New Amarra 4

[DancingSea]

I rather like the eq for the periodic bass boost...

[copy_of_a]

You did get me wrong ...or I wasn't able to bring the message across - I'm all for EQs and choices... as am I for selectable SRC settings.

 

Anyway... this "one of the best sounding digital equalizers out there in both pro and consumer gear" sucks.

Select the "Flat" curve (so no alteration in the filterbands). Switch on/off the global EQ setting.

When enabled, it smoothes / suppresses high freuqencies (sound loses focus/space). Bummer.

[Amarra_Support]

Time to jump in here, been very busy, a couple of things to pass along.

 

- We have new versions of Amarra 4/Amarra 4 Luxe for both Mac and WIndows that we are very close to releasing to the public.  There may be a few more fixes, but you're welcome to test it out from the links below:

 

Mac: https://downloads.sonicstudio.com/Amarra4Luxe/Amarra_4_Installer.4.2.427.zip

Windows: https://downloads.sonicstudio.com/Amarra4Luxe/Amarra_Setup_4.2.427.exe

 

- DSD via DoP is still being worked on, very sorry for the delays but we've had to shift some priorities around a little bit and had to focus on some critical issues.

 

- Using Browser Mode - the reason for Browser mode is to offload Amarra from many activities.  The Amarra app is still responsible for playback, however in the background the browser can do our library management and other activites.  It's an effort to provide better performance and sound.

 

- The EQ is not going away.  The quality of the EQ is not in question, most of the best mastering houses around the world have been using Sonic Studio Mastering EQ for many years.  We trust folks like Universal Studios, Warner Music Group, Other Shoe Productions (Neil Young), Abbey Road Studios and so many others to determine what's really needed in a world-class EQ.  The EQ in Amarra is a lite version of SSMEQ.  We've tried to make the EQ relatively easy to use with a minimum of choices for things like Dithering.  The majority of folks don't understand what Dithering is and why they would use it.  For those that need additional EQ features such as choice of Dithering, we would recommend using Amarra sQ+ as an Audio Enhancer you can apply to any audio stream.

 

- Amarra Play available on your iOS app store is a great partner to Amarra Luxe.  It's free on the App store and when used with Amarra Luxe can stream your Luxe library to your mobile device (no DSD streaming).  You can also download tracks from your Amarra Luxe library to your mobile device for offline use.  In addition, when using stand-alone, you'll have access to your iTunes library on your mobile device and have your music up-sampled and overall improvement of quality.   We'd recommend everyone give it a try, it's very cool. 

 

- When using iTunes mode, we have had reports of iTunes crashing randomly.  We are aware of this and are working to isolate what the cause may be.  If you run into this and have a repeatable recipe, please pass is along.

 

- If you're having issues with artwork in Amarra, it may be that the artwork is not attached to the file you are importing.  A fairly simple method of adding artwork to your music can be found at: https://app.teamsupport.com/?TicketNumber=22043

It uses kid3, a free audio tagger and has the ability to go out and search several sites for artwork and attache them to your music.  Save when done and then re-scan.  You should get much better results.

 

That's all for now, happy Saturday!

Ralph

[DancingSea]

1 hour ago, Amarra_Support said:

Time to jump in here, been very busy, a couple of things to pass along.

 

- We have new versions of Amarra 4/Amarra 4 Luxe for both Mac and WIndows that we are very close to releasing to the public.  There may be a few more fixes, but you're welcome to test it out from the links below:

 

Mac: https://downloads.sonicstudio.com/Amarra4Luxe/Amarra_4_Installer.4.2.427.zip

Windows: https://downloads.sonicstudio.com/Amarra4Luxe/Amarra_Setup_4.2.427.exe

 

- DSD via DoP is still being worked on, very sorry for the delays but we've had to shift some priorities around a little bit and had to focus on some critical issues.

 

- Using Browser Mode - the reason for Browser mode is to offload Amarra from many activities.  The Amarra app is still responsible for playback, however in the background the browser can do our library management and other activites.  It's an effort to provide better performance and sound.

