New OSX Opensource audiophile player : Audirvana

[losingmyreligion]

"To my way of thinking, the differences I described in my listening session (greater emotional involvement, better presentation of rhythm and interplay among instruments and vocalists, more variation in sound between different recordings) might be explained by Audirvana losing less information than the other players."

 

Jud,

 

To my way of thinking - based on Audirvana reports from Lars and others in this thread - and significant experience with Vandersteen model 2s (and PSE), I'd say that it's just as possible that what you are hearing is less information than the other players.

 

Often products that are considered more 'musical' sound 'smoother' than others, e.g., by lessening the effect of (rounding) leading edge transients, or eliminating 'details' that might have a jarring or dissonant effect.

 

A common review comment of the Vandersteen 2s is that their errors are of omission rather than commission, plus they are not known to be the last word in resolution.

 

Nothing wrong with selecting gear that matches one's musical tastes, indeed a good match is the goal. I'm only chiming in here to offer a dissenting view to your observation that Audirvana might be offering more detail, as this seems counter to the reports of others, and inconsistent of my experiences with Vandersteen model 2s (i.e., despite their great sound, I'd not use the speakers to try to determine differences in details/resolution between software players).

 

 

The multiple reports that Audirvana provides a smooth sound (plus the comparable clicking) have me wondering if perhaps some portion of Audirvana's code is based on Stephen Booth's open source based Play

 

 

Damien, question for you, are you using any of Stephen Booth's code (Play or Ayrewave) in Audirvana?

 

 

I didn't see any attribution (of any open source code you might be using) in your project documentation, so it's hard to tell without looking at the code (and comparing to Stephen's).

 

Thanks

Clay

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jud]

Clay asks whether my liking for Audirvana could actually arise from its transmission of less information, rather than more, citing my ownership of and liking for the Vandersteen 2Ce speakers.

 

Well sure, it's certainly possible. I don't happen to think so. Here are a couple of reasons.

 

- The Vandersteens, like all my components, are what I thought was best within my budget at the time, based on extensive listening tests. (My search for speakers took me to 3 states over a period of around 6-8 months.) You're right about the Vandersteens making errors primarily of omission rather than commission. And they certainly aren't the last word in resolution compared to substantially more expensive speakers, even more expensive Vandersteens. On the other hand, in the late 80s/early 90s when I bought most of my equipment, I can't think of speakers as close to the high end as the Vandys for around $1200.

 

There were times my budget would allow greater expenditures; would you think of Spectral or Theta as low-resolving equipment?

 

- The characteristics I pointed out regarding Audirvana don't seem to me to be indicative of euphony at the cost of less information, particularly "better presentation of rhythm and interplay among instruments and vocalists, more variation in sound between different recordings." I'd think less information would tend to mask differences between recordings, and obscure the interplay among instruments and vocalists.

 

Still, as Richard Feynman said, "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." So whether Audirvana is in fact providing more audio information is my belief but nowhere near a certainty. All of us will have to listen for ourselves to make that determination.

 

[Jud]

Hi, damien78. Really like your player, as you might guess from my comments upthread. :-)

 

Noticed this in the latest updates: "Added buffer scanning to force unswap from disk and ensure it is in RAM when the

realtime thread needs it."

 

I've got a MacBook Pro with a 256GB SSD and 4GB RAM. Would swapping to "disk" or ensuring the buffer's in RAM be issues if the computer uses an SSD? Are there any settings for the player that ought to be changed for SSDs as opposed to spinning disks?

 

Thanks,

 

Jud

 

[Bob Stern]

Jud opined: Be careful here, lest inaccuracy result, "whispering down the line" style, from repeating a statement devoid of context. The terrible jitter measurements came from the AE's analog outputs, running off its cheap inboard DAC, which I seriously doubt anyone here is using. Here's what Atkinson said about the AE's digital optical output:

 

... when the AE's digital output is used. The grayed-out trace in fig.7 shows a similar spectral analysis of the Musical Fidelity X-DACV3's analog output while it was driven by the AirPort Express via the Monster TosLink cable. The noise floor has dropped by 4–5dB, the word-clock jitter to a respectably low 258ps, which is actually better than the case with the standalone D/A processor driven directly by my PC's S/PDIF output (provided by an RME PCI card).

