New Amarra 4

[GregWormald]

Issues, so far (after few days trial on Mac--current system):

<snips>

I will update this if things change.

 

Just added some new albums to iTunes.

Amarra 4 "add" added only one of 5. Complete scan loaded only half of some of the albums.

App freezes on quit--says it's saving--for 45 minutes.

Latest scan has some multiples of albums, one of the new albums is added under two artists--both with identical names, one entry has only the one album, the other has parts of the remaining 5 albums!

 

This is really bad--are we being beta testers--or maybe alpha?

 

Greg

[minicoupeman]

Could Amarra just email us when its fixed. Life us too short to keep checking.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

[mahalko]

Hello to all, new here

 

I upgraded to amarra4 a few days ago. Huge improvement in sound, fantastic. Now, tags issues, some albums not loading and since this afternoon, can not make it work at all ( blue circle turning endlessly in the middle of the amarra screen, no access to anything at all). Tried complete uninstall 2 times with clean my mac, no success. Does not work anymore, dead.

[One and a half]

For those which Amarra4 is not working, please demand a refund. The leopard does not change its spots.

[fragoulisnaval]

The trial version on Windows 10 keeps crushing on me three year old hp i3 with 4GB of RAM.

 

Returned to my good old MUSIChi [emoji106]

[quark]

I've managed to sort out a lot of meta data problems which have enabled all to be labelled properly.

I use software called Yate on a Mac, some of you will not consider it because you have to pay for it, it costs $20 but does an excellent job.

It has a Discogs & Musicbrainz wizard for locating, editing & saving the meta data. Even if it won't locate a rare album with the wizard you can look for it straight on either website and enter the code number in the wizard and it will locate it that way.

 

After scanning my music folder I checked and some songs and albums were missing here and there but it definitely helps to quit Amarra and restart it again, after doing that everything was present and labelled correctly.

 

They definitely need to add editing ability to meta data in the APP and especially playlists.

Playlists are very awkward to construct, Once creating a playlist it's very awkward to change the order, sometimes dragging songs to different positions just copies it leaving the song in two places.

A quicker way to select songs and add them to particular playlists needs to be streamlined, made much easier and quicker.

Clicking the shuffle option in playlist doesn't work correctly as some songs will be repeated and the playlist finishes before it's played all the songs.

There needs to be an iOS APP also.the remote app for iTunes is excellent for creating playlists. You just tap multiple songs to add to your playlist and then in the playlist so easy to drag tracks into your preferred location.

Sonic Studio should be using the remote iOS APP for iTunes as a minimum template for an Amarra 4 APP.

In 2017 an intuitive and fully functional APP to control your audio and easily create and edit playlists is a minimum requirement.

 

The sound quality is really great and good enough for me to drop symphony for now and persist with Amarra 4. I will definitely be upgrading to Luxe as soon as available.

But please Sonic Studio playlist editing on Amarra 4 needs to be updated and an iPad APP at least as good as Apple remote APP is priority and essential.

[sockpit]

For those which Amarra4 is not working, please demand a refund. The leopard does not change its spots.

 

This is the best advice you're gonna get. Yes the sound is sweet, but how much dough has Amarra collected over the years, leaving their customers high and dry with software that's worse than the late 80s? These guys are in the Bay Area tech corridor. Imagine if they worked for Tesla.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Computer Audiophile

[GregWormald]

Hi again,

 

It seems--so far :-)--that if I "choose" the sub-folder in which the new music resides BEFORE "add to library" that the adding works. I then re-choose my main library folder in which the sub-folder resides.

 

Greg

[copy_of_a]

When Amarra 4 was announced in a newsletter in October they told us:

"Bring your music to life the easy way: use Amarra 4! It’s fast, it’s fun, it’s reliable, and most importantly it sounds great!"

Well, in fact it sounds great but it's really not fun using it. As mentioned above tracks show up twice when you re-scan the library. The order of tracks is mixed in Double CDs (the tag "disc# of#" is ignored). When you scroll through the library too fast the software will hang and doesn't show any naming anymore. Now and then tracks are played back at half of their sample rate (at 88.2 instead of 176.4 for example). Gain is shown in percent instead of db. It's not clear whether or not Dither is applied in gain reduction. It does not seem to play from RAM (not quite sure here...). Album Art embedded in dsf-files doesn't show up. I can't search for "Jóhann Jóhannsson" for some reason although all his albums are in the library (and are labeled correctly)... I can search for other Artist-Names containing an accent, though.

