New OSX Opensource audiophile player : Audirvana

[daipat]

Hi Damien,

 

Thanks for the quick reply. Will try out Audirvana

 

Best,

Patrick

 

[damien78]

The new version 0.1d (available in audirvana.googlecode.com) fixes the issues found with these DACs that provide multiple single channel streams instead of a single multichannel one.

 

Damien

 

[sidssp]

I have downloaded audirvana yesterday. I have to say it is the best sounding player so far. It sounded far better than Pure Music which I have been using for the past year. Audirvana sounded more organic, or more analog like than any other players I have tried. Its GUI isn't as easy to use due to the lack of iTunes integration, but sound-wise, it is simply stunning. I really like it.

 

 

[wgscott]

Is it capped at 1 gig limit or is that because I have only 2 gig memory? I can't play a lot of classical stuff as a consequence.

 

[JS21]

Very nice sounding! As someone previously stated, very analog, organic. No digital harshness to my ears. Just a few minutes and the improvements over just itunes are apparent. I probably will give it a bit more time before I compare with Pure Music. GUI or lack of, could be a negative to some...

 

One question. Is there a way to save the playlist?

 

[4est]

Finally got 10.6 installed and gave it a whirl. Very natural with what I feel has better micro dynamics than Ayrewave which I prefer over PureMusic.

 

I wish I has the skills to contribute to this!

 

It would be nice to have a "Prune" feature like Ayrewave where you can continue to listen to a track while removing all others with just a click. A small inconvenience.

 

Good show! Methinks Amarra and Pure Music are going to need to readdress their business models.

 

[damien78]

It is capped to RAM - 1GB to leave enough to the OS & other background processes to avoid annoying swapping.

 

Split loading will enable to overcome this limit, and it's in the TODO list...

 

[damien78]

Adding the "Prune" feature is a no brainer, I'll include it in next update. Though I won't have much time for coding this week.

 

Playlist load/save is in the TODO list.

 

BTW, I've sorted the TODO list in googlecode by priority order.

 

For iTunes integration, I have some ideas to make it unnecessary...

 

[swrbad]

Hi Damien,

I tried to use your player with the M2Tech USB/SPDIF Converter Hiface.

AyreWave is working exellent but Audirvana dont accept the M2Techhiface driver it jumps allways back to the devShortNameOut driver.

Any solution?

 

Thanks a lot

 

[NiToNi]

Yes I mean the ability to add VST plug-ins ("filters") to the signal. I know it goes against the grain of bit-perfect but there are a lot of us who believe the benefits of for instance active crossovers or room correction (e.g. Audiolense) outweigh this.

 

You will find that PC-based players such as Foobar and J River among others have this but no OSX-based player I know of have the ability to run VST plug-ins or, alternatively, have native convolver functionality, which would make for a unique killer app on Mac.

 

 

 

[swrbad]

Hi Damien,

I tried to use your player with the M2Tech USB/SPDIF Converter Hiface.

AyreWave is working exellent but Audirvana dont accept the M2Techhiface driver it jumps allways back to the devShortNameOut driver.

Any solution?

 

Thanks a lot

 

[damien78]

Hi Swrbad,

 

Can you PM me the contents of the debug info window (you get it from the Audirvana menu)?

It'll help me find out what happens.

 

Damien

 

[Guest Analoganimal]

We are two very hard-core audiophiles that spent a night from about 11PM until 3AM, with no alcohol or other stimulants than the audio sensations experienced :-D listening to music WAV files played back from and latest spec Mac Mini (using a latest model MacBook Pro 17" via Remote Desktop as a control interface). The USB DAC was a Japanese PHASE TECH model. The listening was done via a very high quality integrated amp and professional monitor speakers.

 

Neither of us have any vested interest in any of the alternative softwares used, and we do not personally know or have any contact whatsoever with the developers of either software. We simply searched for natural organic sound with good focus and proper "air" around voices and instruments. We also checked for proper integration and homogenity in the reproduction. We made sure we had the latest updated "builds". For control listening we also listened to iTunes making sure all equalizers were defeated and volume setting at max for "bit perfect" status. Although useful as a control for comparison, iTunes was quickly rejected as useless for any serious listening, and seemed to be better suited for non-critical listening to background music.

 

The Command Line playback proved to be clear and solid (a good enhancement beyond iTunes), but tended to feel a bit lumped into the center with relatively little air around instruments and voices.

