New Amarra 4

[left channel]

3 hours ago, quark said:

 Does FLAC work in iTunes now? 

 

Nope. You'd need to first use flac-to-m4a converter software on each file. Or use a third-party player like Amarra.

[dcktr]

 

Hola

I have Mac-mini mid 2011 and I am in the process of replacing the current drive with a samsung 850 SSD,

I am currently running A3 symphony and IRQ. I also did the Black Friday A4L purchase.

Quick questions, is there a consensus that High Sierra OS is ok with A4L and IRQ? I am currently on Yosemite 10.10.5.

And wanted to confirm (saw the recommendation from Lio-B) that it is best to delete all Amarra and do a clean install when moving to A4L and IRQ?

Thanks

Ron

 

[dcktr]

Now running A4L with High Sierra, have not yet started with IRQ 1.2.4 download and set up. I agree the sound seems to have improved, or at least I want it to. I can now understand some of the many frustrations using A4L. I am going to ride it out for awhile.

Thanks for all your posts

[Amarra_Support]

On 11/13/2017 at 5:18 PM, DancingSea said:

 

Thoughts on iTunes integration like A3?  Is that not going to happen with A4L?

Hi All,

Sorry for the delay, got a bit backed up over the holiday with the Black Friday sale.

 

I wanted to give an update regarding iTunes integration with Amarra 4.  We are now looking into this and doing some initial testing.  If all works well, we'd provide a platform to use iTunes to select and manage your library and Amarra will be the playback engine.  It's still early, I don't have any other details other than we are looking at it now.

 

For those that were wondering why we were even looking into this, the answer is really two-fold.

- First is a sound quality issue.  iTunes is a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none player.  It uses Core Audio for playback which is used by just about every other function on the Mac to make noise.  The result is that using iTunes for playback does not provide the best sound available, what we feel is the holy grail.   For those of you that use Amarra 3, compare iTunes mode with Amarra Playlist mode and I think you'll hear improvements when only using Amarra Playlists.  The same is true for Amarra 4, it was purpose built to playback music, doesn't use core audio and the result is the great sound. 

 

- The second part is that we needed to do this so we can support some future projects including the Remote, MQA support, DSD support and some other goodies that are coming in the future.

 

We're still making more improvements and appreciate your continued feedback.

 

Fyi, if you're using the remote and haven't updated recently, there's a new version on the App Store, v1.3.

 

best

Ralph

[Dean358]

9 minutes ago, Amarra_Support said:

Hi All,

Sorry for the delay, got a bit backed up over the holiday with the Black Friday sale.

 

I wanted to give an update regarding iTunes integration with Amarra 4.  We are now looking into this and doing some initial testing.  If all works well, we'd provide a platform to use iTunes to select and manage your library and Amarra will be the playback engine.  It's still early, I don't have any other details other than we are looking at it now.

 

F

best

Ralph

 

Fantastic news, thanks Ralph!  Godspeed.

[GregWormald]

That's a great initiative Ralph. Thanks.

I'm looking forward to the result.

[Otherworld74]

>>I wanted to give an update regarding iTunes integration with Amarra 4.  We are now looking into this and doing some initial testing.

 

Looking forward to this. Lately, I find myself using Amarra 3 because of the convenience, so integrating Amarra 4 would be most welcome. Thanks!

[DancingSea]

On 12/6/2017 at 1:18 PM, Amarra_Support said:

The result is that using iTunes for playback does not provide the best sound available, what we feel is the holy grail.  

best

Ralph

 

Our mental health is the primary holy grail, especially for our poor Italian friend ddalmas.  He was on the verge of suicide a few months ago.

 

Given us the option to use iTunes for library management is going to save lives

[ThunderMac]

Dear Ralph

I have bought an amarra 4 luxe but has been useless for me, there was many upgrades but essential problem still exists.

In many albums (after importing albums to Amara 4 Luxe library) track order is completely mixed. Scanning or Erasing and Adding folders albums again etc. don’t help.

PLEASE GIVE ME AN ANSWER what is happening here and what can we (you) do about it. I inquired about this problem several times before and never received an answer.  

I would like to use amarra library and do not intend to use iTunes integration mode in upcoming upgrade release.

[DancingSea]

37 minutes ago, ThunderMac said:

Dear Ralph

 

 

I have bought an amarra 4 luxe but has been useless for me, there was many upgrades but essential problem still exists.

 

 

In many albums (after importing albums to Amara 4 Luxe library) track order is completely mixed. Scanning or Erasing and Adding folders albums again etc. don’t help.

 

 

PLEASE GIVE ME AN ANSWER what is happening here and what can we (you) do about it. I inquired about this problem several times before and never received an answer.  