Well, at least all my albums show up as they should...

 

I like the concept and would love to use it... and to some degree it is even "usable" ... but all in all it's really too much beta status to call it fast, fun and reliable. So sad ...

[DancingSea]

When Amarra 4 was announced in a newsletter in October they told us:

"Bring your music to life the easy way: use Amarra 4! It’s fast, it’s fun, it’s reliable, and most importantly it sounds great!"

Well, in fact it sounds great but it's really not fun using it. As mentioned above tracks show up twice when you re-scan the library. The order of tracks is mixed in Double CDs (the tag "disc# of#" is ignored). When you scroll through the library too fast the software will hang and doesn't show any naming anymore. Now and then tracks are played back at half of their sample rate (at 88.2 instead of 176.4 for example). Gain is shown in percent instead of db. It's not clear whether or not Dither is applied in gain reduction. It does not seem to play from RAM (not quite sure here...). Album Art embedded in dsf-files doesn't show up. I can't search for "Jóhann Jóhannsson" for some reason although all his albums are in the library (and are labeled correctly)... I can search for other Artist-Names containing an accent, though.

Well, at least all my albums show up as they should...

 

I like the concept and would love to use it... and to some degree it is even "usable" ... but all in all it's really too much beta status to call it fast, fun and reliable. So sad ...

 

I've found all of this to be true. The playlists, tagging, library editing, the artwork, etc are often wonky. Thus far, A4 has been stable for me, and the sound continues to really impress. Have been using iTunes to select music, and then play it in A4 using its search feature.

 

In fairness, Audirvana Plus, and Fidelia - both of which I own and use - don't have the best library management system either. A+ in non- iTunes integrated mode ends up being used in a similar fashion as A4, search in iTunes, play in the other. Fidelia as well. With A+, often just use iTunes integrated mode out of simplicity. Imho, none of the 3 come close to being a full iTunes replacement arrangement.

 

While iTunes is not a great player, I find its library management system to be really good. Maybe its just difficult for these small audiophile player companies to create top notch library management systems? Its easy and reasonable for us to complain, but have any of us actually created one of these applications? Do we actually know how easy or difficult it is to get one right in both sound and usability? I'm accustomed to iTunes library management, which has multi-billion dollar Apple behind it. Perhaps I need to appreciate with A4, A+ and Fidelia do well and be understanding about the capabilities and limitations of these small time players?

 

A4 sounds awesome, and maybe over time they can work out the rest - all past track record aside.

 

Honestly, I would be content if Amarra 4 gave up entirely on library management. Just give me a rock solid great sounding player that allows me to drag (or export) a given playlist or album in from iTunes, or my FLAC HD folder collection, and then play it in Amarra 4 - in the same track order I dragged. That's all I need. Why try to be something none of them are likely to achieve due to lack of development budget? Just be a player.

[GregWormald]

<Snip>Honestly, I would be content if Amarra 4 gave up entirely on library management. Just give me a rock solid great sounding player that allows me to drag (or export) a given playlist or album in from iTunes, or my FLAC HD folder collection, and then play it in Amarra 4 - in the same track order I dragged. That's all I need. Why try to be something none of them are likely to achieve due to lack of development budget? Just be a player.

 

Yes, I agree with this.

 

Issues continued:

A4 will still not quit without being "forced" (it just hangs) and it doesn't keep the tracks added as per my last post. All the new albums were also lost to the database when there was a power failure. It seems to quit OK after a fresh re-start but won't do so after actually USING it!

Back to a complete new scan and hours with no app.

 

I think I'll try using it as a player only and scan only one or two albums at a time. This is a pain though as I have to open and scroll through 3000+ albums on multiple levels (Music>Artist>Album). It sure would be nice to be able to use it like A3's Playlist function which works well for me.

 

Greg

[quark]

Hopefully Sonic Studio are monitoring this thread and making notes for next urgent updates.

After all we are not beta testers, we've already paid for it. And Some of us are symphony with IRC long-standing loyal customers, for many years.

 

There is no need to insult them, just help them to deliver an appropriately functional piece of software to match the excellent sound quality.

