Amarra Is Offically A Thing of the Past.....Thanks To Pure Vinyl's New Pure Music for just $99

[Lars]

I still like those amps Dynobot

 

[Guest]

@Lars, thanks I just got them about a week ago. A friend shipped them to me from Japan. Very musical, and powerful sound....velvety. They make you want to turn them up just so you can have more.

 

 

 

 

[Guest]

@Mellor, YES you have to love Capitalism....as far as I am concerned this is a GREAT thing for computer audio as a whole. I love it!

 

 

 

 

[hubsand]

It's really difficult to state defensibly that Mac is better than PC or Linux for audio. I confess an up-front pro-Mac bias for these past 20 years or so, but you really need some level playing fields on which to make these comparisons.

 

What we're aiming for here - the definition of a 'good' computer for audio - is really all about aspiring to complete transparency: a transport should sound like nothing. As far as the components of the transport are concerned, it's not about synergy: it's about whether each part is transparent. So here are some specific questions to answer for yourselves:

 

1. For each software platform, which combination of soundcard, driver and player sounds most like it's not in the way?

For instance, on a Mac, maybe that is Mac OS X.x + Pure Vinyl X.x + iTunes over USB. On a PC, maybe that is W7 + Lynx AES16 + JRiver or XXHighEnd + WASAPI over AES/EBU. On Linux, maybe that is MPD + Juli@ + coaxial. Naturally there are hundreds of combinations to audition.

 

2. Which hardware factors are influential?

For each of these software platforms, audition all available power supplies, motherboards, SSDs, hard drives (and, if you're feeling really diligent, memory). They will also vary as to transparency.

 

Having now run many hundreds of auditions, we're now almost ready to start asking the question: which is better? But because by now you will have discovered that the question of coaxial vs USB has been muddied by platform-specific issues, and variably effective implementations in the DAC, we have to start extending our A/B/C test to include the DAC and any reclocking devices. So the question we end up asking is this:

 

3. Is Linux + [most effectively matched software and hardware options] + [most effectively matched DAC and reclocking device at a given price point] better than the Windows or Apple equivalents? Which is not the same question at all.

 

The trouble is that we can't level the playing field effectively enough even to ask the question cogently, and by the time we've dragged the DAC into the picture things become highly subjective again.

 

Fortunately, this points the way out of the maze: pick the DAC first, and work backwards to whichever optimised transport solution works best with it.

 

[Guest]

It's really difficult to state defensibly that Mac is better than PC or Linux for audio.

 

You are exactly right, which is why you really can not [directly] compare XXHE or other Windows software to PureMusic on a Mac or programs being run on a Linux machine. Perhaps this is why statements like "...the interpretation of what sounds good is up to the listener, you be the judge as to what sounds good to you..."

 

 

Fortunately, this points the way out of the maze: pick the DAC first, and work backwards to whichever optimised transport solution works best with it.

 

Actually any link in the chain will make the end product sound different. I would suggest the people audition as many DAC's as they can...or example I auditioned the Apogee DAC, but actually purchased and either returned or sold a LavryDA10, RME Fireface, MDHT Havana and an assortment of other DAC's. Its all about SYNERGY.

 

In the end, its all up to the listener anyways...for example your use of JRiver and WASAPI. Some find that there are far more transparent and music softwares for Windows. JRMC suits your tastes, so you might be more inclined to use it as a Ref. I don't see how but some might even use MM.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[hubsand]

Indeed - all those variables!

 

DACs by design can't help but somewhat subjectively be 'voiced': conversion of data to voltage is much more complex and prone to value judgments than the transport's relatively simple job of delivering the truth, and nothing but the bitstream truth.

 

Which is why I still recommend starting with a DAC you (subjectively) like the sound of - then finesse the PC to feed it the best and least contaminated input. If, for instance, you like the Weiss, your choice of computer will be dictated by optimal Firewire delivery.

 

With all these 'digital transport' discussions, it would be more lucid (and less controversial) to talk about how truthful or accurate the computer sounds, rather than whether we 'like' it.

 

The computer has many subtle ways to fool us into thinking it sounds right: with transports, progress invariably involves stripping away extraneous imperfections caused by signal contamination and timing irregularities: 'right' sounds 'thinner', more spacious, more resolved, and more relaxed, against a darker background. If you characterise your transport foremost as 'bold, dynamic, fast, pumped-up, bright or colourful', it's probably wrong.

 

[Guest]

Have you made any comparisons with Linux, Mac, and PC?

 

Also how would you characterize the sound of your DAC, I have a couple of other PS Audio products and was actually interested in the PS Audio DAC [Cullen version]. Other DAC's I will be auditioning are the Metric Halo and the Antelope Audio DAC [once it is released]. I friend of mine will loan me the M-Halo. One other DAC of interest is the W4S DAC-1.

