New Amarra 4

[NickDun]

I didn't use Amarra before, not because I didn't like it but I could never get the software to work properly, and that interface ... uggghhhh!!!

 

But I am running the Amarra 4 trial ... the sounds is so much more "open" and detailed then the Audirvana 2.6 I have been using. I am still playing random stuff just enjoying hearing details and the clarity. And the interface works. I would like to be able to sort lists by other fields such as rate, but am happy so far.

 

So good job!

[NickDun]

Does the iTunes integration mode still work, or have they done away with it?

 

It scanned the songs on the machine into its master playlist. Honestly I have not looked too deeply into libraries etc I still use iTunes to manage the master library as I use that to feed my iPod and playback in other rooms via airplay, so I will be exploring all this in due course. I have noticed that some albums seem to have 2 copies of each song which I don't think is correct so I need to see what happened there.

 

What I was interested in was (a) how good was the sound (stunning, audibly better than audirvana) and was the software usable (at last yes!)

[NickDun]

DOUBLE UP AND NO 192K

 

I previously tried to use Amarra for Tidal, however due to bugs it crashed all the time on my top-of-the-line beefed-up MacBook Pro 2014 model.

 

I upgraded to Amarra 4 yesterday. And ran into two new bugs:

 

(1) Albums scanned from my iTunes folder will contain two versions of every song when put into Amarra. Which means I will have to listen to the same song twice when playing an album.

(2) Hires 24 192k files will play as 96k files only, according to the information on the playback info bar at the bottom of the screen.

 

When I scanned initially I imported the whole music directory, so that imported the copy in the iTunes library AND the unzipped HDTracks or Qobuz file. In some cases I ended up with 4 copies of tracks as I may have had legacy AAC files before getting HD equivalants. I purged the songs and changed the scan directory to only the iTunes Music directory which is my reference and it only added what was in there, so now only one copy of each track.

 

As to the 192, it says it is playing the files at 192 and the DAC (NAD M51) says it is playing at 192 ... I tend to use ALAC not FLAC so it may be that matters but I would be surprised.

 

Hope that helps

[NickDun]

I am sure this has been discussed before but ... how does Pure Music compare with Amarra 4?

 

I have become so frustrated with the library of A4, reclassifying stuff as unknown artist and various artist, not being able to change artwork, loosing tracks etc etc. I thought I would import album by album and check each one ... but even then I found that errors would be made that I simply can't correct, and because of that I can't find tracks to play.

 

So ... looking around I found (probably again). The demo sounds as good as A4 and better than the quite thin sound of vanilla Audirvana+.

 

What have other people found?

 

 

[NickDun]

2 minutes ago, DancingSea said:

 

I have a folder on my desktop called "Amarra Selections".  I use iTunes to navigate my large collection.  I drag the evening's selection from iTunes into the "Amarra Selections" folder.  In Amarra, I add "Amarra Selections" to the library.  20 CD's is lightning fast.  3500 tracks takes under 5 minutes.  I don't touch the scan iTunes feature with a 10' poll as it takes forever, a significant portion will be tossed into various artists, and otherwise they'll be lots of mayhem.

 

I realize Amarra 4 has a very insufficient library management system.  I don't try to make it be what its not, and likely never will be.  But it does handle small batches fairly well, and works great as a player.

 

As for my own psychology, I'm convinced more than ever that the quest for perfect sound is inherently imperfect.  My Hawaiian neighbors have a $200 Walmart sound system and no one, I repeat no one, has more fun listening to music than they do.

 

I joined CA about a year ago.  I've learned a great deal and my system never sounded better.  My system has also never been less fun to listen to.  I'm obsessed with sound quality like never before - at the great expense of fun and enjoyment.

 

Yes, iTunes filled with AAC 256 doesn't sound good to me anymore.  But before CA, it sounded great because I didn't know any better.  And Lord knows, it was way more fun than this dark quagmire of expensive cables, obscure USB devices, and praying I don't hear a harsh digital tone.

 

Amarra is not the problem.  We are the problem!

 

Not quite ... Amarra is a problem! But I think, as of today, Pure Music might be the answer, for me at least..

