New Amarra 4

[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.

[church_mouse]

@DancingSea - I have found that SQ+ can be temperamental in setting up (well, it is Amarra!).  Sometimes it can be worth closing and re-opening SQ+ before setting up a new input source such for the first time.

 

After setting up A+ and JRMC so that they both point to SQ+, I just leave my MacMini alone and control via iPad or tablet.

[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!

[GregWormald]

6 hours ago, DancingSea said:

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

 

The latest version (I have 4.3.500) actually has a library that works! I find the iTunes integration to have issues--as well as inferior sound.

[church_mouse]

@DancingSea  I have never had SQ+ not play.  However, I seem to have jinxed my own set-up; I have everything set to upsample to 192 to avoid sample rate switching issues with SQ+, but for the last few days, without obvious cause, in my midi settings the rate will suddenly switch to 44.1 which makes the 192 unlistenable.   Taking SQ+ out of the path; stability returns.

 

 I know the default input/output settings for SQ+ are 44.1, but this sudden resetting to 44.1 without a restart is a new, and unexplained, instability for me.

[church_mouse]

I give up with this.  In an attempt to solve my sample rate issue, I rebooted everything.  Now, no matter what I do, SQ+ refuses to capture the audio stream.

 

Oh well, it was nice whilst it lasted.

[church_mouse]

21 hours ago, church_mouse said:

I give up with this.  In an attempt to solve my sample rate issue, I rebooted everything.  Now, no matter what I do, SQ+ refuses to capture the audio stream.

 

Oh well, it was nice whilst it lasted.

To be fair to Amarra, the "no sound" turned out to be my error.

 

I needed to go back in to OSX Privacy and Security settings and re-authorise SQ+ to use the microphone - without that authorisation, SQ+ is blocked from taking over audio.

 

At the moment, sample switching is stable and all running well again.

[lucretius]

On 4/11/2019 at 3:47 PM, MosfetMist said:

Yes you're right, Audirvana+ is bright and a bit harsh, it manipulates the audio signal digitally to create artificial detail but it comes at a cost: it becomes ear fatiguing and sometimes boomy.

 

A+ does not "manipulate the audio signal digitally" unless upsampling is turned on; it is bit-perfect -- at least this is true for the Windows version (I can't see why it wouldn't be true for the Mac version).

[ThunderMac]

I found on forum that Amarra Luxe had update, so I downloaded latest version to see if “wrong song order list problem in Amarra library” is fixed. Quickly I found the problem is still present. HOWEVER, I FOUND SOMETHING ELSE THAT COULD BE THE SOLUTION! But I need you to verify this solution, maybe you can reproduce the problem so we could confirm solution.

It was late night when I was experimenting yesterday, so I checked this solution on only one or two albums. If I Import music folder to Amarra library from sheared folder - NAS (Synology) sometimes, it happens that song order list is wrong. I could carefully re-tag again and again but no success. And there is no logic, everythime wrong song order list could be different.

But If I copy music album from sheared folder - NAS (Synology) to mac mini where is also Amarra Luxe installed and rescanned/import album to Amarra Library from mac mini, then the song order list is correct.

Before I buy the biggest possible SSD disk for my mac mini and copy all my music from Synology to mac mini I want that somebody confirm my observation.

[twist222]

Updated Amarra Lux to version 4.3.500 and now the remote app does not work.

 

Unlike some others, I have not had many problems with Amarra Lux until I upgraded to version 4.3.500. Now Amarra Play (the remote app on my iPad) now longer connects to Lux.

The remote app for iTunes still connects fine and Amarra Play even connects with SQ+ if I open SQ+ on my computer.

 

Before I spend more hours trying to sort this out I thought I would check and see if anyone else is having this problem.

 

Regards

Mark

 

[jacobacci]

I updated to 4.3.500 hoping the Qobuz slow streaming bug had been fixed. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be the case.

Qobuz streams fine at 44.1kHz, but at 96kHz the loading / streaming throughput cannot keep up and stuttering appears after a few seconds.