But also they should be aware of our commitment to them, we are not bata testers, we are paying customers.

If someone from Sonic Studio has made notes of everyone's appropriate concerns, and hopefully ignore the few insults, please let us know in the thread of the issues we have stated that you are working on and a rough time period.

A kind and respectful approach like this would calm a lot of people down and motivate respectful feedback.

 

Playlists are seriously frustrating.

It's hard enough for me as a tetraplegic to pick songs for a desired playlist without using an iOS app. But Amarra4 playlists are unnecessarily difficult.

You can't change the order by dragging songs because it just duplicates the song in another position, then if you quit and reload it's gone back to its original position.

So I tried selecting songs in the order I wanted them played, which took ages, about an hour for 20 tracks(that's not an exaggeration I'm just severely physically disabled).

Anyway, selecting one song from an album then another from a totally different artist, then back to the original album and so on.

But when you play the playlist from the beginning, even though the tracks are listed in the order you loaded them into the playlist, the playlist still plays tracks in alphabetical order of the artist.

 

Aw man, that's what helps me get up in the morning through extreme pain, listening to my music in excellent unrivalled sonic studio quality sound, creating a playlist in the order I was planning in my mind.

The Remote app for iTunes is excellent and easy to create and edit playlists, even for my high level of disability, a similar 20 track playlist only takes me 5ish minutes.

Is there any way you can integrate the Remote APP for iTunes to work with Amarra4, playlist creation and editing as in the apple remote APP should be a minimum requirement, pleeeeeease.

 

Also can we please have a download of the MacOS optimisation app that is part of the Amarra symphony with IRC installer. It makes it so much easier to disable everything unnecessary in the operating system :-)

[copy_of_a]

In fairness, Audirvana Plus, and Fidelia - both of which I own and use - don't have the best library management system either. A+ in non- iTunes integrated mode ends up being used in a similar fashion as A4, search in iTunes, play in the other. Fidelia as well. With A+, often just use iTunes integrated mode out of simplicity.

Me personally I am pretty happy with the library managment of A+. It's easy and fast to navigate, it provides intelligent and easy playlist modes and all in all it's really stable. No crashes on my machines. I don't use iTunes integrated mode or so ... actually I don't use iTunes anymore at all... I just load the iTunes AAC ablums I've bought back then into the library of A+. Admittedly, I've once taken the time to re-tag all my albums with Yate. Maybe this is why I rarely (actually never) encounter issues with Artist-Names or Artwork or so...

[Pack66184]

I downloaded the trial version, sounded "canned" and "muffled" compared to version 3. I questioned the support staff why it didn't include the ARC function, their advice was to use Amarra SQ+ and channel Amarra4 through it. That still didn't quite reach the SQ level as version 3. I have allot of high hopes for version4 and it appears to be released too early.

[sockpit]

Hopefully Sonic Studio are monitoring this thread and making notes for next urgent updates.

After all we are not beta testers, we've already paid for it. And Some of us are symphony with IRC long-standing loyal customers, for many years.

 

There is no need to insult them, just help them to deliver an appropriately functional piece of software to match the excellent sound quality.

But also they should be aware of our commitment to them, we are not bata testers, we are paying customers.

If someone from Sonic Studio has made notes of everyone's appropriate concerns, and hopefully ignore the few insults, please let us know in the thread of the issues we have stated that you are working on and a rough time period.

A kind and respectful approach like this would calm a lot of people down and motivate respectful feedback.

 

Playlists are seriously frustrating.

It's hard enough for me as a tetraplegic to pick songs for a desired playlist without using an iOS app. But Amarra4 playlists are unnecessarily difficult.

You can't change the order by dragging songs because it just duplicates the song in another position, then if you quit and reload it's gone back to its original position.

So I tried selecting songs in the order I wanted them played, which took ages, about an hour for 20 tracks(that's not an exaggeration I'm just severely physically disabled).

Anyway, selecting one song from an album then another from a totally different artist, then back to the original album and so on.

But when you play the playlist from the beginning, even though the tracks are listed in the order you loaded them into the playlist, the playlist still plays tracks in alphabetical order of the artist.

 

Aw man, that's what helps me get up in the morning through extreme pain, listening to my music in excellent unrivalled sonic studio quality sound, creating a playlist in the order I was planning in my mind.

