New OSX Opensource audiophile player : Audirvana

[damien78]

What you get by doing a checkout of svn is the source code. So you need to build it using xcode afterwards.

With xcode installed, open the audirvana.xcodeproj.

Select the release version to build, and "build and run".

 

And the next step is ... to work on the code!

 

[soundscape]

I'm now listening to Audirvana with a very different system (Violectric V800, V181, Sennheiser HD650), and getting the same positive result as with Apogee Duet and AKG K702.

 

On some pieces it is more obvious than others, for example the first track of Miles Davis: Bitches Brew. Audirvana has a large soundstage, clarity, resolving detail.

 

Only caveat: on some tracks (first track of Yes: Tormato) it is a bit "sharp" on high notes, even with the HD650 which has a much stronger bass than the AKG K702. On most tracks, though, not at all. So I wish there was on option to "smooth" out treble.... although I'd turn it off most of the time.

 

[memphiskat]

Hello

 

I Just found Audirvana a few days ago. I've read this thread and done a lot of tinkering with the programs preferences. I like the program a lot! The concept of an audiophile player written just for Mac is great.

 

I am, unfortunately, still getting the CPU Over and playback breakup when playing native 24/96 files. I will do more investigation today, but I think I've narrowed it down to a problem only with 24/96 playback. I can play 24/44.1 ALAC & FLAC without a problem. I can play this material with and without "Forced Upsampling" to 24/88.2 without a problem. (As an aside, upsampling to 88.2 is by default, is there a way to get it to upsample to 96kHz from 44.1kHz, so I could check if this would cause the CPU Over's? I will try to find some 24/48 material today and if that upsamples to 96 then I can check it that way.)

 

The problem seems to occur only when playing back native 24/96 FLAC files.

Later today I will convert some of these to AIFF and ALAC to test if the problem is isolated to FLAC. I don't expect that to be the case though.

 

Currently, I have only been able to try Audirvana with my mobile setup ...

 

MacBook - 2.4GHz, 2GB ram, OS X 10.6.5 USB out ->

M-Audio FastTrack Pro ->

Sennheiser HD380

 

This setup has no problem playing 24/96 files using iTunes, Pure Music, Cog, or VLC.

 

If it was solely a RAM issue, I would think the problem would occur with files upsampled to 24/88.2, but it doesn't.

 

Any ideas?

 

Karl

 

 

[memphiskat]

Hello

 

Scratch my last post....

 

This morning I tried some 24/96 FLACs again and tons of CPU Load errors.

Rebooted MacBook. Converted same FLAC files to AIFF and they played without errors. Then loaded original FLAC files... they also played fine....?

 

Was it the reboot? Must have done that yesterday, but can't be certain. I never updated the Audirvana software as it's always been at 0.2.2

 

??????????

 

Karl

 

[damien78]

I've uploaded release 0.3.0 (0.3a) that implements:

[*]Playlist load/save (m3u & m3u8)

[*]Open playlists & audio file by dropping them on Audirvana icon or from the Finder ("Open With...")

[*]Get album art image from folder.jpg (or cover.jpg) file in the audio file folder if none was present in file metadatas

 

Damien

 

 

[soundscape]

@Karl To me it seems the CPU overs sometimes come when also using other software, especially after a longer time. Once they start, it seems to be slowly getting worse. Sometimes they stop again when I stop doing anything else on the computer (I don't have a dedicated music server), but when they don't, re-launching Audirvana usually "fixes" it for a long time. I don't think you need to reboot, just re-launch Audirvana (in my experience).

 

[soundscape]

@Damien Thanks for the playlist save!

 

(EDIT: BTW, I like your idea of a read-only browser for the iTunes library)

 

[bobparish]

1GB for 2GB systems is fine, but for 4GB and 8GB, I think is not, could you limit to half the total RAM?

 

[damien78]

Bob: You can set the maximum allowed RAM for audio buffer in the user prefs from 512MB to RAM-1GB, so up to 3GB for a 4GB system (or 7GB for 8GB one).

 

Damien

 

[bobparish]

Damien,

Thank you for your prompty reply, but I'm sugesting in a 4GB system Audivarna uses up to 2GB and in 8GB systems it uses up to 4GB.