 

- The EQ is not going away.  The quality of the EQ is not in question, most of the best mastering houses around the world have been using Sonic Studio Mastering EQ for many years.  We trust folks like Universal Studios, Warner Music Group, Other Shoe Productions (Neil Young), Abbey Road Studios and so many others to determine what's really needed in a world-class EQ.  The EQ in Amarra is a lite version of SSMEQ.  We've tried to make the EQ relatively easy to use with a minimum of choices for things like Dithering.  The majority of folks don't understand what Dithering is and why they would use it.  For those that need additional EQ features such as choice of Dithering, we would recommend using Amarra sQ+ as an Audio Enhancer you can apply to any audio stream.

 

- Amarra Play available on your iOS app store is a great partner to Amarra Luxe.  It's free on the App store and when used with Amarra Luxe can stream your Luxe library to your mobile device (no DSD streaming).  You can also download tracks from your Amarra Luxe library to your mobile device for offline use.  In addition, when using stand-alone, you'll have access to your iTunes library on your mobile device and have your music up-sampled and overall improvement of quality.   We'd recommend everyone give it a try, it's very cool. 

 

- When using iTunes mode, we have had reports of iTunes crashing randomly.  We are aware of this and are working to isolate what the cause may be.  If you run into this and have a repeatable recipe, please pass is along.

 

- If you're having issues with artwork in Amarra, it may be that the artwork is not attached to the file you are importing.  A fairly simple method of adding artwork to your music can be found at: https://app.teamsupport.com/?TicketNumber=22043

It uses kid3, a free audio tagger and has the ability to go out and search several sites for artwork and attache them to your music.  Save when done and then re-scan.  You should get much better results.

 

That's all for now, happy Saturday!

Ralph

 

Appreciate the update Ralph!  Look forward to DSD via DoP soon, and yes, your eq is wonderful. 

[Lio_B]

Thanks for the update,

always using A4L in browser mode on mac.

when I launch browser mode, Amarra app's stay on screen, the 2 are selectable. perhaps it's a beta issue ...

test a little with Tidal and my library, no problem.

Do you know when it would be possible to manage upsampling rate ?

all my other players did that, when I switch to Amarra, I always had the wrong speed because I can't adjust it to the same rate.

thanks

 

[MosfetMist]

Hi Ralph, thank you for this post, it's good to know you're working hard on Amarra to offer a better user experience.

 

Amarra EQ sounds nice as oppose to Apple AU EQ, for example the 31-band graphic EQ adds audible distortion, Amarra EQ does not (unless you raise the bands all the way up).

 

Looking forward to the next Amarra version.

 

Kind regards,

MosfetMist

[MosfetMist]

On 6/14/2018 at 10:10 PM, copy_of_a said:

 

Anyway... this "one of the best sounding digital equalizers out there in both pro and consumer gear" sucks.

Select the "Flat" curve (so no alteration in the filterbands). Switch on/off the global EQ setting.

When enabled, it smoothes / suppresses high freuqencies (sound loses focus/space). Bummer.

 

Hi copy_of_a, I understand what you mean, the Amarra's EQ is not crispy on the highs it smooths out everything creating a mist/roll-off on the highs, sickeningly sweet highs some would say with no detail, this is the only downside I see on Amarra's sound, they should add a AU/VST option so that one can have a more realistic/crispy highs.

 

Kind regards,

MosfetMist.

[copy_of_a]

15 hours ago, Amarra_Support said:

The quality of the EQ is not in question

The EQ itself might be great... but maybe the implementation in Amarra is not so great.

Record some music playing through Amarra with EQ disbled.

Record the same music playing through Amarra with EQ set to "flat".

Compare...

With the "flat" setting the music is denser (loses space).

 

edit: @MosfetMist... we've posted at the same time...

 

[beerandmusic]

15 hours ago, Amarra_Support said:

Time to jump in here, been very busy, a couple of things to pass along.