The Remote app for iTunes is excellent and easy to create and edit playlists, even for my high level of disability, a similar 20 track playlist only takes me 5ish minutes.

Is there any way you can integrate the Remote APP for iTunes to work with Amarra4, playlist creation and editing as in the apple remote APP should be a minimum requirement, pleeeeeease.

 

Also can we please have a download of the MacOS optimisation app that is part of the Amarra symphony with IRC installer. It makes it so much easier to disable everything unnecessary in the operating system :-)

 

Hope springs eternal. I hope you realize just how typical this release and this thread is . . . Yes we should offer constructive feedback, but they should get their act together and quit capitalizing on their SQ, which everyone agrees is their strength. They go silent when the going gets rough, as it has yet again.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Computer Audiophile

[quark]

Hope springs eternal. I hope you realize just how typical this release and this thread is . . . Yes we should offer constructive feedback, but they should get their act together and quit capitalizing on their SQ, which everyone agrees is their strength. They go silent when the going gets rough, as it has yet again.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Computer Audiophile

 

Oh, well thanks for the lesson, bit patronising but thanks ?

As you like giving advice, mine to you would be just ask for your money back. There's no need to jump on people's posts with unnecessary patronising criticism.

your opinion is up to you, but right or wrong it's yours, don't push it on me please.

thanks

[camott]

I am curious as to what makes Amarra sound so "amazing" compared to other music players ... the idea that somehow they can optimize the output chain to improve the sound and yet maintain bit-perfectness is dubious at best. Things like that are going to be marginal and imperceptible differences - real differences can come about from the filters used to upsample (eg. different minimal/linear phase and algo's in A+ or HQP or Roon) and then any Parametric EQ, dithering, gain adjustments, etc.

 

My guess is that they are applying some sort of baseline dsp to create their Amarra house sound ... which most people find pleasing because it softens/warms up their music. If so, then this change could also be replicated in any other software with the right set of DSP changes ...

[sockpit]

Oh, well thanks for the lesson, bit patronising but thanks [emoji6]

As you like giving advice, mine to you would be just ask for your money back. There's no need to jump on people's posts with unnecessary patronising criticism.

your opinion is up to you, but right or wrong it's yours, don't push it on me please.

thanks

 

Fair enough. I didn't mean to come across that way. I'm miffed at Amarra.

 

I found A4T unusable and then began to read a lot of threads about Amarra, and they all amount to people liking the sound but being seriously underwhelmed by the bugs, freezes, crashes. Amarra is monitoring these threads, but they are obviously unable to debug their products, no matter how constructive the feedback. These problems go back years and they apparently continue in the new release. The complaints have been legion, and the response to them nonexistent or irrelevant.

 

Everyone is free to give it a whirl. I hope it gets better for those who have gone this route--and that wish is not meant to be patronizing.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Computer Audiophile

[DancingSea]

For me, Amarra 4 has some minor bugs, but for the most part, functions well. The playlist feature is largely useless which is poor design rather than a bug. I'd like a rating system and the ability to easily import and edit playlists.

[Koji]

I like Amarra 4 sound very much. Not using Audirvana since I upgraded to Amarra 4. Only issue I have is Repeat setting is always reset when I close and open Amarra 4. Is it possible to keep the previous setting?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

[DancingSea]

With the playlists, you can add either one track at a time, or one full album at a time. Once in a playlist, you can delete one track at a time, which is wonky. Created a few playlists as an experiment. Up until now, they've been stable. Tonight all the playlists suddenly disappeared. Restarted my Mac, they are simply gone. Glad it happened when only a few playlists were created instead of having created many and lose all of that work.

 

I'm going to clear the entire Amarra 4 library and instead drag selections from iTunes into a folder, and then import that folder to Amarra 4 for playing. It does say in the manual that Amarra 4 works best with libraries under 25,000 tracks. Mine is about 31K. Perhaps that has something to do with it?

[quark]

Fair enough. I didn't mean to come across that way. I'm miffed at Amarra.

 

I found A4T unusable and then began to read a lot of threads about Amarra, and they all amount to people liking the sound but being seriously underwhelmed by the bugs, freezes, crashes. Amarra is monitoring these threads, but they are obviously unable to debug their products, no matter how constructive the feedback. These problems go back years and they apparently continue in the new release. The complaints have been legion, and the response to them nonexistent or irrelevant.