 

I don't know about your "Right-Wrong". I recently upgraded my amp from an Aragon 8008BB to a pair of Xindak Monoblocks. Before my sound was pretty much as you described, spacious, resolving, relaxed...but now I have bold, and dynamic in addition to the others.

 

 

 

[hubsand]

As I said, my comments re: right/wrong are very specifically about digital transports - not even DACs, and certainly not amplifiers!

 

We're all excitedly waiting for the new W4S DAC 1. The Cullen-modded DLIII is, I think, far preferable to the Benchmarks. Rick Cullen says his new DAC is better again . . .

 

I have struggled to make a Mac sound like nothing: even with PV, it sounds 'additive'. But it's tougher to divorce the hardware from the software: for instance, I can't run a Mac on a 12V PSU.

 

I have just received a fast SSD and Odyssey's fabulous USB isolator, which might just level a few playing fields . . . that is another problem with these hard-and-fast pronouncements: things move so fast that every few months it seems we have a new game-changer.

 

On a different note, if you really want to hear what a digital transport should sound like, try an Audiocom-modified Level III Wadia iPod dock with a KingRex power supply: it easily sounds better than any PC I've heard.

 

[memphiskat]

I'm giving it a try. Never tried Amarra or any of the others so can't campare it to those, only to stock iTunes.

As an aside, what I really need is a "high-end" player that can play from any folder, auto switch the sampling rate, and play FLACs. Now that for me would be a real WINNER. I'll post my findings on this compared to stock itunes. My current setup....

 

MacBook > USB M-Audio Fastrack Pro > Adcom Preamp > Adcom Amp > JMlab Cobalt 820 speakers

 

EDIT: just realized I never posted the above while I tried it out. :-)

 

So I am trying it rignt now and I can't figure out how to get gapless playback to work. I have it checked as it was by defualt in preferences. I enabled the advanced setting on the monitor and have played with the ram setting dial. I read the pdf that comes with the download. It doesn't specify how to too "load" multiple tracks for gapless playback (btw what would be the point of loading a single track for gapless playback? ). I have tried every button/selection sequence I can think of and can't get it to work. I mostly listen to live music and the inability to get gapless playback to work would make this software useless for my purposes. I really would like to give this a fair shake but I have to get gapless to work first.

 

Anyone know how to get gapless to work. THey make reference to a "user manual" with the Player Suite but I can't find it.

 

Karl

 

[memphiskat]

Ok, figured it out. The album has to be tagged as a gapless album. (Different ways to do it, but I select album, hold command and hit "I" to get to selecting for multiple items, go to options, check gapless playback, yes, and it'll tag the whole album as lossless) I never bothered tagging my albums for gapless because iTunes plays them back gapless anyway. Oh, well.

 

So after highlighting the memory play button, you get the message "gapless playback will begin after the next track begins" or close to that ;-) Then just double clicking an album will give you another message overlaid onto itunes saying "loading tracks", then all is good.

 

So there you go, just incase anyone else is having the same problem.

 

[barrows]

that you found the Wadia Ipod dock to sound that good, no matter how modded it is... My understanding is that it uses adaptive USB to get the digital data out of the Ipod, and as such would be subject to high jitter regardless of how good the clock circuit is.

 

 

[memphiskat]

Scratch my previous post. When it gets to the end of a track the Loading Tracks message appears again and it loads, then plays, so still no gapless playback, ugh!

 

EDIT: I give up. Can't get gapless playback to work. Can't find a manual. Oh well, looked interesting.

 

[barrows]

Appears to be what I have been waiting for. Better sonics than Itunes, a memory player, and auto sampling rate switching, low footprint in the computer, and Itunes does not have to play the tracks. I have no problem with running everything at 24 bits. I have downloaded the demo, and will be listening over the next few days, but I really expect to purchase at the introductory price. I am very happy this option exists.

As to Clay's comment that one cannot easily A/B vs. Itunes, I suspect this is because the track is not concurrently playing in Itunes (unlike Amarra). A minor inconvenience perhaps, but I do not think Amarra's ability to A/B is really valid, as listening to Itunes with Amarra open and running means the processor/RAM load will be much different than if Amarra was not present at all.

 

[ma]

I am currently waiting for a new alpha dac, and just purchased a used g5 to convert into a server. I want to wait a few weeks to download a trial of the software until all of my hardware arives and has a chance to break in a bit. Can someone tell me what options Pure Music offers for remote operation? I know remote screen sharing will work form my laptop, but can I choose music from my iphone apple remote?

 

[Guest]

You will use your regular iTunes remote after you launched PureMusic. With your iTouch/iPhone you can control everything via iTunes and it will be played via PureMusic.

