New Amarra 4

[ddalmas]

• hi quark ...have you tried Fidelia? it sounds so similar to A4 ! just add a analog sound plugin and it is maybe better! not so its library....i still prefer to stay in A+ domain for its fantastic lib management(better than iTunes i think)

[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 ...

[ddalmas]

great for you and appreciable behavior from SS!! but i think that it'd not worth to have money back hoping.....if ever they would return from indecency it'd be nice to have A4 still in my mac....but i wonder if  to give money back to someone does not let them think about it all??? And they know all the claims to their player.....mahhh ..people are strange but  for me ,in life, PRIDE and HONOR are very important...i would never let such an indecent number of claims be without a very very fast response

[quark]

38 minutes ago, ddalmas said:

• hi quark ...have you tried Fidelia? it sounds so similar to A4 ! just add a analog sound plugin and it is maybe better! not so its library....i still prefer to stay in A+ domain for its fantastic lib management(better than iTunes i think)

Thanks ddalmas I will  try that ?

 Although I know this horrible perfectionist driven insecurity I have, which in every day life can be so tiring :-), will always force me back to  even the tiniest "perceived" improved sound quality and I always feel IRC adds much more clarity. Already bought their IRC function when it first came out several years ago.

 Like you I prefer to keep it on my Mac and probably silly hope they fix the many basic functions everyone's paid for that don't work. But even writing that sentence I feel only reinforces their position.

 Anyway,  i'll give Fidella A try, thank you very much for the recommendation :-) 

 

 It's good to see that they refunded you though NickDun?

[DancingSea]

4 hours ago, quark said:

Thanks ddalmas I will  try that ?

 Although I know this horrible perfectionist driven insecurity I have, which in every day life can be so tiring :-), will always force me back to  even the tiniest "perceived" improved sound quality and I always feel IRC adds much more clarity. Already bought their IRC function when it first came out several years ago.

 Like you I prefer to keep it on my Mac and probably silly hope they fix the many basic functions everyone's paid for that don't work. But even writing that sentence I feel only reinforces their position.

 Anyway,  i'll give Fidella A try, thank you very much for the recommendation :-) 

 

 It's good to see that they refunded you though NickDun?

 

Quark - Fidelia combined with the Wave Arts Saturator 2 (or even the free version) does sound very good.  It quickly scans your entire iTunes library, and includes all your iTunes playlists.  You can create playlists in iTunes, rescan, and they quickly appear in Fidelia.  The library management window is very old school, but you can sort by artist, album, etc and search.  The Fidelia remote works fairly well.   Try as I may, A+ remains too aggressive for my tastes.

 

Fidelia is prone to crashes.  Happens nearly every listening session.  And sometimes it inexplicably repeats a song.

 

As for Amarra 4 Luxe, believe it or not, SS is working on it.  Since the last public release, there have been many beta releases for testing.  They are trying.  With all due respect to their efforts, they've taken on a project that is beyond their programming ability to create.  They desperately need an iTunes integration mode, like in previous releases.

 

My self created "player only" mode continues to work much better than the A4L entire library mode.  I drag a few CD's into A4L via a folder on my desktop.

 

But lately, have been primarily using Fidelia, crashes and all.

 

Quark, perhaps Amarra SQ with iTunes is a better route for you?  That keeps you entirely in iTunes.

[DancingSea]

9 hours ago, ThunderMac said:

I said that I would give chance to Ammara, despite all the criticisms regarding to its library functioning, so I bought Amarra Luxe and SQ+. Everything OK regarding to sound, but: 

• is there something/anything to do that Amarra will show correct order of songs. I gave up with “one compilation” showed as a “ten separate artists with one song”, but incorrect song order when I listen “one artist” album, this is really irritating. This is happening in about 10-20% of all albums. Erasing albums from amarra, updating library, re-tagging etc. won't work.

   

   

• (I also have problems with ammara remote (not showing album artwork etc.) but probably this is also a known fact?)

 

regards

 

These are normal bugs.  Expect them to persist.  There's no reason to get your hopes up for a fix.

[DancingSea]

I have come to the conclusion that the only way to get the rich, analog like sound I want is to buy one of these.

 

Relying upon software to emulate the sound is never going to satisfy.  The tube preamp is going to do a much better job - I theorize - of adding warmth, richness, and depth to my solid state rig than any of these 3rd party software options ever will.

