New Amarra 4

[DancingSea]

3 hours ago, GregWormald said:

 

"Too expensive" is also personal.?

 

While I am happy with many of my "too expensive" *things*, I haven't tried Roon. Maybe I'll give it a trial run.

 

It would have to sound much better than AL me to spend my money on it. While I hate the bugs in AL, and the lack of flexibility in the library, I really enjoy its musical presentation.

 

 

Roon actually doesn’t sound that great, it needs HQP.  A4L is much better than Roon alone, for sound quality.  But the Roon library management, programming, and remote are really really good.

[DancingSea]

My year with Roon will be up soon, and as much as like Roon, I still can't justify the price.  I'm at the point of needing to pay $380 for the lifetime subscription balance or continuing to pay $120 year after year.  This week I've been re-exploring other players to see if I can live without the Roon/ HQP combo.

 

I've been fairly happy with Amarra in iTunes mode.  It has played bug free all week and I much prefer the iTunes library system to Amarra's.  Sounds pretty good.  Have left the Amarra local library empty, and have also used A4L with Tidal.

 

HQP, sans Roon, has also worked well.  I believe it sounds a tad better than with Roon.  While HQP's library system functions without bugs, it is very dated, so I've just been dragging in albums or playlists from iTunes - using HQP as a player only, rather than library management. Although I do have my entire DSD collection loaded into HQP.

 

I find it odd that Amarra doesn't allow for DSD via DoP playback without PCM conversion.  Especially given that apparently Sonic Studio, according to Wikipedia, bought the DSD tool division from Philips in 2005.  One would think that position them well to allow for DSD via DoP?? Also, it seems Sonic Studio has pioneered quite a few things in the recording industry, its a legit innovator and not just some a lone guy in his basement creating software (no offense to HQP or A+!).  This makes me think SS is more than capable of during the A+ bugs, just wonder why it takes them years to do so, if at all.....?

[DancingSea]

Amarra does not need the internet in order to play music. 

[DancingSea]

To make sure, email Ralph [email protected]

[DancingSea]

To update the journey.  My year Roon subscription has ended and I did not renew it.  For me, $120 per year ongoing, or $500 now is too much for library management, as good as it is.

 

I now use Amarra like this for PCM:

1) In iTunes integration mode if I’m lazy.

2) Tidal in Amarra

3) If not lazy, will drag a play list from iTunes, into a folder, and then import into Amarra Luxe.

 

And HQPlayer like this:

1) For all DSD playback.  To me, sounds better than HQP w/ Roon.

2) If not lazy, will dray a PCM playlist from iTunes into a folder and import into HQP.

 

For me, I get the best SQ this way, but do miss Roon’s slick library system.  I’m eager to try A+. 3.5.

[DancingSea]

On 4/7/2019 at 9:23 PM, church_mouse said:

@DancingSea

 

My recollection is that you were not a great fan of the sound of A+.  From my testing of the beta of A+ 3.5, I have not heard anything which might cause you to change your mind - it sounds like A+.

 

For me, Amarra is still a lovely sounding basket case - in my set-up, perhaps the most unrelieable piece of software I have ever used. 

 

As for Roon - I do not think I listen to music in a way which makes the USP of Roon attractive to me.

 

Happy listening.

 

Yes, Amarra is a problem child for sure.  I’m finding it works best with its local library empty.  Either iTunes integration mode, or Tidal seem to work well.  The other day when I loaded a meager 40 tracks into Amarra’s local library I got that loud pop between tracks that causes concern for the health of my tweeters.

 

I downloaded A+ 3.5 yesterday and will try it out.  I so much want to like A+ as it would solve my music player woes.  The new interface is really good, somewhat Roon like.  I’m wondering if my brightness issue might have to do with my 20 year old DH Labs Silver Sonic T14 speaker cables, silver coated copper.  Just ordered some AudioQuest Rocket 33’s (bi wire) that are reputed for being warm and full bodied, pure copper, no silver.  I’m hoping this will bring me to peace with Audirvana.

 

Roon is, in my assessment, too expensive for a library management system, great as it is along with its capacity to work with HQPLAYER.