 

- We have new versions of Amarra 4/Amarra 4 Luxe for both Mac and WIndows that we are very close to releasing to the public.  There may be a few more fixes, but you're welcome to test it out from the links below:

 

Mac: https://downloads.sonicstudio.com/Amarra4Luxe/Amarra_4_Installer.4.2.427.zip

Windows: https://downloads.sonicstudio.com/Amarra4Luxe/Amarra_Setup_4.2.427.exe

 

- DSD via DoP is still being worked on, very sorry for the delays but we've had to shift some priorities around a little bit and had to focus on some critical issues.

 

- Using Browser Mode - the reason for Browser mode is to offload Amarra from many activities.  The Amarra app is still responsible for playback, however in the background the browser can do our library management and other activites.  It's an effort to provide better performance and sound.

 

- The EQ is not going away.  The quality of the EQ is not in question, most of the best mastering houses around the world have been using Sonic Studio Mastering EQ for many years.  We trust folks like Universal Studios, Warner Music Group, Other Shoe Productions (Neil Young), Abbey Road Studios and so many others to determine what's really needed in a world-class EQ.  The EQ in Amarra is a lite version of SSMEQ.  We've tried to make the EQ relatively easy to use with a minimum of choices for things like Dithering.  The majority of folks don't understand what Dithering is and why they would use it.  For those that need additional EQ features such as choice of Dithering, we would recommend using Amarra sQ+ as an Audio Enhancer you can apply to any audio stream.

 

- Amarra Play available on your iOS app store is a great partner to Amarra Luxe.  It's free on the App store and when used with Amarra Luxe can stream your Luxe library to your mobile device (no DSD streaming).  You can also download tracks from your Amarra Luxe library to your mobile device for offline use.  In addition, when using stand-alone, you'll have access to your iTunes library on your mobile device and have your music up-sampled and overall improvement of quality.   We'd recommend everyone give it a try, it's very cool. 

 

- When using iTunes mode, we have had reports of iTunes crashing randomly.  We are aware of this and are working to isolate what the cause may be.  If you run into this and have a repeatable recipe, please pass is along.

 

- If you're having issues with artwork in Amarra, it may be that the artwork is not attached to the file you are importing.  A fairly simple method of adding artwork to your music can be found at: https://app.teamsupport.com/?TicketNumber=22043

It uses kid3, a free audio tagger and has the ability to go out and search several sites for artwork and attache them to your music.  Save when done and then re-scan.  You should get much better results.

 

That's all for now, happy Saturday!

Ralph

 

any plans for alexa support....it's one way you can get a "one up" on subscription roon.

[Melvin]

16 hours ago, Amarra_Support said:

Time to jump in here, been very busy, a couple of things to pass along.

 

- We have new versions of Amarra 4/Amarra 4 Luxe for both Mac and WIndows that we are very close to releasing to the public.  There may be a few more fixes, but you're welcome to test it out from the links below:

 

Mac: https://downloads.sonicstudio.com/Amarra4Luxe/Amarra_4_Installer.4.2.427.zip

Windows: https://downloads.sonicstudio.com/Amarra4Luxe/Amarra_Setup_4.2.427.exe

 

- DSD via DoP is still being worked on, very sorry for the delays but we've had to shift some priorities around a little bit and had to focus on some critical issues.

 

- Using Browser Mode - the reason for Browser mode is to offload Amarra from many activities.  The Amarra app is still responsible for playback, however in the background the browser can do our library management and other activites.  It's an effort to provide better performance and sound.

 

- The EQ is not going away.  The quality of the EQ is not in question, most of the best mastering houses around the world have been using Sonic Studio Mastering EQ for many years.  We trust folks like Universal Studios, Warner Music Group, Other Shoe Productions (Neil Young), Abbey Road Studios and so many others to determine what's really needed in a world-class EQ.  The EQ in Amarra is a lite version of SSMEQ.  We've tried to make the EQ relatively easy to use with a minimum of choices for things like Dithering.  The majority of folks don't understand what Dithering is and why they would use it.  For those that need additional EQ features such as choice of Dithering, we would recommend using Amarra sQ+ as an Audio Enhancer you can apply to any audio stream.