 

Audirvana was more elaborate and developed regarding resolution and positioning of instruments and voices, but still left us wishing for "more". We increased the memory setting and enabled upsampling with limited results, and ended up feeling that this "alpha release" still has some way to go, and we wonder if the basic sonics that we have heard in the last two releases is already fixed, or whether there could be an upcoming "leap" in sound quality. As it is, we did not feel this software was providing the degree of "life" that we were looking for in the reproduced music.

 

AyreWave was a relief and provided exactly what we were looking for; natural voices and instruments surrounded by "air" making them distinctive three-dimentional "points" in the soundscape; and this was even before we enabled "memory playback". After enabling "MP", the sound became completely holographic with noticeable "layers and stacks" of everything existing within the recording. Playback with AyreWave made us feel like listening to more tracks and more music.

 

We realize that others may look for something else in audio playback than ourselves. However, for us the level of resolution and proper imaging to enable us to "see" each individual element of the music, in a way that we normally only have been able to hear in the highest level of analog vinyl or tape playback, made us feel that the only software successful among the options we had at hand during this particular night, was AyreWave.

 

We are well aware that there are other softwares (including commercially available ones (paid options)) that we have not yet tried. But we feel that the direction AyreWave is going (the vector its "sound" is heading in) is a good way to go ;-) Also, for me personally, I have now compared Audirvana and AyreWave in three different systems using different gear (USB DAC, stereo amp, loudspeakers), but the conclusion has been consistent so far.

 

I realize that this thread is for Audirvana and I wish that this software will leap forward in sound quality. My comments should only be taken as my subjective musings and personal opinions. I would be very happy to have a future update of Audirvana become my next preference in computer playback ;-)

 

[wgscott]

What do you mean by "The Command Line playback"?

 

 

 

[swrbad]

Hog Mode is off

Devices found : 2

 

List of devices:

Device #0: ID 0x107 DevShortNameOut UID:DevShortNameOut

Device #1: ID 0x102 M2Tech HiFace UID:M2Tech HiFace

 

Selected device:

ID 0x102 M2Tech HiFace UID:M2Tech HiFace

1 available sample rates up to 192000.0Hz

Physical (analog) volume control: No

Virtual (digital) volume control: No

Preferred stereo channels L:1 R:2

Channel mapping: L:Stream 0 channel 0 R:Stream 0 channel 1

 

1output streams:

Stream ID 0x104 2 channels starting at 1

1 virtual formats:

Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32bits little endian Float @192.0kHz

 

1 physical formats

Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32bits big endian Signed Integer @192.0kHz

Thanks for helping

 

[audiozorro]

Another software player to try out. Oh well, what the hell, I have a 4-day weekend ahead.

 

I hate to amend my initial post so soon but it took less than 5 minutes to download and install Audirvana. The GUI looks nice and the player sounds good on my secondary system. It's obviously easy to use and free from the proprietary iTunes database. I will have to figure out how to create and save playlists. Will there be an iPhone or iTouch remote app for Audirvana?

 

[Guest Analoganimal]

Command line playback is an available function of OS X Core Audio http://developer.apple.com/technologies/mac/audio-and-video.html , but since it involves messing with the terminal, clever minds have come up with various scripts to make the function easier to use.

 

Please refer to:

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/afplay

http://www.junauza.com/2009/02/mac-os-x-command-line-audio-player.html

 

I was less knowledgeable about this subject until the session a couple of days back. I believe my friend used AFPLAY or something similar (I need to check with him about the exact script/control software used). I was told that he is able to use iTunes as the controller while the audio actually is played back by the "Command Line" that in turn activates Core Audio in Mac OS-X.

 

Interestingly iTunes itself is not a pure Core Audio application it seems. This has the historic background that Apple actually bought SoundJam MP, developed by Jeff Robbin and Bill Kincaid and released by Casady & Greene in 1999, which became the basis for iTunes when Apple purchased it in 2000. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes As we all know, iTunes is an overall environment for a lot of more things than sound playback, and it actually have provided Apple with a very powerful "business model". However, one negative aspect of this for us audiophiles is that the sound quality of iTunes remains mediocre.

 

The basic difference is that Command Line playback only enables functions already available in OS X, while softwares like Audirvana and AyreWave are "true players" in the sense that they are independent software packages. However, I assume that even such software must play by the rules of Mac OS X itself, so I wonder if one or both of the developers can explain herein where the line should be drawn between OS X Core Audio and their software?

 

I believe that each of the softwares interacts with Core Audio; however, what is the curious part is to know what (in the software packages) causes the rather large sound quality and sound character we are hearing? I feel that the differences in sound that I am hearing between computer playback softwares are bigger than the difference I typically hear between different CD-players, for example.

