New OSX Opensource audiophile player : Audirvana

[damien78]

The quality settings are:

For libSampleRate:

Lowest = Linear Interpolation

Low = Zero Order Hold Interpolation

Medium = Sinc bandlimited interpolator Fastest (worst case bandwidth = 80%)

High = Sinc bandlimited interpolator Medium

Max = Sinc bandlimited interpolator Best (worst case bandwidth = 97%)

 

For Apple CoreAudio:

Lowest = Linear Interpolation

Low = Normal complexity, Medium quality

Medium = Normal complexity, High quality

High = Mastering complexity, Medium quality

Max = Mastering complexity, Max quality

 

Damien

 

[audiozorro]

For the most part I have been using Audirvana with I guess the default configurations but perhaps now I need to understand things better.

 

Under Audio Filters, my Converter is set to Apple Core Audio. The Quality setting is on Best, but the slider just ranges from Fastest to Best. I don't see any settings ranging from Lowest to Max. I am not using any Forced Upsampling but perhaps I may since I normally use 176.4 SRC upsampling on my cMP/cPlay computers.

 

Under Audio System, my Preferred Audio Device is the M2Tech HiFace (though this is not attached as I write this post now). Both Low level playback options are enabled for Exclusive access mode and Use max I/O buffer size. The Maximum memory allocated for tracks pre-load is 1024MB, I guess since my MacBook Pro is maxed out at 2GB. I'm not sure of the significance of the info at the bottom that shows 25 mn @44.1kHz and 11 mn @ 0kHz.

 

On the Audirvana player display I see the Digital Volume slider, which seems to be at a -5dB default setting. I don't see any Master Volume.

 

And sorry for this basic questions but the latest release still says that Help isn't available for Audirvana. I have not had any playback problems with Audirvana but when I demoed several Mac players recently for an audio friend, his preference was AyreWave and Pure Music as a close second for organic sounding and Audirvana for detail. For now I usually avoid choosing any favorites, I just enjoy have different excellent players to choose from. Kind of like Friday I will have salmon, Saturday I will have chicken, and Sunday I will have fillet mignon.

 

 

 

 

[seta]

I did a listening A/B test last night using one track (Jennifer Warnes - Lights of Lousianne)

 

Compared to NO force upsampling, libSampleRate "high" has expanded soundstage width and depth but focus and definition suffers. The overall presentation is a bit "soft". I couldn't test "Max" setting because of the problem listed above. Another problem is that the GUI becomes unresponsive until the track is fully loaded into memory, however controlling via apple remote is fine.

 

Apple CoreAudio "Max" setting has similar soundstage width/depth but with slightly higher noise floor. Image focus is better and is about the same as no upsampling.

 

I'm going to stick with CoreAudio for now.

 

(Force upsampling to 192khz and DAC used is ESS SABRE9018 based with asynchronous 32-bit USB transfer.)

 

 

[damien78]

I've made default config to be the most likely to work for everyone.

Most options should be left as is, except in case of issues. Or of more than 4GB RAM available and long tracks to play fully from memory (i.e. without split load).

 

The Audio Filters tab is more for tuning SQ to your preferences.

I notice I wrote the SRC quality values from the source code, not from the values displayed on the UI, so lowest = fastest, and max = best.

 

seta: I came up with the same results comparing both SRC (more noise for CoreAudio, but some more precision. Though libSampleRate improves with best (if CPU is able to...)).

I'll implement another free SRC (libfsrc) when I'll have the time. Measures from http://src.infinitewave.ca/ seem to indicate it's quite good. But need to check its CPU need though.

 

Digital volume slider means your DAC/bridge provides a digital (dithering) volume control. There is no default setting, as the value you get at Audirvana launch is the one that was set by previous use.

 

Damien

 

[seta]

Looked at the thread again, I finally able to make it work. After press "play", I need to "pause" it so that the progress bar is way beyond the track mark. Just like what you do on youtube.

 

It's inconvenient if you have to do this every time to listen to a track, but..

 

The sound quality is awesome! The definition and focus is improved and the music is fuller on the low end.