 

The above quote is impressive praise for the Toslink output of the Airport Express.

 

However, the basis of my statement was JA's subsequent (9/06) review of the Logitech Squeezebox. He considered the digital output of the Squeezebox cleaner than that of the Airport Express:

"WiFi version of the Squeezebox ... powered by its wall-wart supply. I connected its optical S/PDIF output with a 1.5m length of AudioQuest's OptiLink-5 quartz-fiber TosLink cable first to my Mark Levinson No.30.6 D/A processor, then to a Benchmark DAC 1. ... There was a cleanness to the sound that I didn't get from the Airport Express's digital output feeding the same D/A.

 

http://www.stereophile.com/digitalprocessors/906slim/

 

[damien78]

I've implemented an "emergency reload/unwswap" mechanism to force reloading in ram the remaining data of the currently playing audio buffer at the first cpu overload issue.

It's currently in svn, and it'll be in next release I'll make when I'll have completed the debugging of background playlist population (adding long list of tracks), and .m3u playlists load/save.

 

Soundscape & seta: you'll tell me if this fixes your issues.

 

Damien

 

[damien78]

Clay, I'm not using any code from Stephen Booth players. The only things we share are some opensource libs like taglib for reading some metadata, and the one to handle the Apple IR Remote.

 

In fact we use different load & playback concepts:

[*]AyreWave (when in memory play) load the file to mem, and uses a background thread to complete audio formatting and fill a small rotating buffer the realtime I/O thread will read from.

[*]Audirvana completely loads/decode/sample rate converts the audio track in a large buffer before starting playback (or does it in background at very beginning). The realtime I/O thread simply reads from this buffer without performing any other operation. So CPU load is minimized during playback. "Pure full memory play". And the next track to play is loaded in advance in another buffer to ensure gapless playback. The main caveat of this concept is that it needs more ram and may be defeated by swapping. That's why I'm currently investigating strategies to force the needed data to be in RAM when needed.

 

Clicking (for Audirvana) was due to some DAC drivers not liking I/O buffers of non power of two size.

 

BTW, this means whatever the lossless file format, the playback should be exactly the same (all decoding done before).

I'll be interested to get feedback from people who heard clearly audible differences between AIFF, WAV, ALAC or FLAC with other players.

 

Damien

 

[damien78]

Jud, thanks a lot for your comments .

I must also say that I really appreciate the courtesy and constructive discussions of this forum. And BTW, I have to thank Chris for it, as this is this very forum that made me discover that with a computer and a good DAC I could have much better results than with a high-end CD player for the same budget!

 

yes, SSD must lessen greatly the impact of swapping as it will reload much faster data in RAM. But Audirvana's concept is to avoid need for SSD, and get disks to spin down during playback to limit electromagnetic interferences.

 

Anyway, I'll keep looking at strategies to defeat swapping.

 

Damien

 

[damien78]

Not having a DAC 202, one way I tested Audirvana for bit transparency (but maybe it's not 100% correct?) was to play a DTS 16/44.1 file (demos available on the net) using SP/DIF output to my A/V receiver and check it was actually playing 5.1 DTS signal.

 

Damien

 

[4est]

I think that you are confused about what others have pointed out. Although your analog equipment may not be SOTA, your digital connection is what they were mostly pointing at if I understand it. I really wished for Audirvana to be the best player. I love the idea of open source where changes can be quickly implemented vs the draconian model of Amarra. Sadly, I must agree with Lars and others about AyreWave. At least Amarra isn't on top- I'd be really bummed if I'd spent a grand on it.

 

As per your R.F. quote, you may want to take a look at the structure of your digital connections. There is some real cutting edge talent around here. Don't mistake their politeness for insecurity or stupidity. If there is anything I have learned about digital, it is that the bits need to be dealt with as carefully(albeit differently) as one might an analog signal.

 

No offense Damien, I applaud your efforts! Thank you...

 

[JR_Audio]

Hi Damien.

 

I have checked the 16 and 24 Bit Playback transparency with AIFF, Wave, ALAC and FLAC files, and all are 100 % correct.