[DancingSea]

I do still like the Amarra sound.  iTunes integration mode functions well for me, but doesn't sound quite as good as stand alone.  Tidal streaming works great.

 

The last few days I have been playing around with the latest Audirvana 3.5 beta 21.  The new interface is great, somewhat Roon like.  Its still a beta, so there are a few minor bugs that are being sorted.  The remote is also quite good.

 

As for sound, using the attached Copy_of_A Amarra like Izotope settings for Audirvana, as well as the Wave Arts Tube Saturator (I have the paid version, but there is a free one) AU plugin, I have to say, Audirvana is sounding pretty good.  And I've not liked A+ for years, but the latest sound is better.  And the level of programming is way way beyond Amarra.  And it handles DSD via DoP, which Amarra *still*, after all these years, does not.

 

I've also been dragging AIFF files directly from iTunes into HQPlayer, and that works well also.

 

The upsampling below ought to be "Power of 2"....

[DancingSea]

23 minutes ago, NickDun said:

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.

 

I agree, A+ has always sounded bright to me compared to Amarra.  3.5 seems less so, and with the Wave Arts Tube Saturator, and the settings I posted, it sounds very close to Amarra...  but I still like Amarra’s sound...

[DancingSea]

29 minutes ago, MosfetMist said:

 

 

@DancingSea bear in mind that a lot of DACs already do upsampling internally without even advertise it (PSAudio, Chord Qute etc.), so this settings would make no sense in many cases unless you have a NOS DAC or you're sure your DAC doesn't do any implicit upsampling (also DAC chips can do internal upsampling too, Burr Brown comes to mind).

 

Cheers,

MosfetMist

 

 

I agree.  I have the DirectStream Junior DAC.  It upsamples everything to DSD 1024.  But I still like to manipulate the sound before it reaches the DAC.  Amarra is a colored sound, one I happen to like.  So the settings are just a way to make A+ 3.5 more like Amarra.....

 

If Amarra had Audirvana’s and Roon’s level of stability and functionality, Amarra would win hands down.  But Sonic Studios seems incapable of such a product.

[DancingSea]

1 hour ago, NickDun said:

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 have found that in A+ 3.5, using the Sox filter, per Damien’s suggestion, lowering the “bandwidth” filter does reduce brightness to taste....

[DancingSea]

1 hour ago, MosfetMist said:

 

Yes, both Amarra and A+ are coloured sound, I just think "they should announce it" because I didn't know it and had lots of issues trying to set up my system to my liking, and on top of that they should offer a "direct source" option,

 

Cheers,

MosfetMist 

 

To my understanding, if you’re using a Mac for instance, when sound is sent from the Mac towards the DAC, its inherently processed by the Mac Core Audio.  Most audiophiles believe Core Audio is not a worthy sound processor.  Thus software like Amarra or A+ bypass Core Audio and use their own processing instead.

 

In A+, its possible to turn off the A+ sound engine and use Core Audio if you like.

 

Even something simple like BitPerfect, I believe, sets aside Core Audio in favor of its own scheme.  Which is to say, all of these software solutions to bypass Core Audio do their own thing to the sound to varying degrees.  Core Audio is the problem, and others can correct me, but I believe that if Core Audio is going to be bypassed, it must be replaced by something at the computer level in order to get sound from your Mac or PC to the DAC.

[DancingSea]

2 hours ago, Paul R said:

 

A one time cost of $500, and the ability to use as many clients, of as many different varieties as you like, seems pretty inexpensive in the long run, to me. YMMV!  Plays just about everywhere; computers, Rendus, iPads, iPhones, Android whatever. 

 

I own licenses for Amaraa, A+, JRMC, Pure Music / Pure Vinyl,  Bitperfect, and a half dozen others. Some I like, some drive me crazy with crashes, some are just dogs.

 

Roon never seems to crash, is easy to add stuff to, and sounds great, depending upon the platform and DAC. That’s my biggest reason for being a Roon fan I guess. Crashing software is my number one hate when it comes to audio.

 

I am am definitely not a fan of A+ - for me at least, it crashes almost as often as Amarra, which seems to be the champ at crashing while charging just about the same as a Roon. 

 

 

 

For me, Audirvana always functioned well, much better than Amarra, but A+ always sounded too bright and aggressive no matter what I did.  3.5 sounds much better to me, though I still prefer the Amarra sound. 