 

[bulmanxxi]

Damien,

 

Nice product. Just a couple of minor suggestions - 1) it would be nice to remember last playlist when restarted without having to save the playlist, 2) it would be nice to have a search box to manage longer playlists easier. The "skin" outta be customizable also (maybe have a simpler version with the look of a basic player?).

 

Issue - Audirvana is installed on two identical MacBook Pro's - one with 4GB and one with 8GB. The one with 4GB, seems to work and playback is fine, but the one with 8GB stutters with the same settings (tried changing most preferences but did not fix the stutter). This makes Audirvana unusable on that machine. As a comparison - Decibel, PureMusic and Amarra Jr., all play without issues on that same machine. DAC on the 8GB machine is uDac-2. Any suggestions? Thank you.

 

[seta]

I have the same problem on one machine while the other is fine. But when I turn off exclusive access (hog mode), it plays fine.

 

 

[seta]

libfsrc looks good, but looking at the charts and can't imagine it will use less CPU power.

 

In the site, it is interesting to see how hardware sample rate converters perform compared to software-based (for instance the Mytek 192 and Weiss SFC2).

 

[Cherrington]

I've been listening to Audirvana for a couple of weeks now, and I really, really like it. I also have Pure Music and Decibel, and when I first got Audirvana, I went back and forth between those programs and iTunes to see what the differences were and to decide which one I liked best. I wasn't that sure about Audirvana at first, as I wasn't hearing dramatic differences between it and iTunes or it and Decibel, but over time I realized that I was listening for the wrong thing. The difference isn't in how the programs make music sound; they're in how they make music work. What I've found over time is that Audirvana makes my music more engaging. Listening to anything at all with Audirvana and headphones makes it quite impossible to pay attention to anything else, and listening over the main system just makes the music more effective. I can't help singing along, or dancing or whatever the music is intended to provoke. And in the end, that's much, much more important to me than how music sounds. (My system is all about that, with horn speakers and a single-ended 845 amp.) This is the same effect I find with Pure Music, and although the sound through Audirvana is a little different, it's not a meaningful difference. So nice work, Audirvana!

 

One other thing I changed recently is I started operating my MacBook Pro in 64-bit mode, and I think that, too, has had a significant effect on the sound. To do that yourself, just hold down the 6 and 4 keys on startup (you can check whether it worked by going to About This Mac>More info and then clicking on Software--the heading in the information window that says "64-bit kernel and extensions" will have a "yes" after it).

 

[Jud]

Regarding booting with the 64-bit kernel & extensions, this may not be possible for everyone, and may be the default for others with Apple hardware. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_Snow_Leopard under "64-bit Architecture." Thus there are a limited number of machines where the 6 and 4 keypress technique works or is necessary to boot a 64-bit kernel and extensions. Also, depending on what associated equipment or software you are using, a 64-bit kernel and extensions may break something. (This is why the 64-bit kernel wasn't made default on Snow Leopard in the first place. See http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/checking_32_or_64-bit_kernel_boot_mode_in_snow_leopard/ for some additional info.)

 

Cherrington, damien78 or others with knowledge of Mac internals: What if anything different is loaded so far as drivers or kernel extensions affecting audio when the 64-bit kernel is selected?

 

[bulmanxxi]

I removed and reinstalled with a fresh download and seemed to fix the stuttering. Still get an occassional red blinking "CPU Over" for whatever reason but quickly dissapears. It would be nice to know the bit rate for music being played, i.e. inspector function.

 

Still trying to detect differences (if any, although they all sound better than iTunes) between Amarra Jr., PureMusic, Audirvana and Decibel. Audirvana and Decibel are independent of iTunes, which is actually quite nice as iTunes doesn't need to be running and files can be pulled from anywhere not just the iTunes library. They are also less finicky than PureMusic and Amarra Jr.

 

[bulmanxxi]

Is it possible to make Audirvana to enhance streaming internet music, i.e. Pandora, Mog, Napster?

