New OSX Opensource audiophile player : Audirvana

[barrows]

Roch and Jud. I'll try a few things. PM always auto luanches when I restart though, I have never found a PM preference that will change this behaviour?

Roch: you are suggesting that I choose the Wavelink in audio midi for output? I thought I could just choose the Wavelink in Audirvana preferences (exclusive mode) and leave the audio midi settings alone (as with Pure Music).

Time try it.

 

[elcorso]

Barrows, when I got some time ago (Integer allowed to Wavelink), your same problem, that's the way the problem was solved.

 

Never happens again to me.

 

Sometimes I listen to PM, then to Audirvana, then again to PM, with no problems at all. I don't need to restart the Mac between app's switching.

 

I believe some garbage (if possible) remained on the Wavelink.

 

But most of the time I listen trough Audirvana.

 

Best regards,

 

Roch

 

[barrows]

luck with Audirvana. I am going to set PM to defaults (no integer), trash Audirvana plist again, re-boot Wavelink, re-boot computer, then restart Audirvana and set preferences, and see if that works...

 

[barrows]

It appears that no combination of re-starts, trashing p-lists, or settings is working for me. Every time I try to get Audirvana to play, I just get the CPU overload warning, and some thumping sounds. It just does not seem like Audirvana is integrating with the Wavelink properly, even though the Wavelink is selectable.

Frustrating...

 

[elcorso]

Barrows, are you sure you didn't had Fidelia installed before?

 

If yes, you should trash away any preference file (plus another related files) from Fidelia, run Repair Permissions and restart the Mac.

 

Fidelia made a lot of damage to Decibel, also.

 

Best regards,

 

Roch

 

[barrows]

Thanks for your help... I have never had Fidelia, I did have AyreWave for a while, but it is all gone now. I'm gonna take a quick look at p-lists anyway... I wonder is I should just remove Pure Music entireley to a USB stick temporarily to see if that allows Audirvana to work...

Usually things work fine for me, so this is a little new!

 

[57gold]

Have WaveLink and had problems with Audirvana when integer mode version came out. Then had problems when PM 1.8 came out....killed preferences files, re set up all options...and have both working on WaveLink.

 

My impressions of native sample rate, hog mode, memory play and integer mode (best sound on both): a) Audirvana is energetic, close up, dynamic...very exciting; and b) PM has moved closer to Audirvana in the excitement factor whilst preserving a deeper, more 3D soundstage and subtle details.

 

I go to Audirvana for rock, alt country, electric jazz, blues and PM for acoustic jazz, classical, vocal heavy music....happy with either.

 

[damien78]

is most the time due to RAM issues. That is there are other programs running in the background, or recently terminated that are memory hungry.

 

When you have such problems, look at your available memory amount in Activity Monitor. If it's low (like 50MB or less), you have your culprit. And that's where killing a background app like Safari (with flash), and maybe restart it after if you need it will help. Or in severe cases, a complete reboot.

 

Barrows, how could you characterize more precisely your issue ?

Is the CPU over coming at high frequency? Or do you get playback hick-ups at frequency of roughly 1 per second ?

Is it right from the beginning, or in the middle of a track ?

All the time ?

With all tracks (of all sample rates) ?

 

Damien

 

[Bob Stern]

Tips for anyone using Safari and experiencing the "CPU Over" red warning:

 

1. Try OmniWeb instead of Safari. It uses a lot less RAM.

 

2. There are utilities that block Flash from loading, such as "ClickToFlash".

 

[barrows]

Sorry I cannot provide a screenshot, my playback computer is not online.

 

"Barrows, how could you characterize more precisely your issue ?

Is the CPU over coming at high frequency? Or do you get playback hick-ups at frequency of roughly 1 per second ?

Is it right from the beginning, or in the middle of a track ?

All the time ?

With all tracks (of all sample rates) ?"

 

Everytime I try to play any track with Audivarana, I get a flashing red "CPU over" (yes, flashing at high frequency) and I hear short blips (maybe of music?). I tried 16/44.1, 24/96, and 24/88.2 files so far, and no differences. I have not been able to get anything to play. I can select the Wavelink in Audirvana, and the sample rate indicators on the Wavelink indicate it is switching to the correct rate.

 

Set up is with the Wavelink, exclusive access, integer, no upsampling. Computer is MacBook, 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo, 4 GB RAM. Music files on an external FW drive.

 

This morning I tried again, first I trashed Pure Music entirely from my system, including all p-lists. Trashed Audirvana p-list, re-started the computer. Opened Audirvana, set my preferences, and dragged in an album from Itunes-same result, just get the flashing CPU over, and very short blips of (maybe) music. I tried twice this morning, trashing the Audirvana p-list each time, re-starting, and still the same result. One more thing, Audirvana does confirm integer mode in its "display".