[ddalmas]

excuse my intromission dancing ....but your suggestion is not so correct......In a stereo chain before all you physically have a source (Mac/PC in this case) with its digital or (but it is better to avoid it ) its analog output....THEN from any source you have you will go to a Dac or directly to a  preamp/integrated amp! so it is a very good idea to have  good analog feel preamp ,but believe me if you send to him bad sounds from a source it would only render out bad sounds!..... we are here to define only the Mac as SOURCE  only ,that it is what is getting out from Mac as source .Therefore we are here to define what is the better Mac sounding player!! The rest of the chain depends from  your tastes and your money power .....so My(in fact an Audio research reference 2MKII)or Your preamp will give you back exactly the sound who are addicted to give , without changing the differences existing between the sources of your hifi chain ...the best your Mac sounds the best your stereo sounds...the second step can only obey to the Mac /Source's Sound quality

ciaociao

[DancingSea]

17 minutes ago, ddalmas said:

excuse my intromission dancing ....but your suggestion is not so correct......In a stereo chain before all you physically have a source (Mac/PC in this case) with its digital or (but it is better to avoid it ) its analog output....THEN from any source you have you will go to a Dac or directly to a  preamp/integrated amp! so it is a very good idea to have  good analog feel preamp ,but believe me if you send to him bad sounds from a source it would only render out bad sounds!..... we are here to define only the Mac as SOURCE  only ,that it is what is getting out from Mac as source .Therefore we are here to define what is the better Mac sounding player!! The rest of the chain depends from  your tastes and your money power .....so My(in fact an Audio research reference 2MKII)or Your preamp will give you back exactly the sound who are addicted to give , without changing the differences existing between the sources of your hifi chain ...the best your Mac sounds the best your stereo sounds...the second step can only obey to the Mac /Source's Sound quality

ciaociao

 

I see it as a multifaceted approach that includes  both hardware and software. 

 

Clearly hardware has a huge influence on sound quality. Otherwise, there would be no audiophile industry ?

 

Anarra through a $100K system will sound different than through a $500 system. Unless things work different in Italy ?? 

[ddalmas]

yes of course .....such it does A+ or Fidelia or iTunes, but the basic differences stay exactly in the proportions they have ...so we are not here ,i think, to start a discussion on HiEnd gears ,i mean!!!Yes some hifi gear reveals mostly the differences between the source, but that's all a preamp could do!too long and not worth here to be discussed how iTunes plays a song  with "no matter what" gear.....it will always remain under the SQ of Fidelia ....and so on but with the due exceptions (IE : playing songs on  PC loudspeakers system maybe iTunes is preferable to all the other sophisticated players as it better fills the lacks of the little cheap speakers!maybe iTunes itself was originally designed to da this)

Ahhhhh  .... Eistein's relativity theory...all is relative!!!!  .Anyway we are still  talking about with what player Mac plays the best

ciaociao

[DancingSea]

26 minutes ago, ddalmas said:

yes of course .....such it does A+ or Fidelia or iTunes, but the basic differences stay exactly in the proportions they have ...so we are not here ,i think, to start a discussion on HiEnd gears ,i mean!!!Yes some hifi gear reveals mostly the differences between the source, but that's all a preamp could do!too long and not worth here to be discussed how iTunes plays a song  with "no matter what" gear.....it will always remain under the SQ of Fidelia ....and so on but with the due exceptions (IE : playing songs on  PC loudspeakers system maybe iTunes is preferable to all the other sophisticated players as it better fills the lacks of the little cheap speakers!maybe iTunes itself was originally designed to da this)

Ahhhhh  .... Eistein's relativity theory...all is relative!!!!  .Anyway we are still  talking about with what player Mac plays the best

ciaociao

 

Its all connected!  And from I can tell, we are here to talk about whatever aspect of this topic we please.

 

My observation was to observe the limitations of all of these players and realize its too much to ask them to cure the entire SQ issue with our greater systems.

 

Amarra and Fidelia offer a more tube like, analog sound.  Given their great limitations, its worth thinking about other ways to achieve that sort of sound - in conjunction with the players.

 

Have no fear ddalmas, you're in good hands!  Trust the force.

[Gregg12y]

On 9/3/2017 at 0:54 PM, rodelius said:

Just installed A4 Luxe Demo on a fresh OS install.

Sounds great, but as others have reported, sound is shifted to the right when IRC is ON.

Yesterday I made a new set of measurements and filters to see whether DIRAC might have updated something, but results are identical.