[NickDun]

1 hour ago, Data said:

Hi All , i read the thread and basicly am in the same boat as dean358 , huge itunes library that is wel organized with lots of playlists  and so on. I always had and still have a mean music system cd and vinyl , and a computer system with itunes and Serato voor djing .

Im am looking to make a dedicated setup ( macmini ) for playing my itunes content over my primary system but as you al know itunes just does not sound good enough over a good system , so i am looking for better software to do that.

 

Audirvana + and Amara seem to be mentiond as the best sounding 2 of the lot but have all kinds of problems with the data base of iTunes .

 

Since i have put so much time and effort into my itunes lib , i dont think either of these will work, so i was wondering if there is anything outhere software wise , that brings the audio to a high level in the background of itunes , so that i ca just use itunes but with a good audio engine .

 

I dont have the need for Flac or SACD support because that is not in iTunes and for those files i'm gonna make a complete seperated user account with a decicated FLAC and SACD library that i will be building from the ground up, for that i will look into A+ and Amara for sure but that will not be any sooner then a year or so from now.

 

With all the experience here what would you suggest ?

 

 

Ty .

 

For the same reason I have retained iTunes and and using Pure Music to pass the digital material to my DAC via the USB. In fact I have a HydraZ USB Bridge between the MacMini and the DAC to recheck the audio precisely. I tried every way to get Amara to behave with the library and it didn't. To me the combination I now have sounds better than the vanilla Audirvana and I really didn't want to get into this and that plug in to get the sound that on any given day sounded good (but I might then play something else and start wondering all over again). What this exercise has taught me is that the quality of production of the various recordings is so variable that in the end I was spending more time compensating for that than just enjoying the mastery of the musicians, so I found something that does the best job of getting the bits to the DAC and then let the system take it from there.

 

I have asked for my money back and Ralph has said someone will be in touch to do that but I haven't heard back yet. I am not holding my breath!

[NickDun]

So SonicStudio have repayed my amarra licence fee ... so I will breathe a huge sigh of relief and move on. I am liking the PureMusic sound but I am tempted to try BitPerfect. With Apple opening up iTunes FLAC and possibly beyond this seems to be the way to go.

 

 

[NickDun]

17 minutes ago, quark said:

 I absolutely agree.

Although my perfectionist character driving my Audiophile obsession forces me to still use Luxe because the sound is so good, so bloody frustrating.

I'm beginning to realise that they are happy knowing their software  frustrates almost every customer because it doesn't do what it supposed to, but many still use it because superior sound. Seems very much like they are just exploiting our Audiophile driven emotional insecurities. They know there's many problems they should fix, but it's just not their priority, it  really looks more like they don't care, after all they have their money now. 

But you are absolutely correct,  it's outrageous that there has been no updates to fix even one of the many many many basic functions that don't work properly. What is the point of playlist,  you can't change the order, you cant delete songs from the list, ridiculous. Creating a playlist in the order you want to listen to it takes you longer than it does to listen to it . The iOS APP has many functions also don't even work, so what's the point in having them. 

They gave me my money back ...

[NickDun]

I am thinking through an idea ...

 

When I listen to analogue, I go to my library and select the LP,  maybe because I have remembered something I want to listen to, or by browsing within a genre (rock, jazz, classical, shows etc). I get the record out of the sleeve, dust it, put it on and carefully drop the needle and listen to that music.

 

So when I want to listen to digital, perhaps I should emulate this. Look in my iTunes library where everything is catalogued (AAC, FLAC, ALAC etc). When I have chosen what I want to listen to I add it to the Amarra library (get the record out of the sleeve and onto the turntable). When I have finished listening I flush the library (put the record back in the sleeve). Then I am ready to listen to the next piece of music. 

 

I had previously paid for Amarra 4 but got my money back when I lost patience with the time I wasted on it which I can never replace in my life. Recently upgraded my system so am tempted to try again ... with different expectations. I accept that the sound is great. I accept that the rest of the software is criminally inadequate and that we are being scammed when it is claimed to have library management but does not ... I accept all this and play the music the way I listen to analogue ...