 

Does anyone know of an app that does that? What about an iPhone audiophile app similar to Audirvana, PureMusic, etc. that can tap into into the stored on the iPhone files? Also, to enhance streaming Pandora and Mog on the iPhone?

 

 

[Jeff In San Diego]

I've been using Audirvana for a couple weeks now and like it a lot. It is my go-to player now.

 

My understanding from various places is that all of the various players around today each have their own audio rendering code...and very little of CoreAudio (the Apple provided audio libraries) is used.

 

I've seen it stated that iTunes uses something from a company Apple bought. The developer of PureAudio tells me he has his own and only uses the minimum CoreAudio code at the very output end. Audirvana and Ayrewave seem to be similar based on comments here and elsewhere in these forums. Amarra folks of course have their own also.

 

I'm wondering if this is primarily just a way to differentiate themselves? Is there really anything wrong with CoreAudio? Or it is just different, and "not invented here", and not a way to distinguish a particular player? In other words is it a non-starter for audio performance reasons, or for business reasons?

 

Also wondering if QuickTime uses CoreAudio to play audio files when they are opened from there?

 

Since the iTunes audio libraries are "old" by now, is CoreAudio probably better than iTunes, since it was ostensibly written and extensively developed much more recently?

 

thanks!

 

[bulmanxxi]

Does the digital volume control affect SQ and "bit perfection"?

I try to keep the digital volume of Audirvana at 0dB but my uDac-2 has a significant channel imbalance at the low volume setting and the analog volume pot has to be turned up pass 9o'clock to 12o'clock to overcome the channel imbalance. That requires the digital volume of Audirvana to be reduced to around -60 to -70db on Audirvana. Wondering whether that has a negative impact on sound quality... Thanks.

 

[wgscott]

Could anything be gained by using the GPU? For a computer primarily focused on audio (at least when music is playing), the graphics card seems under-utilized...

 

 

 

[damien78]

bulmanxxi & seta: If you still get stuttering, I'll be interested by getting information on your system( you can send me in PM):

- Exact mac version, with OSX version

- RAM available

- USB devices connected, and if the issue happens on all USB ports

And the debug info from the Audirvana menu

Anyway, this is good news you were able to get rid of it.

FYI, I got some, very rarely, when debugging Audirvana (launched from gdb). Relaunching the debug session had fixed it.

 

BTW, why do you want to know the bitrate of the music played? It is of use only for lossy formats where it gives an idea of the level of quality loss. There is already info displayed on the main window on the bit depth/sample rate.

Anyway, adding an inspector is not a big deal. It'll come after Integer Mode I'm coding now.

 

Damien

 

[damien78]

Starting with 64bit kernel requires only that all drivers are 64bit compatible. If one is not, you'll be likely to miss handling of a peripheral. Best is you try starting in 64bit, and look in the system log for drivers loading errors (kext errors).

 

All OSX audio apps must use CoreAudio, at least at the lowest level, the HAL to communicate with the audio device. Audirvana only uses this HAL.

Most common audio apps make use of the higher level API, the Audio Units system that provides lots of features like on-the-fly SRC, effects, mixing, ... But increases the audio processing chain and thus impacts SQ.

 

GPU (OpenCL) usage could be nice for accelerating CPU intensive tasks like SRC. But there are two drawbacks: 1) The code must be high parrallelizable (main benefit of GPU is multi processing units) 2) Precision is limited to 32bit today 3) It's not an easy coding task => any volunteer ?

 

BTW, looking in more details on libfsrc page ( http://libfsrc.sourceforge.net/ ), it seems must faster than libsamplerate. But it is still in alpha stage with no updates since 2009. A future topic for further investigation...

 

Damien

 

[damien78]

Digital Volume affects bit perfection as it reduces precision though dithering lessens the audible effect.

The channel imbalance on uDac-2 is quite weird, can you send me the debug info ?

In addition, can you try playing in non-hog mode, and use Audio HAL (in the xcode distribution) to change the volume (master slider), and check if 1) it produces the channel imbalance, 2) it changes the channels specific sliders.