 

Roon is unquestionably the most most functional and best programmed of the lot.  No close second. But for me, Roon on its own sounds mediocre, and their subscription scheme is off putting. 

[DancingSea]

6 hours ago, church_mouse said:

My solution, though this may seem a bit combersome, has been to use SQ+ as the sound device.  My experience has been that to get this to be pretty solid, one has to upsample everything to the same rate because SQ+ does not handle well sample rate changes.

 

I use either Audirvana, now on v3.5, (when I am controlling using my ipad), or JRiver/BubbleUPnPServer controlled by the Bubble Android app on my Android tablet.  In both A+ and JRMC, I use SOX upsampling to the max rate my firewire output can handle (192).

 

A+ and JRMC are set to output to the Sonic device which then feeds my Mytek.

 

I don't experience crashes, but SQ+ does not allow me to save this as the default set up, so if my MacMini has to reboot then I do have to go back in to SQ+ just to reset the sound output device.

 

I like the sound this gives me which, at the end of the day, is what is important to me.

 

That’s interesting.  Do I understand correctly that you’re using Sonic Studio’s SQ+ app for the sound?  How does that work.  For instance, if you’re using A+ and its feeding through the Sonic Studio SQ+, are you ending up with Amarra like sound via SQ+?  Or is it a mixture of A+ and SQ+?

 

To qualify my A+ 3.5 endorsement, I really only like it with the WaveArts Tube Saturator to soften the A+ highs.  The plugin doesn’t seem to work with DSD.  While DSD sounds good in A+ 3.5, the highs are a bit much, no matter how I adjust them in the Sox/ Izotope settings.  The same files in HQPLAYER are silky smooth in comparison.

[DancingSea]

3 hours ago, Melvin said:

 

When I was using a Mac mini for my audio pleasure I used sQ+ in the same manner quite often. If I ever go back to a Mac I will certainly use it again .. I'm a fan. It indeed brings the Sonic Studio house sound to any audio stream. Being a product of Sonic Studio it has some idiosyncrasies, of course, but I found it to be quite stable for the most part.

 

@DancingSea .. if memory serves I also tried sQ+ with HQPlayer (along with JRMC and Audirvana) to good effect. BTW, I'm basically in the same camp as you regarding Roon. It's a great product but a bit too pricey for my needs/wants. As to being back in the Amarra world .. best of luck and good listening. 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for the feedback.  I do prefer the more full  Amarra sound to A+ 3.5. I tried SQ+ a couple of years ago. It did something weird to my entire Mac audio system that required me to delete it entirely.  I don’t recall what version that was. 

 

Luxe has has been performing well as long as I keep its local library empty and use iTunes or Tidal.  It’s an intriguing notion to use SQ+ with Audirvana or HQPlayer. 

 

Luxe in browser mode sounds really good. Just always waiting for something weird to happen!,

[DancingSea]

19 hours ago, church_mouse said:

Feeding the sound through SQ+ does "flavour" it with the Amarra house sound (others more knowledgeable than I will no doubt have a better idea as to whether this is because SQ+ is avoiding elements of coreaudio, or simply that Amarra applies some proprietary dsp to everything fed through SQ+).  However, the upsampling settings chosen in A+ do impact too  - in Izotope terms, one can still hear the differences between a shallow filtered, minimum phase setting and a very steep, linear phase setting. 

 

Since I use SOX upsampling in JRMC (and one has no control over the SOX setting), I switched to SOX upsampling in A+ when it was introduced some time ago and played with the settings until I got the sound coming through SQ+ to sound pretty similar whether I fed it via JRMC or A+.

 

I do not have any DSD material, so I have no idea how my set up would handle that.

 

The Air Motion tweeters in my speakers are quite gentle (soft), so I am reluctant to suggest feeding A+ through SQ+ could tame the A+ sound enough for you.

 

I downloaded a trial of SQ+.  How do you set it up with Audirvana?  I have SQ+ with my DAC as the output device (actually a Matrix Audio X SPDIF 2, I2s converter).  In Audirvana, do you set "SonicStream" as the output device?

 

I did all of that, but get no sound.