I think serious audiophiles use a dedicated Mac for the player, so the remain memory will not be used!

Thanks,

Bob

 

[ted_b]

HAVE to use the max setting (total memory minus 1 GB) he said that the setting is flexible up to the max, so if you want to set 4 GB for an 8 GB system you can! Or go for 7GB in an 8GB system, your choice. What is the pushback?

 

[be4]

Hi,

 

just downloaded the 0.3. version (but problem also applied to the former versions 0.2.2), started the program, loaded my test aiff track into the playlist, changed the preference from build-in output to Weiss IO, hit play and immediatedly had to press the stop key as the tracks are played with alternating 'clicks'.

 

The 'clicks per minute' increase with the selection of 'upsampling to max'.

 

My setup is mac-mini with iomega based library (USB) then from MacMini to Weiss dac2 with firewire, and so on.

 

Any idea what needs to be changed in order to get it running?

 

really appreciate your work, but like to hear the results myself.

 

cheers

be4

 

[francois]

Dear Damien,

 

I like very much the well balanced Audirvana "sound" . Thank you for this great implementation.

 

In your todo list, you say that you are looking for an interface with integer support. I own an Hiface, if this product is suitable, I can send it to you.

 

I have a wish, command line support:

 

/min : start minimised

/stop

/play

/pause

/add : add file in playlist (also during playing)

/clear : clear playlist

/seek

 

 

Purpose is to use players like foobar2000/foosq (via crossover) or adapt some mpd clients like Ario

 

Cheers

François, Geneva

 

[wgscott]

Actually, I said it first

 

But what would be great is if the binary executable could accept the file path as a command-line argument, like standard unix players (and afplay). Then it would be possible, via applescript (already written), to use this as the player engine within iTunes, shoudl a user wish to do so. Also, it could be used with any wrapper that way.

 

[damien78]

Hi be4,

 

What exactly are the alternating clicks, are they coming with "CPU over" warnings? Do you get music in between them ?

Can you PM me the debug info you'll get from the menu command in the Audirvana menu ?

 

 

Damien

 

[damien78]

Bonjour François,

 

Thanks a lot for your proposal and support!

I'll propose that we first check if the HiFace driver offers such an Integer mode.

For this, I'll make a small update to Audirvana (probably this WE) to add Integer mode detection in the Debug Info.

 

Cheers,

Damien

 

[damien78]

Sure, this can be implemented, though I'm not very familiar with passing messages to the running instance this way.

wgscott: have you implemented such a feature in a Cocoa app before ?

 

Or shouldn't a direct implementation of responses to some scripting commands be a better solution ?

 

Damien

 

[wgscott]

I'm not competent to advise, but this looks like the way:

 

http://unixjunkie.blogspot.com/2006/07/command-line-processing-in-cocoa.html

 

Pretty much any text editor program will do this (some are open-source).

 

[SanFranShootr]

Audirvana doesn't seem to want to output audio thru my M-Audio Firewire 410.

 

Is this operator error or incompatibility with MAFW410?

 

[charlesc]

Hi,

 

to help find the cause, I have no clicks with 4GB memory and the use of wifi and airport.

charles

 

[damien78]

SanFranShootr: what happens when you select the ProFire 410 in the user prefs ? Is it appearing as the preferred device after you hit the change button ?

 

If it's still not working, can you send me (by PM) the debug info (command in Audirvana menu) ?

 

Damien

 

[damien78]

I've posted a new release (0.3.1) that fixes a flaw in the CPU over recovery method that made it ineffective.

Can those who encounter such repetitive CPU over warnings check with this one if the repeating sequence is now drastically reduced ?

 

In addition, this release adds the detection of the audio stream modes that are available only in hog mode. It is displayed in the debug info when the command is run while playing audio.

 

francois: can you run this Audirvana>Debug Info... command when audio is playing and paste the debug log in a PM (in English or French BTW ) you send me ? That'll help me determine if the hiface is supporting Integer Mode.