I have plenty of memory available, especially with the re-starts each time, I have no other stuff running, Itunes is closed. This is pretty weird, as usually I have no problem getting stuff to work in my system. I love the interface and the control panel, BTW, just wish I could hear it.

 

 

 

 

 

[wgscott]

If Safari is the culprit, another alternative (apart from not using the Browser while listening to music) is Camino. It is very light-weight. It is made by the Firefox/Netscape/Mozilla/Seamonkey people.

 

Blocking flash is a great idea.

 

Also, Dashboard widgets eat a lot of memory.

 

[Jud]

Any difference without exclusive access and/or integer mode?

 

[wgscott]

I just got a $100 Nuforce ?DAC headphone DAC/amp. I was surprised to see it did integer mode. I was even more surprised to find I couldn't get Audirvana to work with it unless it used integer mode playback (otherwise it stutters -- gen A macbook air with 2 gig of memory).

 

By the way, what should digital volume be set to if I don't want to alter the digits (0 db; all the way up)?

 

More oddity: 24/96 sounds great with integer mode. However, the only way I can get redbook not to have popping noises with this thing (it works fine with iTunes) is to upsample to 96 kHz. Which is fine, I don't care. But it is odd...

 

[bdiament]

Hi wgscott,

 

"...what should digital volume be set to if I don't want to alter the digits (0 db; all the way up)?..."

 

Assuming the unit does not provide any sort of gain, yes, all the way up (i.e. no attenuation, no gain) with a digital volume control would be the way to go.

 

This also assumes it is in fact a digital volume control. (My ULN-8 has a digitally set analog volume control; i.e. the knob is simply a rotary encoder.)

 

Best regards,

Barry

www.soundkeeperrecordings.com

www.barrydiamentaudio.com

 

 

[Bob Stern]

Most volume controls with digital increments actually are digitally-controlled analog volume control ICs like the one Barry mentioned. You'll have to ask NuForce to be sure.

 

If it is analog, maximum gain typically has higher distortion than some lower amount.

 

[wgscott]

I think the volume knob on the Nuforce DAC/amp is analogue on the amp circuitry (i.e., not the DAC) and the volume slider on Audirvana and the system volume are all separate entities.

 

The main point was asking if 0 db means 0 attenuation on the audirvana interface (and I think the answer was yes).

 

 

 

[Paul R]

You might want to call up NuForce and ask em. The little Proton here has an analog volume control that is controlled digitally, and 90% volume is 0db of gain. I think that might be something they do on headphone amps.

 

Congrats on the little guy, I hear they sound really really nice!

 

-Paul

 

P.S. Okay, the dog was great, the strange Mozart was okay, the freaky valley people were - tolerable - but this crawling bug has to go dude!! It's creepy!! Besides, I nearly just punched a hole in my laptop screen trying to squash it...

(grin)

 

 

[damien78]

Barrows & wgscott: can you send me your debug info logs while playing ?

 

It may be a setup/init issue with the different audio streams, that is having the device in integer mode while it is not for Audirvana ?

 

For the wavelink, another possibility may be the driver resetting on fast rate, because it can't lock the sample rate. What if you set in Audio Midi (before launching Audirvana) the wavelink to a different sample rate ?

Have you tried it connected to a different Mac ?

 

Damien

 

[wgscott]

You probably know this, but upon updating to 10.7, Audirvana no longer seems to be able to play in "integer mode" although Audio Midi has this to say:

 

 

[Joebah]

Just updated to Lion, and integer mode in Audirvana seems unchanged for me...

 

[wgscott]

I'll try it with my Halide Bridge when I get home...

 

So you still get it saying it is playing integer mode in Debug?

 

I get this (while preferences and Audio MIDI Setup both say integer):

 

Currently playing in standard 32bit float mode

Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32bits little endian Float, 8 bytes per frame @48.0kHz

Hog Mode is on

 

 

 

[Talos2000]

I can't get the Calyx 24/192 to work in Integer Mode. Is a firmware update required?

 

[Johnny Moondog]

I received the Calyx DAC 24/192 back in March with firmware ver 3.1.1 and it worked with Audirvana and Integer Mode. Continued to work fine after updating the firmware to ver 3.2.0 (the latest).

 

[damien78]

Small update with:

[*]Increase user configurable latency delay to allow DACs to sync sample rate to 5s max. Useful for DACs connected behind bridges and some specific devices.

 

Also implemented this same latency when starting playback.

[*]Fix to suppress stuttering when changing sample rate for first track on some devices

 

As described now extensively, Apple has dropped Integer Mode support from their USB Audio driver in 10.7. I hope they'll get the hint it needs to be back in 10.7.1...

 

Damien

 

[Talos2000]

OK, I have firmware 3.2.0 installed, and it seems to play well in integer mode now. Thanks, Moondog.