 

- Amarra Play available on your iOS app store is a great partner to Amarra Luxe.  It's free on the App store and when used with Amarra Luxe can stream your Luxe library to your mobile device (no DSD streaming).  You can also download tracks from your Amarra Luxe library to your mobile device for offline use.  In addition, when using stand-alone, you'll have access to your iTunes library on your mobile device and have your music up-sampled and overall improvement of quality.   We'd recommend everyone give it a try, it's very cool. 

 

- When using iTunes mode, we have had reports of iTunes crashing randomly.  We are aware of this and are working to isolate what the cause may be.  If you run into this and have a repeatable recipe, please pass is along.

 

- If you're having issues with artwork in Amarra, it may be that the artwork is not attached to the file you are importing.  A fairly simple method of adding artwork to your music can be found at: https://app.teamsupport.com/?TicketNumber=22043

It uses kid3, a free audio tagger and has the ability to go out and search several sites for artwork and attache them to your music.  Save when done and then re-scan.  You should get much better results.

 

That's all for now, happy Saturday!

Ralph

 

Thanks for the update and clarification Ralph. Although I'm pretty happy with the current release, I look forward to the next.

[GregWormald]

18 hours ago, Amarra_Support said:

Time to jump in here, been very busy, a couple of things to pass along.

<snip>

That's all for now, happy Saturday!

Ralph

 

Thanks for the update Ralph. 

I have the iTunes issue--I can send you a crash log if it will be useful.

 

Greg

[DancingSea]

The “sweet highs” are the main thing I like about Amarra ??

[MosfetMist]

31 minutes ago, DancingSea said:

The “sweet highs” are the main thing I like about Amarra ??

 

Hi @DancingSea, in my case it is the warm/meaty sound Amarra adds to my music, on Amarra drums sound punchy and meaty and bass sounds more defined, on the contrary the highs sound weak, with no definition, way too sweet..., when I'm craving crispy highs I switch to A+, but then I need to raise the 300hz and the 80hz on the EQ to add some body to the sound, A+ lacks body and warmth.

 

Kind regards,

MosfetMist.

[DancingSea]

The EQ really does at least need gain control added...

[copy_of_a]

15 hours ago, DancingSea said:

The “sweet highs” are the main thing I like about Amarra ??

for my taste the highs are sweet enough by default... so without the EQ enabled... and I don't like the highs (the space respectively) to be affected (by activating the EQ) when I only want to add a slight bass boost.

56 minutes ago, DancingSea said:

The EQ really does at least need gain control added...

100% agreed! It's already there in SQ+ ...

 

Besides, there are still important basic things not working as supposed to. In my setup Amarra very often produces drop outs/crackling sound at the start of playback (with upsampling and/or EQ enabled). Browser mode works... once. After quitting and restarting the app Amarra shows 0 albums and 0 artists ... although all tracks (~16k) are present under "track"-view. A rescan of the library fixes the issue... once. Then again no such trouble in regular App-mode (so without Browser Mode) and it also works fine in iTunes mode (which I don't use, however). The iOS app takes ages to load the artist-list. It's also very, very basic. Extremely basic...

 

 

[church_mouse]

I have and liked the sound from Amarra 3, but stopped using it because of my dislike of i-Tunes and a decision to move all my music in to Flac format.

 

I even liked the Amarra sound enough that I experimented with using Audirvana or JRiver and sending it through SQ+ - however, I could never get it stable enough that I was not troubled by occasional mangling of the sound, or very unpleasant pops and clicks.

 

I tested the early releases of A4 but the library management was sub-optimal and stability was not good.

 

From what I am now reading, is it correct that A4 is actually best relying upon i-Tunes again (so Flac is out) and also by using browser mode (how does browser mode work with using the App on an iPad)?

