metadata somewhere else?

4) I see that Audirvana supports some more metadata than iTunes such as "soloist", "orchestra" etc. which is very nice for classical. These tags are not available in iTunes. Are there any incompatibilities?

5) Is it possible to edit my library's metadata with Audirvana's remote app?

6) The latest iTunes remote version for iPhone had a large disadvantage: When I browse my library with albums sorted by artists name and I choose an artist who is represented with a number of albums things get difficult: Instead of seeing exclusively the albums, all the albums are unfolded and show all the tracks they contain. So the list displayed can be very long and prevents to get a quick overview of the albums available of this artist. Furthermore if the album I search happens to be down the list, I have to scroll down for a very long time through all the albums unfolded.

I remember this has been similar with the early version of the Audirvana remote. Has that been cured by now?

It would be nice if some of you Audirvana users could comment on these basic questions.

Best regards

Stefan

[Musicophile]

Hello,

there is much talking in this thread about new Audirvana features like streaming and upsampling to DSD, which definitively are nice to have. But for the moment they do not apply to me: I have a large enough local library to explore for quite some time into the future and my system is restricted to PCM CD resolution (AR-T Legato USB/SPDIF converter into Audio Note nonos DAC).

Until now I use Amarra in iTunes mode in order to control my headless MacMini over the iOS Remote app. I got used to it but for sure it could be better in terms of usability. The last time I tried Audirvana was 1.5.x in iTunes mode but now with version 2.x including its own library management and remote Audirvana might turn out to be a smoother choice. Some short questions which could make the difference for me:

1) I do all metadata editing in iTunes. One essential thing for me in iTunes is the "sort by" tab, because I want my albums being sorted by the last name of the artists. E.g. I type "John Lennon" into the artist and album artist tab and "Lennon, John" into the sort by tab. With albums sorted by artist's name "John Lennon" appears in the L region. That is the way used to store my vinyl and CDs all those years and I want my digital library to be sorted just that way.

Will Audirvana automatically read iTunes' sort by tab and sort my albums the same way? And will this show up the same way in Audirvana's remote app?

That is a feature that has been requested by many A+ users for a while, but not yet implemented. I hope Damien will eventually get to it.

2) I understand that I can import my iTunes library into Audirvana or, alternatively, link Audirvana to my iTunes library. As I want to keep my iDevices synced to my music library I'd prefer the latter. Does that have any disadvantages as compared to an import into Audirvana?

 

https://audirvana.com/delivery/Audirvana%20Plus%20User%20Manual.pdf

 

There a not a lot of fundamental differences between the two modes (see p. 6 of the manual). In both cases, A+ creates it's own library that is separate from the Itunes catalog, but obviously links to the same music files. If you chose the second method the main difference is that A+ also copies all your Itunes playlists, whereas in the first way it imports only the music files itself and catalogs them.

 

In both cases you'll have one library in Itunes and another one in A+, both pointing to the same music files. That's the way I use A+.

3) If I link Audirvana to my iTunes library and edit metadata in iTunes, the changes will show up in Audirvana the next time I launch it, right? What about metadata editing done in Audirvana? Will those changes appear in iTunes too? In other words, does Audirvana write into the music files or does it store metadata somewhere else?

 

A+ writes all metadata into the files, unlike Itunes, who keep some metadata (e.g. album covers) separately. Sometimes Itunes doesn't recognize these changes, in this case you need to sync the two libraries, which you can do at any time. This also syncs the playlists.

4) I see that Audirvana supports some more metadata than iTunes such as "soloist", "orchestra" etc. which is very nice for classical. These tags are not available in iTunes. Are there any incompatibilities?

Haven't found any incompatiblities yet, Itunes just ignores the additional tags.

 

5) Is it possible to edit my library's metadata with Audirvana's remote app?

Unfortunately, not to my knowledge.

 

6) The latest iTunes remote version for iPhone had a large disadvantage: When I browse my library with albums sorted by artists name and I choose an artist who is represented with a number of albums things get difficult: Instead of seeing exclusively the albums, all the albums are unfolded and show all the tracks they contain. So the list displayed can be very long and prevents to get a quick overview of the albums available of this artist. Furthermore if the album I search happens to be down the list, I have to scroll down for a very long time through all the albums unfolded.

I remember this has been similar with the early version of the Audirvana remote. Has that been cured by now?

It would be nice if some of you Audirvana users could comment on these basic questions.

Best regards

Stefan

I seem to have missed this post. Hope my answers help. See above.

 

In the end, I find the experience with A+ and the remote app much smoother than Amarra with Itunes, as I too often had bugs with Amarra.

 

Whether you prefer the SQ of Amarra (sligthly smoother) or A+ (slightly more analytic and resolving) is a matter of taste.

[steklo]

Thanks a lot for your comprehensive comments. I'll probably wait until Damien implements the "sort by" functionality as this is an essential need for me. I hope he will do within the next upgrades.

 

Your description of SQ differences is exactly what I remember from last time I compared (it was a 1.5.x version), though the differences were quite subtle. I wonder if the standalone mode shouldn't improve SQ further?

[Musicophile]

Thanks a lot for your comprehensive comments. I'll probably wait until Damien implements the "sort by" functionality as this is an essential need for me. I hope he will do within the next upgrades.

 

Your description of SQ differences is exactly what I remember from last time I compared (it was a 1.5.x version), though the differences were quite subtle. I wonder if the standalone mode shouldn't improve SQ further?

 

Feel free to drop Damien a message (he's on this forum) or use the feature request thread. While this feature is non-essential to me, many have requested it, and a reminder certainly doesn't hurt.

 

A+ has made a clear jump in SQ from 1.5. It's still resolving, but smoother (in PCM mode, I don't have a DSD DAC and cannot test the PCM to DSD conversion).

[JoeWhip]

I find the current software to be a significant SQ upgrade over 1.5.