The MacMini Setup seems to be ok, as streaming with the Qobuz app on the same machine works without any issues up to 192kHz

 

[Surapong]

hi, everyone and Amarra supporter,

Today, I have found the problem with Amarra 4 Luxe (lastest) Openning on Windows 10 (latest updating). The problem, after double clicks on the Amarra Luxe icon, my Windows 10 crashed suddently with the Blue Screen and restart the Windows.

Does anyone have found this problem? and How to resolve? I tried to uninstall and reinstall with the lastest Amarra Luxe version. It does the same, Crash everytime I make double cliicks on Amarra.

 

Thank you.

Surapong

[Rexp]

I'm trialling Amarra Luxe now, it does sound good but very slow/glitchy on windows10. Is it same for Mac? 

[NickDun]

3 hours ago, Rexp said:

I'm trialling Amarra Luxe now, it does sound good but very slow/glitchy on windows10. Is it same for Mac? 

 

It's not the most reliable software on a Mac no ... I dont manage anything in it. All my music is held on disk and then I import into the library whenever it crashes (not too frequently), hangs on quitting (very often) or when I want to add something new (unpredictable behaviours expected). It seems incapable of searching for a song, especially on Qobuz, but searching for an artist is ok, and sometimes finding an album works. But dont expect to do too many searches before it will freeze.

 

So ... just know what you want to listen to, find a track on a discography site outside it and then search for artist and look for the album that track is on. Finding classical music is frankly a nightmare.

 

I have learned where it puts stuff so I dont fight it anymore. I cancelled my payment twice but came back to it because for me it still sounds the best. Test? Under African Skies on the Paul Simon Gracelands album ... the cowbell at the end sounds like a cowbell on Amarra ... it sounds like a cymbal on things like Audirvana.

 

Nick

[Rexp]

3 hours ago, NickDun said:

 

It's not the most reliable software on a Mac no ... I dont manage anything in it. All my music is held on disk and then I import into the library whenever it crashes (not too frequently), hangs on quitting (very often) or when I want to add something new (unpredictable behaviours expected). It seems incapable of searching for a song, especially on Qobuz, but searching for an artist is ok, and sometimes finding an album works. But dont expect to do too many searches before it will freeze.

 

So ... just know what you want to listen to, find a track on a discography site outside it and then search for artist and look for the album that track is on. Finding classical music is frankly a nightmare.

 

I have learned where it puts stuff so I dont fight it anymore. I cancelled my payment twice but came back to it because for me it still sounds the best. Test? Under African Skies on the Paul Simon Gracelands album ... the cowbell at the end sounds like a cowbell on Amarra ... it sounds like a cymbal on things like Audirvana.

 

Nick

Yes, can't fault the SQ. I might try the Amarra for Tidal version instead. 

[GregWormald]

IMO, the latest version works fairly well, although it certainly does have its glitches—database wise.🙁

I keep persevering with it because I haven't found a sound quality I prefer.🙂

[Rexp]

4 minutes ago, GregWormald said:

IMO, the latest version works fairly well, although it certainly does have its glitches—database wise.🙁

I keep persevering with it because I haven't found a sound quality I prefer.🙂

I'm currently comparing to Roon and A+ and am surprised Amarra is much better. it seems to lift a veil so that each recording sounds very different and the musical details are revealed. 

[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.

[AudioDoctor]

3 minutes ago, DancingSea said:

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.

 

I was going to say this a bit ago before I was distracted here by one of my girls waking up. Roon and HQPlayer in a proper set up is IMO, the best playback software solution there is right now.

[Rexp]

3 hours ago, DancingSea said:

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.

This is without upsampling I assume? 

 

[MikePid]

8 hours ago, DancingSea said:

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.

Same for me, and I have never looked back. Amarra SQ+ served me well for several years during my early streaming days, but after much frustration with the new version, I moved on. Yes, Roon and HQPlayer are more expensive, but they are one of the best audio upgrades I’ve done, and for less than the price of some of the cables I’ve bought. So very cost effective when viewed that way. 

[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. 

[6rs]

Hi, whenever I adjust the volume in Amarra (latest version) on the Mac (OS 10.12.6, Mac mini), the volume momentarily jumps to MAX, before settling to the new adjusted level. Is this a known issue? Any known remedy?

Thank you and best wishes.

 

Ok, it is gone. Reset DAC connection in settings seem to have helped.

[6rs]

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?