And you can crosscheck with your DAC mixer app if any was provided.

 

Damien

 

[sidssp]

It is good to hear that you are working on the integer mode. Everyone has been talking about it but no one seems to have it implemented. You might be the first. I am patiently looking forward to it.

 

 

[jhwalker]

Any plans to allow users to select tracks in iTunes and "automatically" send them to the Audirvana playlist? This is really the only feature I'm seriously missing right now - it's difficult to navigate to the file system and find tracks or even to browse the "Media" section via Finder. iTunes has all my albums ready-to-go, if I could only send them to Audirvana easily, like that other player which shall remain nameless here

 

[Ajax]

Hi Damien,

 

How was your trip to the US?

 

I haven't blogged for a while but I have been following the thread with interest and see that you have been very busy keeping us all happy with our various demands on your time and expertise!

 

I have been using Audirvana on my MAC PRO (while traveling)and J Rivers on my PC in my office as my go to players.

 

Still very impressed with the sound of Audirvana and have no issues except sourcing the music files. Preparing playlists is a pain in Audirvana (bloody hell we are spolit lazy things)compared to J Rivers.

 

I wrote on this thread a couple of months ago that

 

"the feature that I most like in J River MC15 player is its ability to nominate the folder location(s) where your music files are kept (i.e. the path to the files) and then automatically keep your player up to date when new files are added.

 

This is great because I keep my different rez files 16/44.1 and 24/96, and different codecs ALAC, FLAC, AIFF, AAC etc in diferent folder locatons so I don't get them mixed up.

 

It has an import facility that allows you to choose one of the following:

 

- add location of music files (using a browse function you

nominate the folder locations)

 

- automatically update music files

 

- update music files now

 

I believe iTunes only allows one file location at a time and you have to use the "automatically add to iTunes" facility which I find a pain.

 

IMO you are on exactly on the right track for audiophiles by focusing on SQ and keeping your player as simple and flexible to use as possible. A free player that plays all codecs with automatic changing of the sample rate to a high SQ is exctly what is needed and can be your own niche.

 

IMO you should continue to focus on three main areas:

 

- continue to improve and optimise SQ

- make your player as robust as possible

- make it easy for your "customers" to access their music

and then play it anyway they wish using smart playlists.

 

If you were able to combine J Rivers MC15 music management with a smart playlist feature you would be on a real winner".

 

I really think you should stay clear of iTunes if you can - I can see no reason why users cannot continue to use iTunes for ripping and synching their Apple TV and ipods, or download in FLAC from B&W Society of Sound say, into certain folders and then simply have Audirvana point to those folders.

 

Thanks again for a great player.

 

[Jeff In San Diego]

that you can drag a song or an album from the itunes window into the playlist window of Audirvana? That's my primary use-model.

 

It's not quite what you're asking for, but easier than the way you described.

 

[jhwalker]

@Jeff in San Diego

 

Actually, I did *not* know I could do that

 

I typically run iTunes in full-screen mode, which does not allow drag-and-drop to the Audirvana playlist window, so (though I'd tried the drag-and-drop method) it had always failed for me. I just tried it from a smaller window and it worked great! Thank you so much for the tip.

 

My favorite part about iTunes is how easy it makes it to organize / manage my music collection (several thousand albums), so some method of automation between iTunes and Audirvana is a great help to me.

 

[Ajax]

 

Hi Jeff,

 

I also did not know that.

 

I jsust played around with it and I can now simply prepare a playlist using iTunes "Smart Playlists" or whatever and then simply load it into Audirvana by dragging the playlist into the Audirvana module and save it with the same name.

 

This is very cool and makes me wish I had not posted my earlier post, although I still think it is best long term for Audirvana to be independent of iTunes if possible and to follow the J River model for managing music files.

 

Thanks again for the great tip..

 

[wgscott]

One very nice feature in Decibel (and Play) is that it is apple-scriptible, so you can use an iTunes script, assign it a hot-key (I use ?R), and it auto-loads everything selected into the Decibel temporary playlist window.

 

It would be great to have that ability with audirvana...