 

 

I would like to use amarra library and do not intend to use iTunes integration mode in upcoming upgrade release.

 

 

Sure glad someone had the courage to finally take a stand

 

I suggest you start reading this topic from page 1.  It will quickly become obvious why so many are demanding iTunes integration mode....

[ThunderMac]

I bought Amarra 4 luxe few days after it was released and since then I read this forum daily,  I know by heart every page of this topic and I have already ask this question at least three times and I would appreciate if Mr. Ralph could give me an answer. I have never done any antipropaganda, I never asked for a money refund … just want a fair play and professionalism. First step could be at least an answer from Mr. Ralph.

[GregWormald]

2 hours ago, DancingSea said:

 

<snip> so many are demanding iTunes integration mode....

 

I suspect that most of "our" issues would be solved by a Playlist mode for A4L such as A3 had. That's all I want--full integration isn't necessary as it would probably deteriorate the great sound.

 

Give me that and I'll even upgrade my A3 instead of using A4L unregistered.

[DancingSea]

7 hours ago, ThunderMac said:

I bought Amarra 4 luxe few days after it was released and since then I read this forum daily,  I know by heart every page of this topic and I have already ask this question at least three times and I would appreciate if Mr. Ralph could give me an answer. I have never done any antipropaganda, I never asked for a money refund … just want a fair play and professionalism. First step could be at least an answer from Mr. Ralph.

 

 

 

 

I appreciate your position.  These questions have been asked hundreds and hundreds of times, with answers being sparse or vague at best.  One is left to conclude they aren't capable of creating a functioning library management system.  There may be small incremental improvements, but the overall picture will remain the same.  Its just not their thing.

[Progisus]

If I didn't love the sound so much I wouldn't attempt this again. So I cleared my library. Then I am using the "scan for music button" to add each artist one at a time. I know this may be difficult for large libraries. My thoughts were that I would add them as I felt like listening to something from them. In the previous library I had one album that just would not load all the tracks no matter what I did. Now when I added just that artist and let it save... voila, there were the tracks. Time will tell if this works. I have both JRiver and A+ 3 but I keep coming back to the analog sound of A4L. I do let JRiver media server run in the background for DLNA to my OPPO and to the JRemote app for hi rez streaming when not at home.

[dcktr]

Thanks

if this works, my frustration level will drop precipitously. 

[Amarra_Support]

Hi All,

Thought I'd jump in here again.  As you all well know, there have been many issues with Amarra 4 that we've been trying to address. The biggest was getting to a point where you can scan your library without Amarra crashing.  There were many challenges in this area on both Mac and Windows platforms, but we do believe they've been addressed.  The next key area was finishing up the MQA integration on both Mac and Windows platforms.   We have several very high priority items that we need to address, the biggest of the 2 are making sure your scanned library imports into the correct albums and artists, the other is the tracks being listed and playing in the correct order.  Not all of you see these issues, depending on what you listen to.   We know Artwork is an issue, however scanning a complete library and having tracks in the correct locations are a bit higher in priority for us.

 

In the meantime, we are working on a solution including iTunes, more information will be available in the coming weeks.

 

best

Ralph

[Surapong]

10 hours ago, Amarra_Support said:

Hi All,

Thought I'd jump in here again.  As you all well know, there have been many issues with Amarra 4 that we've been trying to address. The biggest was getting to a point where you can scan your library without Amarra crashing.  There were many challenges in this area on both Mac and Windows platforms, but we do believe they've been addressed.  The next key area was finishing up the MQA integration on both Mac and Windows platforms.   We have several very high priority items that we need to address, the biggest of the 2 are making sure your scanned library imports into the correct albums and artists, the other is the tracks being listed and playing in the correct order.  Not all of you see these issues, depending on what you listen to.   We know Artwork is an issue, however scanning a complete library and having tracks in the correct locations are a bit higher in priority for us.

 

In the meantime, we are working on a solution including iTunes, more information will be available in the coming weeks.

 

best

Ralph

Hi, Ralph

 

It's great for your priority solving issues. There are three issues those you have to give us asap. The first is "make the A4L loads all music tracks in each album correctly, the second "don't allow the A4L spit the tracks in one album to many album in the library, the third "don't let the A4L saves the whole library information every time it saves". No need to waste the time to start save information from no.1 track to the last no. xxxxxxx track or whole tracks. just save only the additional information those we just added, like the iTunes save the library information". These are three issues those the first priority must be resolved into the next update and please done asap.