 

Juergen

 

BTW: The Weiss Bit Test is not fool proof. You can for example cut the 8 MSB Bits (excluding the polarity bit) and the program will still show Bit Transparency. This is very unlikely, but due to the fact, that the Weiss Bit Test does not use all possible Bits, you can remove with a DSP this Bits, and you wouldn’t get any notice of that.

 

[bjast]

New to the forum. Thanks for sharing Audirvana - like the clean GUI.

 

Is there, presently, any way to get detailed track information such as is supplied with VLC for the Mac's General, Codec Detail, Statistics tabs? That would be a very useful feature.

 

Thanks

 

[Jud]

Forrest writes:

 

I think that you are confused about what others have pointed out. Although your analog equipment may not be SOTA, your digital connection is what they were mostly pointing at if I understand it.

 

Well, I don't think I'm confused. :-) I supposed Clay was wondering whether my ownership of Vandy 2Ce speakers indicated a liking for euphony over detail, so that perhaps my preference for Audirvana might indicate something similar. As I said in response to Clay, I don't feel that's the case, but hard for me to know where my "blind spots" are as a listener.

 

My digital equipment and signal path are nothing close to SOTA. The Spectral pre wasn't too far off SOTA for its day; the Theta was a fine choice for the money, again in its day; but "its day" in both cases is close to 20 years ago. The Omega Mikro digital cable is a fine piece that you may want to listen to if you have a chance, but Omega Mikro itself has far better and more expensive cables. And those are the best parts of a chain that, as ted_b rightly pointed out, is way too Rube Goldberg.

 

The rest of the chain - the Airport Express, the inexpensive AudioQuest Toslink, the CO2 - is my attempt to combine convenient access to music (the AE with my iPhone or MacBook Pro as a remote control) with a level of reproduction that is at least musically involving, at bargain basement prices. iTunes wasn't doing it for me. I'm pleased that Audirvana does, at least to the extent that I'm interested in comparing it to CD playback in my system.

 

There is some real cutting edge talent around here. Don't mistake their politeness for insecurity or stupidity.

 

Nope, wouldn't dream of it. Back in the day, Mike Moffat of Theta and Richard Vandersteen were nice enough to get on the phone and personally answer some of my questions, and when people like Gordon Rankin hang out here, along with folks like damien who program player applications, plus fellow listeners with long experience and fine systems, it provides a wonderful opportunity to learn.

 

If there is anything I have learned about digital, it is that the bits need to be dealt with as carefully(albeit differently) as one might an analog signal.

 

Agree completely. Eventually I'll want to upgrade my digital system, with a view, as always, toward getting the best sound I can within my budget at the time. (A couple of decades back when I wasn't yet married and a homeowner, I didn't imagine that one day my audio budget would take a back seat to granite countertops, a new car before the old one completely loses its resale value, a high efficiency water heater before the tax rebate runs out...!)

 

[audiozorro]

is not the loss of information. Many folks here thoroughly enjoy lossy 320kbps MP3 files or 16/44.1kHz RB files, both of which are a step down from HRx or 24/192kHz files.

 

I believe the greater problem is misinformation and mangling of music, which at some level becomes unlistenable and garbage.

 

BTW, I own a Linn, known for its PRAT and what it brings to the table (no pun intended) is the emotion of music. Several other tables are far better in retrieving low level detail from records, but they often sound detailed and lifeless by comparison.

 

[losingmyreligion]

 

 

"Several other tables are far better in retrieving low level detail from records, but they often sound detailed and lifeless by comparison."

 

Audiozorro,

 

good point. As I've increased the resolution in my system, I frequently am surprised when I go back and listen to music that I thought I knew like the back of my hand. Sometimes I wonder why the musicians seem less in sync (timewise) than I had remembered.

 

clay

 

 

 

[damien78]

New build uploaded (rev 0.2.2) that mostly brings the convenience feature to add track folders to the playlist.

 

Changelog:

[*]Opening/dropping of track folders/li>

Background tracks insert into playlist

[*]Fast recovering from CPU overload (scan the remainings of the audio buffer to force it to be unswapped back to RAM)

 

Playlist load/save is next!