[NickDun]

I have the same mac & DAC set up with a hydra z in between. I don’t expect anything from the Amarra in terms of file management, I just play what I want to hear and know that I have to rebuild the library with every update. It’s a nonsense but I like the sound so hey ho. The remote is just a disaster ... when it does run it’s not much good as a remote as scrolling the the library is page by page with a big delay ... unusable. As a player on a phone or iPod it just doesn’t work and crashes. I use Korg iAudioGate on the iPod.

[NickDun]

50 minutes ago, Lull said:

Thanks for the replies. So from what I understand, at this time Amarra cannot be used in a headless setup with an IOS device used as a remote. When you guys say you "load and play only the music you want to listen to at that moment", that means you're actually using and controlling Amarra Luxe application on the computer that is physically connected to your DAC, isn't it?

 

Also, I keep on reading how great Amarra's sound quality is. I assume this applies to users who enabled iRC and/or the EQ feature in Amarra? I'm bypassing DSP and volume control in Amarra, the goal being to get bit perfect data transmission to my DAC and therefore Amarra should be out of the equation as far as sound quality is concerned. I hope I'm not missing something here...

 

Cheers!  

 

Hi,

 

I don't use the amarra remote, but I screen share the display of the Mac mini to my laptop and use it from there. In fact Amarra remote on the iPad is not as bad as on the mobile, but is still not ideal.

 

As to the sound, you would think it would be simply a digital path and have no influence on the sound. But it does ... I have not analysed why, but it might be that there are digital filters (why I don't know) or timing issues which cause jitter or ringing ... but the bottom line is Amarra and Audirvana for example do sound different. And I can hear that on the Mac mini/m51 set up.

[NickDun]

Today I bypassed Amarra Luxe and played Qobuz at hi-res directly in the Qobuz for desktop on a Mac Mini, because Qobuz in Amarra seems to lose the ability return Qobuz search results. I should do a back to back comparison of the sound with hi-res downloads in Amarra and the same tracks in Qobuz desktop. The idea of using a mobile is interesting ... I have an iPod touch I could use. Will certainly try that out.

 

I tried Audirvana+ 3.5 and still found it a little too bright and harsh so have not been inclined to replace Amarra with it. I believe MQA to be a bit of a con as it is not lossless so I pay for Qobuz and get their hi-res, whatever that means, rather than Tidal and MQA.

[NickDun]

14 minutes ago, MosfetMist said:

 

Yes I recommend you give it a try, Android is a better option because of this: https://darko.audio/?s=iphone

 

Cheers,

MosfetMist

 

I use Korg's iAudioGate on the iPod touch so I can play FLAC and ALAC etc. I can also use the Qobuz iOS app. So then I can pass the digital signal through the lightning port to my NAD DAC. Not sure what bit/data rate I will get but the DAC will tell me. I will try it and see.

[NickDun]

3 hours ago, Rexp said:

I'm trialling Amarra Luxe now, it does sound good but very slow/glitchy on windows10. Is it same for Mac? 

 

It's not the most reliable software on a Mac no ... I dont manage anything in it. All my music is held on disk and then I import into the library whenever it crashes (not too frequently), hangs on quitting (very often) or when I want to add something new (unpredictable behaviours expected). It seems incapable of searching for a song, especially on Qobuz, but searching for an artist is ok, and sometimes finding an album works. But dont expect to do too many searches before it will freeze.

 

So ... just know what you want to listen to, find a track on a discography site outside it and then search for artist and look for the album that track is on. Finding classical music is frankly a nightmare.

 

I have learned where it puts stuff so I dont fight it anymore. I cancelled my payment twice but came back to it because for me it still sounds the best. Test? Under African Skies on the Paul Simon Gracelands album ... the cowbell at the end sounds like a cowbell on Amarra ... it sounds like a cymbal on things like Audirvana.

 

Nick

[NickDun]

I have gone a different route but with the same end result of being able to get rid of Amarra. I got a Linn Majik DSM with an addition Majik 2100 so I could BiAmp my B&W CM9 S2. This replaced my Rega Elicit-R and Nad M51 DAC ... a big big improvement In sound and I can stream Qobuz, radio etc and use the Mac Mini as a UPnP server. Amarra is gone, dead & buried. No more crashes, terrible library and shocking mobile App.