 

I tried setting the Matrix as the output device in A+, but that bypasses SQ+ entirely....

 

Help appreciated.

[DancingSea]

I was able to get SQ+ to work with Audirvana 3.5, for the most part.  DSD would not play, nor would TIdal MQA.  I do think A+ sounds better with SQ+, though I’m not yet clear if it’s better than Luxe.  HQPlayer wouldn’t work with SQ+ at all, not sure why.

[DancingSea]

I tried SQ+ with Audirvana and found it inconsistent at best.  Often, it refused to play.

 

Last night, out of the blue, Luxe offered an update that now, seemingly 75 years in the making, allows for AU units.  Works well, except the only way to turn them off is to quit the program, the disconnect command doesn’t seem to work.

 

For me, Luxe continues to work well as long as I do not use its local library, but instead use Tidal and iTunes.....

 

C’mon Sonic Studios, I believe you bought the rights to SACD’s from Philips, right?  So lets get DSD via DoP integrated to Luxe, you can do it, just believe in yourself!

[DancingSea]

As a veteran of the Amarra swamp lands, I eventually gave up entirely on it.  With Roon plus HQPlayer 4 (backend) I'm able to get equally good sound, and an infinitely better library management system and iPad remote.  Amarra was so tedious to use.  Roon is smooth like butter, never a glitch, ever.  I ended up buying a Roon lifetime license.

[DancingSea]

18 hours ago, Rexp said:

This is without upsampling I assume? 

 

I have HQP4 upsample mostly to DSD128, but some things I take to PCM 356.  My DirectStream Junior DAC then upsamples everything to DSD 1024. Roon is only for the library and user interface. 

[DancingSea]

3 hours ago, 6rs said:

But there is another issue still: After going through the measuring procedure with Dirac and the UMIK microphone, voices  no longer locate to the center but shift to the right. Has anybody experienced that as well?

 

The issue is Amarra itself.  The programmers simply lack the capacity to make a high quality product in terms of bugs.  Sounds great.  Eternally buggy.  That is reality.

[DancingSea]

7 hours ago, DJ_Polaco said:

Hi, I'm interested in trying this solution but what exactly does "Roon plus HQPlayer 4 (backend)" mean? Sorry, I'm relatively ignorant.

 

Excellent replies thus far.  The only thing I’d add is price.  Roon costs $120 per year or $699 for a lifetime license.  HQPLAYER costs $249.   The combo is, in my experience, vastly superior to Amarra or Audirvana in every way except price.  I went the lifetime route, thinking of it as a component purchase.  

[DancingSea]

The developer of Amarra, in its many forms including SQ, lacks the capacity to produce a stable product.  It makes no difference if they updated it or not. 

[DancingSea]

25 minutes ago, DJ_Polaco said:

I get that. But is there really no other company making a similar type of product? It seems that they can't do what they do, but neither can anyone else. Is there no money to be made selling this sort of stuff? Why this apparent gap in the market?

 

I am unfamiliar with DJ software, this is an audiophile forum.  To my knowledge, there is no other Amarra SQ+ like product in the audiophile universe, something that effects the sound system wide.  I have used SQ+ and the scope of its influence messed up all sorts of unintended things on my Mac.  As for DJ centric products, I truly have no idea.

[DancingSea]

5 minutes ago, DJ_Polaco said:

To follow up, Amarra guy got back to me and gave me the instructions to get the app going again. I think for my purposes if I can use this I will. The problem for me is that these 24/96 high res music files (1) tend to have a sharp edge to them (don't know why), and it makes little difference whether I use Audirvana or DJ software like Mixxx, and (2) they're transfers from shellac records from the 30s and 40s so there's noise. AsQ+ helps to soften the music and make it more listenable, no idea how it does it but it's good enough for my purposes, and the EQ and noise reduction deal with other issues of the tracks. I listen to the music and not the gear, but when become a crypto gazillionaire I'll get the $10k DAC and all the other paraphernalia that audiophiles must have.

Amarra always sounds great, I hope it will work for your purposes.  You’ll be relieved to know that most of us are not gazillionaires nor own $10K DACs 😂 

[DancingSea]

And from the bowels of Mordor a distant sound is heard…..