[DancingSea]

9 hours ago, copy_of_a said:

for my taste the highs are sweet enough by default... so without the EQ enabled... and I don't like the highs (the space respectively) to be affected (by activating the EQ) when I only want to add a slight bass boost.

100% agreed! It's already there in SQ+ ...

 

Besides, there are still important basic things not working as supposed to. In my setup Amarra very often produces drop outs/crackling sound at the start of playback (with upsampling and/or EQ enabled). Browser mode works... once. After quitting and restarting the app Amarra shows 0 albums and 0 artists ... although all tracks (~16k) are present under "track"-view. A rescan of the library fixes the issue... once. Then again no such trouble in regular App-mode (so without Browser Mode) and it also works fine in iTunes mode (which I don't use, however). The iOS app takes ages to load the artist-list. It's also very, very basic. Extremely basic...

 

 

 

Yes, it does have a number of quirks.  Last night I hit play and a very loud horrible sound came out of the speakers leading me to rush to find the mute button.

 

Its fun to play with and I appreciate their progress.  I do spend most of the time with Roon/ HQPlayer.....

[DancingSea]

8 hours ago, church_mouse said:

I have and liked the sound from Amarra 3, but stopped using it because of my dislike of i-Tunes and a decision to move all my music in to Flac format.

 

I even liked the Amarra sound enough that I experimented with using Audirvana or JRiver and sending it through SQ+ - however, I could never get it stable enough that I was not troubled by occasional mangling of the sound, or very unpleasant pops and clicks.

 

I tested the early releases of A4 but the library management was sub-optimal and stability was not good.

 

From what I am now reading, is it correct that A4 is actually best relying upon i-Tunes again (so Flac is out) and also by using browser mode (how does browser mode work with using the App on an iPad)?

 

In my experience, I would not rely upon Amarra for library management.  Its a recipe for frustration.

[church_mouse]

@DancingSea.  Thanks.  I will stick with my decision after I tested A4 months ago to not purchase it.

[Melvin]

9 hours ago, church_mouse said:

From what I am now reading, is it correct that A4 is actually best relying upon i-Tunes again (so Flac is out) and also by using browser mode (how does browser mode work with using the App on an iPad)?

 

I really like browser mode and am now using it exclusively. The Amarra remote on iPad works with browser mode as well. Of course, it seems to take forever to populate artists/albums/songs but I simply tap an artist, for example, go back to the previous screen, and voila .. the albums for the artist populates promptly. A bit of a kludge but it works quickly. BTW, I've been using Amarra's library function lately without issue. YMMV.

[MosfetMist]

I don't know why some people say that the browser mode sound better on Amarra, both modes use JavaScript and Angular, that is both are web apps, the Amarra app is just a container with a web page inside, the browser mode is the same web page but inside the browser, behind both modes there is the Amarra engine that gets called from the interfaces, that's all, by the way I'm still waiting for a sorting option by name/artist on Tidal's playlists,

 

Kind regards,

MosfetMist.

[Melvin]

Update landed today .. 4.2.427-184. 

[ThunderMac]

On 6/18/2018 at 11:18 AM, copy_of_a said:

After quitting and restarting the app Amarra shows 0 albums and 0 artists ... although all tracks (~16k) are present under "track"-view. A rescan of the library fixes the issue... once

 

I have same problem, since I upgrade to beta version 4.2.427. I deleted beta version and install again last official version 4.2.427-184 from amarra website, but no success, even if I “don't touch” the browser mode. Every time I close amarra app and open it again I have to rescan library and this mean it’s impossible to listen amarra. Is there any solution, please….

[church_mouse]

An offer to buy A4 for 50% off convinced me to give it another go.  My experience with it over the last 2 days has been:

1. Scanning my Flac library seemed to work ok.  After a bit of playing music, I saved the results then closed and reopened the App - the tracks were there as songs but A4 showed no albums and no artists.  I deleted the songs, rescanned, played some music, saved but did not close the App - everything looked OK for Albums and Artists.  I closed and reopened A4 to discover Albums and Artists were again blank.