New filters sound fine in Symphony 3 but they fail in A4L.

 

Any updates on this issue?

Could it be possible that it just don't work on the demo version?

Are they really selling the IRC feature to new customers knowing that it does not work?

I wrote to Amarra Product Support recently about how I cannot get IRC to work with A4L, even though it works fine with 3.0.  I get a confused soundstage when I enable IRC in A4L.  They  replied right away and told me that they are aware of the issue and are working on a fix.  Ralph at Amarra says they expect it to be fixed soon.  

[GregWormald]

Either use Dancing Sea's 'player only' mode (it's here on this thread) or give up on Amarra 4.

For me, trying anything else was/is just an exercise in frustration.

 

Greg

[mneveux]

I have been using A4L successfully now for several weeks with no issues. Tidal integration works flawlessly. The only thing I am doing differently now is using FLAC files on the local side only. For some reason the library management had a lot of trouble with ALAC files.

 

Totally enjoying A4L now.

[DJ_Polaco]

Since there're many A+ users here, could someone tell me how to turn a stereo ouput into mono as I use only one speaker. Cheers

[copy_of_a]

2 hours ago, DJ_Polaco said:

Since there're many A+ users here, could someone tell me how to turn a stereo ouput into mono as I use only one speaker. Cheers

stereo to mono AU plugin.

 

You might try this one: https://www.maat.digital/2buscontrol/

 

[DJ_Polaco]

On 9/14/2017 at 11:20 PM, copy_of_a said:

You might try this one: https://www.maat.digital/2buscontrol/

Worked. Thanks!

[indirstr8s]

On 9/9/2017 at 1:21 AM, Gregg12y said:

I wrote to Amarra Product Support recently about how I cannot get IRC to work with A4L, even though it works fine with 3.0.  I get a confused soundstage when I enable IRC in A4L.  They  replied right away and told me that they are aware of the issue and are working on a fix.  Ralph at Amarra says they expect it to be fixed soon.  

Is the A4L iRC known to work in any circumstances ? For me also the same stereo image distortion, when iRC enabled. 

[quark]

17 hours ago, indirstr8s said:

Is the A4L iRC known to work in any circumstances ? For me also the same stereo image distortion, when iRC enabled. 

 Has anyone received an update yet, it’s been quite a while ☹️

[DancingSea]

5 hours ago, quark said:

 Has anyone received an update yet, it’s been quite a while ☹️

 

There have been many beta test updates, lately, a couple per week. 

 

So they are working on it. 

[quark]

16 hours ago, DancingSea said:

 

There have been many beta test updates, lately, a couple per week. 

 

So they are working on it. 

?

 Hopefully not too long then

Thanks DancingSea

[foodfiend]

Slightly out-of-topic, but the company behind Fidelia, Audiofile Engineering, has been acquired by Krekeltronics. In the Audiofile Engineering facebook page, Patrick Krekelberg, the founder of Krekeltronics noted that Fidelia is to return soon. Good news, I guess?

[indirstr8s]

On 10/13/2017 at 4:02 PM, quark said:

?

 Hopefully not too long then

Thanks DancingSea

on the amarra website I find the new installer for A4L in support/downloads 4.1-360. This one also does not fix the iRC issue for me.

[quark]

20 hours ago, indirstr8s said:

on the amarra website I find the new installer for A4L in support/downloads 4.1-360. This one also does not fix the iRC issue for me.

Thanks indirstr8s,

 I just updated to it, but that may have been a bit hasty :-)

MQA works nicely, DSD isn’t passing through but is upscaling better, I think.

But although my playlists are still there, Luxe library is only listing songs, but on the artists or albums lists nothing, they just say either no artists available or no albums available.

Very strange, I even cleared the library and searched for music again, but still no artists or albums showning,, just songs. 

 Anyone else updated have this problem? 

[Munchoba]

I give up.

Haven<t used Amarra 4 Luxe in a while, using Roon almost all of the time now. 

Feeling nostalgic and wanting to hear some Hip, I say: Let's  crank up the old Amarra... 3 hours later, still scanning my relatively small library (yes, playing through Chrome) I see the Hip album I want. Starts playing nd a minute later... Crashes and closes.

 

I've given over $1000 to these clowns in all of their iterations (Symphony, SQ+,Amarra Tidal...IRC you name it).

I can't stand it any more.

Too bad... was a wonderful sound.

 

I feel gypped.

 

Bernard