Audirvana Plus 3 (official thread)

[Musicophile]

18 hours ago, damien78 said:

The license validation must be done once every 2 weeks. So you need to connect your Mac to the Internet every two weeks.

@Damien78, as other I'm surprised by this requirement. It's not really an issue for me as my Mac is permanently connected to the internet, but I'm struggling to see why this is needed.

 

Could you elaborate why this was put in place?

[Musicophile]

6 hours ago, Innocent Bystander said:

I havent budged from 2.6 as at the moment V3 seems too buggy, going by everything on both this thread and the A+ site forum, and I have no interest whatsoever in using MPA, so until Damien has time to fix the library issues as well, adding browsing by folder/file structure I'm staying put. Though that is only until I find something better because of the library problems: sooner or later someone else will produce another renderer app achieving the same excellent sound qualit but with a good library facility that can work other ways than just having perfect metadata.

 

Actually, V3 is working perfectly fine on many computers, including mine. Don't forget reading a thread like this you get a biased picture, you'll only see the bugs, not the ones that are running smoothly.

 

And I'm happy I did upgrade even though I don't have a single MQA file (nor intend to purchase any), as the SQ took another step in the right direction. 

 

As you noticed, indeed often what tends to happen is that new versions of A+ tend to show gaps in your tagging , so it's not a problem of A+ but of your tagging. I spent ages getting my tags in order, and so I barely ever have problems with my library now. I think this is time well invested no matter what other playback systems we'll use in the future (unless we all move to full highres streaming like Qobuz will soon start offering).

 

 

[Musicophile]

While I think the regular license validation issue may have been blown a bit out of proportion here (my guess is that it is a non issue to more than 80% of the user base and I don't believe Damien has any incentive of spying on us), I must admit I'm personally struggling to understand WHY the software needs to do the regular checks, with a business model that is based on a one off purchase. 

 

The rationale for regular checking is obvious in a subscription model, but here the entire purpose of this completely escapes me. 

[Musicophile]

1 hour ago, Jud said:

The story on direct mode as far as I understand:

 

- Direct mode was developed when Apple broke integer mode back in (IIRC) the Lion days.  It is no longer necessary for integer mode.

 

- It is essentially a driver, one that is even more stripped-down than Apple's own, which some people think contributes to better sound.

 

- Drivers interface with the kernel.  As of El Capitan and forward, Apple's System Integrity Protection (SIP) won't allow installation of such drivers without specific Apple permission, which Apple has not granted.  Damien has requested here several times for people to ask Apple (respectfully) to give permission for the Direct Mode driver in Audirvana Plus to be installed on MacOS, and he has also asked himself as a developer, but so far permission has not been forthcoming.

 

- There is a workaround to allow the installation, which is to patch the kernel, but people should not do this unless they understand the steps very precisely, have a printed copy of the instructions to hand, and have an up-to-date backup ready to install if something goes wrong.  This is not meant to scare people but to try to ensure against complaints of "I did just about what I thought you said and now my computer doesn't work!" from people who don't take these simple precautions.

Can we make this post a sticky?

 

We see the request for direct mode over and over again, and every time I'm thinking to myself "guys you really don't need a workaround to a problem that doesn't exist any more".

 

Probably @Damien78 hasn't helped himself by not keeping his manual fully up to date. 

 

Damien, how about you give your formal guidance on the issue and update your manual accordingly? Is Jud right (I think he his) and direct mode is basically just a legacy feature?

 

 

[Musicophile]

55 minutes ago, mikeypas said:

 

+1 Agreed

I haven't seen any upgrades on the app for a long time. Would be nice to be able to create playlists from the app.

Also, would be nice to have a forum dedicated to functionality requests / bug reports, because it often gets lost in the pages of people discussing their thoughts on licensing etc.

 

I'm still not able to get the sysoptimizer to work on 3.0.5

I would like to request a feature to not wake the screen when the app connects to audirvana library

 

We had a feature request thread in the past for 2.0, feel free to create a new one.

 

 

[Musicophile]

5 hours ago, Scar972 said:

I've been using A+ for a few months and have always had issues with the connection of the A+ remote, sometimes it will connect sometimes it won't. I remember not having this much connection issues when I was using the iTunes remote. Anyone else experience this? TIA

iPhone 6 and IPad 3 and no issues. 

[Musicophile]

3 minutes ago, damien78 said:

I'm not giving any promise on the date itself. Only that I'm making good progress.

Though the number of different implementations on the network players side makes it not a very small task...

@damien78, while we have you here, do you have any plans for an update of the remote app?

[Musicophile]

2 minutes ago, damien78 said:

Sure... do you have the recipe for the 40 hours day?

Seriously, I'm considering important updates, though not for the very next weeks.

I fully understand that you have to prioritize, but the app is the main UI most of us use everyday. 