 

Everyone is free to give it a whirl. I hope it gets better for those who have gone this route--and that wish is not meant to be patronizing.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Computer Audiophile

 

No worries mate

I must admit, although they don't seem to be the biggest company this Amarra 4 release seems rushed. I agree with you mostly, I just wish Sonic Studio would alleviate some frustrations and let us know that they are aware of some of the crazy problems in Amarra4.

 

Obviously they missed their original release date by quite a bit as they must've been trying to iron out problems. However it looks like they just got fed up with people moaning and released it anyway.

 

I cannot believe how frustrating and pointless the playlist mode in Amarra4 is.

PLEEEEEEASE SONIC STUDIO LISTEN TO US AND COMUNICATE WITH US PLEASE.

Credit to you the sound quality is superb, in that respect I am looking forward to Luxe.

But please tell us what you going to do and when you are going to fix playlist mode.

 

Playlists in Amarra4 are completely unusable, it's not a little bug that can be ignored or worked around, playlists are absolutely unusable.

 

No matter what order you select songs for a playlist and what order they appear in the playlist, it will always play the playlist in alphabetical order of the artist. It doesn't matter which song you select first, The playlist will just carry on in artist alphabetical order from that point and ignore any songs alphabetically before the first artist you played.

When using shuffle is even more inexplicable, it will totally ignore some tracks and repeat others.

I have invested a lot of time in this software, organising my meta data...

It's seriously hard enough creating a playlist without an iOS app because of my disability, can you imagine the frustrationin of so much time it takes me to create a playlist only for the playlist to be totally useless.

I just want to select songs for a playlist in the order I want them played, or even better allow moving the tracks in the playlist to desired order, Because that doesn't work either.

or at least if you can't fix that quickly please get the shuffle button to work properly and not repeat songs and ignore others.

Playlists need to have their overall duration displayed as well so we can create playlists for specific amounts of time.

[DancingSea]

I cannot believe how frustrating and pointless the playlist mode in Amarra4 is.

PLEEEEEEASE SONIC STUDIO LISTEN TO US AND COMUNICATE WITH US PLEASE.

 

My stop gap measure has been to make the entire Amarra 4 library a single playlist. As mentioned above, I create the playlist in iTunes, drag to a folder, and then scan that folder with Amarra 4. I do this for each listening session. When done, erase the entire Amarra 4 library. The playlist itself, with duration, etc is safely stored in iTunes for reuse. It doesn't solve the shuffle or song order issues, but it is far easier to create and reliably save a playlist in iTunes and the extra drag/ import step only takes a brief amount of time.

 

Not sure how that fits in with your physical issues. And yes, having to go to such lengths to create a playlist is a Sonic Studio failure. That said, my solution of using Amarra 4 simply as a player, and given the excellent sound quality, was enough for me to spend the $25 to upgrade.

[Amarra_Support]

Could Amarra just email us when its fixed. Life us too short to keep checking.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

 

Sorry for the issues some of you are having. We are working hard at resolving some key items and expect to have a new build out in the next day or so. Appreciate your patience.

 

best

ralph

[DancingSea]

I am curious as to what makes Amarra sound so "amazing" compared to other music players ... the idea that somehow they can optimize the output chain to improve the sound and yet maintain bit-perfectness is dubious at best. Things like that are going to be marginal and imperceptible differences - real differences can come about from the filters used to upsample (eg. different minimal/linear phase and algo's in A+ or HQP or Roon) and then any Parametric EQ, dithering, gain adjustments, etc.

 

My guess is that they are applying some sort of baseline dsp to create their Amarra house sound ... which most people find pleasing because it softens/warms up their music. If so, then this change could also be replicated in any other software with the right set of DSP changes ...

To my ears, Amarra 4 has a very analog/ vinyl/ tube like sound. Fidelia is in the same neighborhood, but not up to Amarra 4's SQ level. Others, like Audirvana Plus, have a more digital sound - which has its virtues, but is not entirely my cup of tea. All analytics aside, Amarra sounds "right" to me. When I'm listening I feel a sense of "yeah, that's the stuff".

 

How they get there, I have no idea.