[foodfiend]

On 12/9/2017 at 7:28 AM, Amarra_Support said:

Hi All,

Thought I'd jump in here again.  As you all well know, there have been many issues with Amarra 4 that we've been trying to address. The biggest was getting to a point where you can scan your library without Amarra crashing.  There were many challenges in this area on both Mac and Windows platforms, but we do believe they've been addressed.  The next key area was finishing up the MQA integration on both Mac and Windows platforms.   We have several very high priority items that we need to address, the biggest of the 2 are making sure your scanned library imports into the correct albums and artists, the other is the tracks being listed and playing in the correct order.  Not all of you see these issues, depending on what you listen to.   We know Artwork is an issue, however scanning a complete library and having tracks in the correct locations are a bit higher in priority for us.

 

In the meantime, we are working on a solution including iTunes, more information will be available in the coming weeks.

 

best

Ralph

Ralph,

 

That is good to hear that Sonic Studio is trying to fix the loading of libraries. I will definitely be very happy if that were to work.

[DancingSea]

It would be nice to be able to choose between the pure sound of A4L stand alone or iTunes integration when convenient is desired. 

 

With my player only A4L approach I often end up using A+ iTunes integrated instead just for the sake of ease.  With the wave arts tubs plugin. 

[quark]

11 hours ago, DancingSea said:

It would be nice to be able to choose between the pure sound of A4L stand alone or iTunes integration when convenient is desired. 

 

With my player only A4L approach I often end up using A+ iTunes integrated instead just for the sake of ease.  With the wave arts tubs plugin. 

 Totally agree

It would also be very convenient and appreciated if when in iTunes integration mode you could create a playlist using the iOS remote and then import that playlist to A4L stand alone Player, so then you can switch off iTunes. 

If I could do this I think I would explode with gratitude and excitement. At the moment I have to spend an hour to make to make a 2 1/2 hour playlist, absolutely no exaggeration. Creating a playlist on the iTunes iOS app, and Audirvana+ iOS app, is so easy, and you can easily change track order by just dragging tracks with your finger. 

Thanks for the heads up Ralph.

[deeejeee]

I don't want Itunes integration, think many users think this way.

[DancingSea]

13 minutes ago, deeejeee said:

I don't want Itunes integration, think many users think this way.

 

Then when they implement it, you can choose not to utilize that feature. The point is choice. And the reality that for many, the A4L library system is a giant mess.  

 

I’ve rarely seen a post here saying the current  library system is remotely adequate. 

[Dean358]

2 hours ago, deeejeee said:

I don't want Itunes integration, think many users think this way.

 

With all due respect I completely disagree. For many of us iTunes integration is actually essential. And as DancingSea points out, if the option is there you can always chose not to use it. 

[ddalmas]

Hi mr Ralph

Why going to the possibility of loosing sound quality with iTunes integration??? there is a very simpler way as the way used by Audirvana+ ,in standalone manner, that simply sees in realtime to the your music folder and applies all the changes done to it immediately in realtime!

there's no way to do playlists or scanning libs...all your song files are there ,catalogued as you want (genre ,artist, name, etcetera...).....simple and easy to be done !

please consider this way to  next A4 upgrade ...no danger of loose of SQ ,complete freedom to organize allowed to every user's need...please take a look to A+.... with A4 unbeatable sound quality and A+ similar lib organization you will be in another planet of liquid music ...nothing  more left to any other one's software!!Please seriously consider that way to make happy the most part of your users

and this do not exclude a parallel iTunes integration at all ,if you want and for those who still want it! but it will only be a further option.....rarely used i think!!Please in this words consider that I do not want to raise myself to the rule of teaching to you...only suggesting

ciaociao to you Ralph and to you all

[quark]

4 hours ago, deeejeee said:

I don't want Itunes integration, think many users think this way.

 I don’t particularly want it as it will reduce sound quality, but for me I only want iTunes because playlists are ridiculously difficult to construct in A4L. 

In which case if they can make it like Amarra Symphony, you could create a playlist in iTunes, then import it to Amarra Symphony playlist and quit iTunes, simple.

Otherwise it would only be worth it for me if it still sounds better than Aurdivana+.

 

To be honest most of my Qobuz purchases, which are a lot, are FLAC, and because Apple are so stupidly stubborn I would have to re-download them or convert them, which would take ages. But seriously actually how much work is it for Apple to program iTunes to recognise FLAC, it would be nothing to them, so annoying.

So using iTunes would represent a lot of work for me, and considering my disability it would be very difficult. But even though it would be very difficult for me, it would be eventually worth it just to be able to create a 2 hour playlist in less than an hour, which is how long it takes me now in A4L’s ridiculous badly functioning playlist function.