 

Damien

 

[francois]

Bien le bonjour Damien,

 

this is the debug lines with hiface and halide comming from the new version

 

About the command line parameters, to be more accurate:

 

/min : start minimised

/stop

/play

/pause

/add "file name" : add file in playlist (also during playing)

/clear : clear playlist

/seek "elapsed seconds"

 

Best

François

 

Halide:

 

Hog Mode is on

Devices found : 2

 

List of devices:

Device #0: ID 0x106 Built-in Output UID:Built-in Output

Device #1: ID 0x102 SPDIF Bridge UID:SPDIF Bridge

 

Selected device:

ID 0x102 SPDIF Bridge UID:SPDIF Bridge

4 available sample rates up to 96000.0Hz

44100.0

48000.0

88200.0

96000.0

 

Audio buffer frame size : 14 to 6144 frames

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

 

1 output streams:

Stream ID 0x103 2 channels starting at 1

8 virtual formats:

Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32bits little endian Float @96.0kHz

Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32bits little endian Float @88.2kHz

Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32bits little endian Float @48.0kHz

Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32bits little endian Float @44.1kHz

Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 24bits little endian Signed Integer @96.0kHz

Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 24bits little endian Signed Integer @88.2kHz

Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 24bits little endian Signed Integer @48.0kHz

Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 24bits little endian Signed Integer @44.1kHz

 

8 physical formats

Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 24bits little endian Signed Integer @96.0kHz

Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 24bits little endian Signed Integer @88.2kHz

Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 24bits little endian Signed Integer @48.0kHz

Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 24bits little endian Signed Integer @44.1kHz

Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 24bits little endian Signed Integer @96.0kHz

Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 24bits little endian Signed Integer @88.2kHz

Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 24bits little endian Signed Integer @48.0kHz

Non-mixable linear PCM Interleaved 24bits little endian Signed Integer @44.1kHz

------

Hiface:

 

Hog Mode is on

Devices found : 2

 

List of devices:

Device #0: ID 0x107 Built-in Output UID:Built-in Output

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

 

Selected device:

ID 0x102 M2Tech HiFace UID:M2Tech HiFace

1 available sample rates up to 0.0Hz

44100.0 to 192000.0

 

Audio buffer frame size : 14 to 3072 frames

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

 

1 output streams:

Stream ID 0x104 2 channels starting at 1

1 virtual formats:

Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32bits little endian Float @44.1 to 192.0kHz

 

1 physical formats

Mixable linear PCM Interleaved 32bits big endian Signed Integer @44.1 to 192.0kHz

 

 

 

[memphiskat]

Hello

 

Updated to 0.3.1 and am still getting CPU Overloads with accompanying skips and glitches when playing 24/96 files. Seems stable with 24/44.1 native and upsampled to 88.2

 

Macbook OS X 10.6.5 2 GB USB -> M-Audio FastTrack Pro

 

Karl

 

[stevebythebay]

I'm new to any software other than iTunes with my setup. I'm still in the process of breaking in the Ayre DAC (a few hundred hours on the way to 500) so I've yet to really be in a position to assess the quality of any players, mano a mano.

 

But having installed Audirvana I'm happy to report that, at least in my system, all is well. Nice to drag and drop albums and not have to worry about gapless issues or other things that I've heard about (no odd sounds, just beautiful music).

 

The overall presentation seems right, as does the tonal and spacial cues. There's an "ease" in flow and how the system "breathes". It's really hard to explain but the harmonics for primary, secondary, etc. seems to capture the natural aspect of studio and live performance.

 

The only thing that would make it a really great solution is what I guess you'd call "ease-of-use" / human factors. With an Apple iTouch or iPad and it's remote controlling iTunes it's a simple matter of point and play. Hope Audirvana develops this and other hooks to make for a visual presentation of album art, etc. And I'm not sure I'm fully exploiting the app (not clear what can and should be modified in the setup -- for example what's "force upsampling" all about?).

 

For now I'm quite pleased with what has been done.

 

Bravo Damien!

 

(amended: just gave Ayrewave a whirl and it appears to have a more realistic result, at least to my ears, so far. It's less "flashy" than Audirvana, but the tonal quality seems more "right". Again, I know that these are both unfinished works, so it's probably too early to tell which will be best. It's a wonder to me how these can be so different to each other.)