 

Having the same search function on the app as we have on the computer would be amazing.

[Musicophile]

3 hours ago, Orko said:

How may remotes can one use at a time? I have the remote app on an iPhone and an iPad (and I recall being able to use both at the same time) but now when I pair the iPad remote app, the iPhone gets unpaired. Is that a bug or something new with v3?

I permanently swtich between iphone and two ipads, no issues with v3 here.

[Musicophile]

8 hours ago, mroet said:

Just wanted to pass along a not-so-good experience I've had with audirvana 3.  After more than a year of very happy use of audirvana 2 (on a dedicated Mac Mini music server) I upgraded and, stupid me, just paid the fee instead of downloading the 15 day free trial.  For some reason it doesn't work (i.e., simply doesn't play music) unless I turn Direct Mode off.  Audirvana support was responsive in helping me figure out that I needed to turn Direct Mode off, but then it doesn't sound any better than audirvana 2 (which runs just fine in Direct Mode...).  So I figured the upgrade wasn't worthwhile for me and asked - 3 times now - for a refund of my upgrade fee.  Not a peep - I can no longer get any sort of reply from them.  I'm sharing this so that you all know "buyer be ware" when it comes to this upgrade.  Make sure you test it out before forking over any $$!

For context: with Audirvana, there is no "then", there is just one owner/developer, Damien. He checks out this forum you may want to ping him. 

[Musicophile]

Damien,

 

I just received a new MacBook Pro 15 for work, with the TouchBar. Do you plan to have A+ interact with the Touch Bar? It would be great to have volume control and play buttons in there.

[Musicophile]

There is a new thread for v3.1 right now, you may want to use that?

[Musicophile]

Let's close this and move over to 3.1:

 

 

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/35034-audirvana-31/

[Musicophile]

Guys, this is an old outdated thread, we have a dedicated one on v3.1. 

 

Can we close this and get back to the new one?

 

 

 

 

 

[Musicophile]

20 hours ago, AmosM said:

I’ve enjoyed A+ for quite a while now and find the Tidal integration especially cool for previewing new music. Has anyone discussed how A+ might respond if Tidal should go under? The stories of their financial distress come every week. I hope it doesn’t happen, of course, or that some larger media conglomerate would swoop in and save the service.

 

This isn’t worth addressing Damien directly, I think; it’s speculative and he’s probably busier than ever, with the Windows version coming.

You can always go with Qobuz.

[Musicophile]

On 6/20/2018 at 4:12 AM, RobertinMn said:

Before joining this forum, I searched it and the web in general for answers to the problem of AV 3 stalling out with 3 seconds left to the track. It continues to do this and the only way to stop it is to reboot the whole computer and start over again. The whole system is up to date with all of Apple's software. AV is up to date. I'd like to buy this software, but unless there is a real fix to this problem, I won't be bothered to.

 

Yes, my music is kept on a separate hard drive. this has long been considered the way to keep music on a mac. All of the files in iTunes are either kept as Apple Lossless or AIFF. It does irregardless of file type.

I have the same bug (luckily rarely).

 

Damien has been aware of it for quite a while but given that is so hard to consistently reproduce he hasn’t been to fix it yet. If you see any way of consistently reproducing the issue please let Damien know. 

[Musicophile]

2 hours ago, fourstrings1891 said:

So what's up with new version...?

 

A+ really has everything I wish when it comes to sound quality and library management, but the interface is so buggy and unpredictable I sometimes want to throw the computer out the window. And don't get me started on the iOS app... So many time's I've thought "this is it, now I'm switching to another software". But the alternatives are always worse, and it's back to A+. Again and again. It's so frustrating!

 

I really hope the new version will be a huge improvement (and please don't go the iTunes path and remove customisable elements, just to make a cleaner interface!). But the focus on a completely new Windows port is worrying. Please give A+ Mac and the THE IOS APP some love! ❤️ 

On my  computer, I barely ever face any issues with A+, and I use it really a lot, both with Qobuz and my own library.

 

And the iOS app could certainly be improved in many ways (particularly the search function), but at least on my computer it works 99% of the time.

[Musicophile]

@damien78 I understand you‘ve been busy on 3.5 and Windows, but could I ask for when you think we should expect a significant update of the remote app? It is for many of us the key interface for using A+, and hasn’t seen any update in ages.  

 

I‘d especially like to see an improvement to the text search function (at least in line with the desktop app) and overall I feel the interface could use some fine tuning (a lot of clicks required eg to access simple features like pause and

volume for example). 

[Musicophile]

On 12/9/2018 at 6:41 PM, damien78 said:

A+ Remote V2 is currently in the works. It'll bring the same look and feel as the new Audirvana Plus UI (Windows, and upcoming 3.5 on Mac), with strongly improved UX as well.

 

Damien

Parfait, merci beaucoup!