 

[damien78]

Lars & 4est: It seems there quite a segmentation here, and I'll be very happy to discover what makes the difference on very high end systems, while there is very positive feedback on more common systems with lower resolving power.

 

From the feature list, the main point Audirvana is lacking is the so-called Integer Mode.

This may be the reason as it enables the DAC driver to work in a more optimized mode:

1) No need to deal with the overhead of a mixing buffer

2) No additional format translation (though maybe less expensive than the mixing buffer)

 

But I don't have access to such a DAC with Integer mode to develop & test it...

 

[audiozorro]

I'm tired from dragging and dropping individual music files into Audirvana.

 

The opening/dropping of track folders should help. I will try this tonight or tomorrow. Does this mean if I have a Reggae folder with subfolders Bob Marley and Peter Tosh that I can drop the entire Reggae folder into Audirvana or will this new feature just work for the lowest folder that contains the music files? And suppose I drop the Exodus album into Audirvana and start playing the WAV music files, can Audirvana display the album artwork that is an image file, folder.jpg, that resides in the album folder with all the track WAV files?

 

[mugsy]

Hi Damien.

 

The latest release of Audirvana seems to be far more stable on my 1GB mac mini, though I intend to upgrade to 4GB in the New Year just to be safe

 

Would it be possible to add track number, and disc number to the Playlist screen please? Or perhaps give the user the option to add this information to the bar by right-clicking on the bar and choosing 'add' or something? That way you could also show bitrate, encoding type and so forth if the user needs it.

 

Cheers,

 

- John

 

[mugsy]

Damn I spoke too soon - still stuttering in playback after one or two tracks have been played. I must get some more memory!

 

[higo]

Dear damien78,

 

First of all, thanks for coming up with such a wonderful player. Audirvana is so good that I have stopped using Pure Music (except for comparison purposes) after Audirvana is first installed in my MacBook Pro.

 

I have a question regarding Audirvana though. When I use the player, I note that the bit info and sampling rate are displayed in the bottom right hand corner. Normally, it should read 24/44.1 for CD playback and 24/96 or 24/192 when HD materials are played.

 

However, sometime the player only displays 0/44.1, 0/96 or 0/192. Is there something wrong with my setting? I am using Weiss DAC2.

 

Many thanks in advance.

 

[audiozorro]

Audirvana and AyreWave are pretty remarkable and all other players may soon be toast. IMO there is no reason for anyone to ever use the stock iTunes but if you really like the iTunes way, you should at least use Pure Music. That said, competition is good and todays winners are not necessarily tomorrows champs.

 

The latest version of Audirvana with dropping/opening folders works as advertised. I look forward to the next upgrade that will save and load playlists. My other wish is to display the album artwork (folder.jpg) that is in the album folder. This is one feature that AyreWave has down pat, though it only shows the artwork for a few seconds as each track starts to play.

 

 

[audiozorro]

and I don't know how to delete the post so let me add that I am able to run Audirvana, AyreWave and Pure Music with no problems and only 2GB RAM. Unfortunately my MacBook Pro (an earlier version) is limited to 2GB.

 

I previously preferred Pure Vinyl to Amarra. I assume Pure Music sounds identical to Pure Vinyl so I only downloaded the latest demo version of Pure Music. At the end of the 15-day evaluation period I will post my impressions under a more appropriate thread.

 

[soundscape]

> "I have checked the 16 and 24 Bit Playback transparency with AIFF, Wave, ALAC and FLAC files, and all are 100 % correct. Juergen"

 

Thank you for posting the results! Really good to know!

 

[Bob Stern]

In 0.2.2:

 

The spacebar still does not function to play or pause.

 

The Open command in the File menu remains grayed out, and I cannot open a music file by dragging it to the application icon in the Dock. This is important to me because I would like to use AppleScript to open a music file selected in the iTunes browser.

 

[Jud]

After checking out the latest svn changes, any more to it than cd'ing to audirvana-read-only and running "sudo xcodebuild install"? Are there specific directories where particular files should go, or does 'install' do that automagically?

 

Thanks,

 

Jud