2. I had already created an ALAC copy of my library in case I needed to use i-Tunes, so I set that for i-Tunes and got A4 to do the i-Tunes scan option.  This worked and survived closing/opening of the App, but multi-disc albums are not handled well by A4, it seems, with track order switching to alphabet order for every multi-disc album (i-Tunes had the albums sorted correctly).

3. I downloaded the free Amarra Play App for my iPad and got it working, but then discovered issues with switching from tracks which have different sample rates - sometimes the track refused to play at the correct sample rate, sometimes A4 would switch but only after selecting the track 2 or 3 times (the only work around I found was to use A4 upsampling of everything to eliminate sample rate switching).  I also found trying to use the Play App with A4 in browser mode was a disaster - unreliable volume control, unreliable track control, sample rate issues.

4. I decided to try A4 in i-Tunes mode using the Apple Remote App for control. I still had issues with sample rate switching plus the A4 integration with i-Tunes seemed to screw up volume control in the Remote App - the volume would follow the control for half a second before returning to its previous setting. (The App did not give this issue if I just used i-Tunes with A4 closed.)

The sound of A4, when it worked, was very nice (less so in i-Tunes integrated mode), so all of the issues experienced were a disappointment to me.

I checked and I am using the latest official A4 release (4.2.427-184). 

My DAC is a Mytek Manhattan 1, using Mytek's driver for Firewire - I don't know if any of my issues may be linked to that or whether users of other DACs have experienced similar issues. (USB is not an option - Mytek never updated the USB driver beyond Yosemite).

I have had enough testing for now, so it is back to Audirvana at the moment. However, if anyone has experienced but solved any of the issues above, please tell me how and I may try again.

[Jamesroy]

1 hour ago, church_mouse said:

An offer to buy A4 for 50% off convinced me to give it another go.  My experience with it over the last 2 days has been:

1. Scanning my Flac library seemed to work ok.  After a bit of playing music, I saved the results then closed and reopened the App - the tracks were there as songs but A4 showed no albums and no artists.  I deleted the songs, rescanned, played some music, saved but did not close the App - everything looked OK for Albums and Artists.  I closed and reopened A4 to discover Albums and Artists were again blank.

2. I had already created an ALAC copy of my library in case I needed to use i-Tunes, so I set that for i-Tunes and got A4 to do the i-Tunes scan option.  This worked and survived closing/opening of the App, but multi-disc albums are not handled well by A4, it seems, with track order switching to alphabet order for every multi-disc album (i-Tunes had the albums sorted correctly).

3. I downloaded the free Amarra Play App for my iPad and got it working, but then discovered issues with switching from tracks which have different sample rates - sometimes the track refused to play at the correct sample rate, sometimes A4 would switch but only after selecting the track 2 or 3 times (the only work around I found was to use A4 upsampling of everything to eliminate sample rate switching).  I also found trying to use the Play App with A4 in browser mode was a disaster - unreliable volume control, unreliable track control, sample rate issues.

4. I decided to try A4 in i-Tunes mode using the Apple Remote App for control. I still had issues with sample rate switching plus the A4 integration with i-Tunes seemed to screw up volume control in the Remote App - the volume would follow the control for half a second before returning to its previous setting. (The App did not give this issue if I just used i-Tunes with A4 closed.)

The sound of A4, when it worked, was very nice (less so in i-Tunes integrated mode), so all of the issues experienced were a disappointment to me.

I checked and I am using the latest official A4 release (4.2.427-184). 

My DAC is a Mytek Manhattan 1, using Mytek's driver for Firewire - I don't know if any of my issues may be linked to that or whether users of other DACs have experienced similar issues. (USB is not an option - Mytek never updated the USB driver beyond Yosemite).

I have had enough testing for now, so it is back to Audirvana at the moment. However, if anyone has experienced but solved any of the issues above, please tell me how and I may try again.

I have no problems with library using A+, and it sounds good.