 

Hope this makes sense. Maybe someone else can elaborate more ;-)

 

[damien78]

• Added Prune playlist menu command: remove all playlist items except the playing track
  
• Added option (enabled by default) to switch I/O buffer to maximum size. This maxes the latency, but minimizes the CPU load. And should improve SQ.
  
• Fix for continuously variable sample rate devices whose only maximum sample rate was used
  

 

This release now uses Sparkle for automated updates download, so you shouldn't need to monitor google code anymore!

 

swrbad: The debug logs show that the HiFace is correctly selected. Anyway, only one sample rate was detected thus leading to use of sample rate converter. And very long load time until I implement background loading.

If this isn't fixed with this new release, can you paste the new debug logs ?

 

[damien78]

The main thing is that computers are a source of electromagnetic noise.

You can even hear some noise generated by the gfx cards/screen cable when moving a window on some setups...

And of noise on the powerline. So the less the computer is active, the less it makes noise. Hard Drive being much more noiser than CPU activity (longer wires, higher current).

But there are other factors less obvious (e.g. noise main frequencies more prone to make interference)...

 

Most audio apps on mac (including afplay) use the AudioUnit high-level API that enables lots of services (effects plugins...).

Audiophile players address the DAC at the lowest level, that is the CoreAudio HAL, and try to minimize their CPU load.

 

BTW, can you try the latest Audirvana version (0.1.6/0.1f) with the "Use max I/O buffer size" set to on ? It'll further decrease CPU load.

 

Damien

 

[tpan]

Damien, I just tried 0.1.6 and like what I see so far. One issue is that I get a clicking sound the first 20 or 30 seconds of all 24/96 sample tracks recently downloaded. I do not get the same clicking on other players I am checking out on through my new HRT Music Streamer II+ connected to a MacMini running 10.6.5 (server). I really like the slick interface you have since I use it on the projection display in my listening room --it fits in with the rest of my equipment

 

Attaching output of my debug log for your reference.

 

Thanks for your help. Tom

 

[Adyc]

I got the same clicking sound every 20 or 30 secs for 24/44.1 music. It does not happen with previous versions.

 

[wgscott]

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/afplay

 

"Hope this makes sense. Maybe someone else can elaborate more ;-)"

 

err ... unless someone else did the same thing, that was moi.

 

I cobbled together a shell script/osascript that essentially hijacks iTunes, resets the sampling frequency to match the track, and then plays it in aflay (with -q 1).

 

So it definitely works. I have a tin ear, apparently. I can't tell if it is better or worse, and have no idea whether afplay at the max quality setting is bit-perfect.

 

Here is a link to the description and download if anyone wants to give it a listen: http://sage.ucsc.edu/~wgscott/xtal/wiki/index.php/Nyquist

 

 

 

 

 

[swrbad]

Hi Damien,

thanks for your efforts!The player is now running with Hiface.

Its great and sound beautyful.The only thing is you have to wait around 5 seconds until the song is loaded in Ram.

Good luck for further development! I love good music.

 

[damien78]

Do you get the "CPU over" warning with it?

Can you also try with unchecking the "Use max I/O buffer size" ? You may need to restart Audirvana as I missed to implement restoring the initial buffer size upon stop in this version.

 

[soundscape]

> "AyreWave was a relief and provided exactly what we were looking for; natural voices and instruments surrounded by "air" making them distinctive three-dimentional "points" in the soundscape; and this was even before we enabled "memory playback". After enabling "MP", the sound became completely holographic with noticeable "layers and stacks" of everything existing within the recording. Playback with AyreWave made us feel like listening to more tracks and more music."

 

Are you sure that on Audirvana you had "Exlusive access mode" enabled?

 

On my system (Apogee Duet/AKG K702) it is exactly the other way around: Audirvana is the one which has the full IMAX 3D effect.

 

Is it just my amazement about discovering the potential of my current system (new stuff is already on the way), or does the new version 0.1f (0.1.6) go another small step further than 0.1d? I already felt that 0.1d goes a step beyond AyreWave and Pure Music, although both of those are good as well.

 

Audirvana 0.1f is my clear favorite. It has a fuller sound, larger dynamic range, more subtle nuances, and it puts me right in the middle of the battlefield, with an enormous clarity.

 

Thank you for this new player, and keep adding all those features on your list. I haven't noticed the "clicks" so far, but simply for the practicality of actually using it, I hope the playlist save/reload will come soon.