 

[MartinC700]

Hmm.... loaded up PureMusic but it seems very buggy. Tracks appear to be playing sometimes but nothing being output, changing tracks caused the new track to be shown but the od one is being played. Perhaps I need to read the manual closer but it certainly doesn't seem too stable.

 

Regards

 

[cbarber]

Agree - it's not too stable yet - if you just want to see how it sounds, recommend treating it gently (don't try to fast forward in a song..)

 

[memphiskat]

Ya, I'm also finding it to be rather unstable. Changing tracks to fast or loading into memory to rapidly can cause all manner of funky things to happen. All the things described above in the "Buggy?" post happened to me too.

 

Gapless playback- I finally got it to work but found out the real problem is the enormous amounts of RAM needed to play from memory. My MacBook with 2g of RAM and nothing else running but Pure Music & iTunes can't load an entire CD and play it gapless. For example I tried to load Disc One of the Grateful Deads Rockin' the Rhein ripped in ALAC and I can only load 8 of it's 12 tracks. Thats about 300MB worth of files (@50 minutes of 44.1). Ya, I have been meaning to up it to 4GB of RAM but I didn't think it would be necessary just to play one CD without gaps. Not to mention you can forget about 24/96 tracks.

 

Karl

 

[Lars]

Pure Vinyl is rock stable. Pure Music has some bugs yet according to my friends. Yes, the more memory, the better off you are for gapless-memory playback.

 

[chrille]

I simply was not prepared for the very clear improvement I heard from my 24/96 masterfiles from 2L compared to playing them straight from iTunes.

Apart from some bugs now and then ,on the demo ,all I can say is, download and try, it is after all for free.

I have only one 16/44 file on my hard drive and even that one is actually quite listenable with Pure Music

I have not heard the ridiculously expensive , absolutely rip off priced , Amarra or any other players so I can´t compare more than iTunes to Pure music .

 

But one thing is sure ,this is the closest I have yet heard my Macbook Pro setup with 4 gigabyte ram and Memory play, perform, to actually hearing the music live and from the DXD masters with Morten .

 

iTunes now seems full of digital nasties in comparison.

 

Trust me ,Pure music is good.

 

This is actually digital, delivering music.

 

I am tempted to buy the full PV version so I can copy my treasured LPs.

Anybody here who knows what I would need more than PV to do so at the highest possible standard? I do have a quite good LP player with a moving coil pickup.

 

Could I just connect the Laptop to my XLps V3 phono stage and start copying?

 

 

 

 

[Lowlands]

As a Macmini Core Duo owner with limited RAM options (2Gb, I'm maxed out), this might be a good thing (Amarra requires more I understand). Can't seem to find the required specs for this Pure Music player.. Any thoughts?

Hans

 

[ted_b]

From the readme PDF (which Rob has cleaned up; it reads much easier and a more logical sequence than earlier):

 

System requirements: Mac OS X 10.5 or 10.6; G4, G5 or Intel processor; dual or

multi-core processor preferred (multithreaded for optimum performance).

 

You should have at least 2 GB physical RAM in your computer to use this feature (Hyrbrid memory Playback)

effectively with gapless track playback of high resolution (88.2 kHz or higher sample

rate) audio.

Note: CPU and disk I/O will peak during track loading, and will compound the demands

on the CPU. If you notice stutters or skips in playback, try turing off some options that

consume CPU (see Troubleshooting). Usually, however, starting the listening session with a

“clean slate” (fresh computer restart) will prevent any problems resulting from CPU

demands when Hybrid Memory Play is loading tracks. Pure Music benefits greatly from

having 4 GB or more RAM installed.

 

[Paul R]

That's a pretty wide claim there mate!

 

I would go so far as to say nothing will sound as good on a PC as on a Mac, without significant effort.

 

 

[bixby]

I downloaded Pure Music demo and I am quite impressed. I do have a technical question that I need help in understanding.

 

All my files are 16 bit 44.1k and AIFF format. On my Macbook I set midi to up-sample to 24 bit and 96k. When I use Pure Music it shows I am playing natively a 44.1k file. Yet it sounds like the Mac is up-sampling to 96k, since when I reset the midi to 16 bit and 44k I do hear a difference. Can anyone confirm that it is in fact the MAC OS that is setting the sampling rate and not the player?

 

I had read that itunes does the up-sampling but that can't be true if I hear it with Pure Music as well.

 

And FWIW for me, memory play is different in sound versus disk, smoother and with less treble artifacts, details, etc.

 

 

 

[Lars]

Pure Music will contol the sampling rate to the native file rate unless you select the oversampling tab. Select the rate you want in the audio-midi. Open Pure Music and select oversampling. It will confrim the rate you want. When you play the file it should show 96 in the display.

 

This what I do with Pure Vinyl. I haven't tried PM. I hope this is helpful.