Audirvana Plus 3.5

[Chopin75]

On 4/22/2020 at 10:53 AM, Martini said:

Mac Mini thread swing is good timing. I've got a new Mini i7 w/16gb ram on order. I'm going to be replacing my old 2010 iMac. So a couple questions:

 

How do I transfer my Audirvana 3.5 license and preferences over to the new computer, so that I don't lose meta data? The way I like to sort my albums is by Genre, Artist and then for Classical by Title (i.e. Symphony #5, Piano Concerto #3, etc) and for Jazz, Blues, Rock, etc. I like to sort Artist, Year of original release, Title. So I've had to manipulate Classical titles and erase the year. On most everything else, I've had to change the reissue year to the albums original release date.  I really don't want to have to mess with that again.

 

Also, is Direct mode possible with Catalina? How do you go about it, as Apple has changed it's security structure a good bit with Catalina. If it is still "possible", is there any "real" benefit to going that route. As we know, sometimes we tell ourselves we can hear changes, but they don't really exist --> You know, if the data getting to the DAC is bit perfect to the file, with or without Direct, then there is no change in sound. Does the Mac audio core manipulate the file a little? With the Mac and Audirvana is bit perfect only possible with Direct Mode? I've been using Direct Mode on the iMac w/Sierra, but I never really investigated this, nor A/B'ed it. I just kind-of like to set things up the best way and enjoy listening when I can.

 

Thanks!

From my experience the direct mode sounds much better than without it, hence my new MBP 2018 sounds much worse than my MacBook Air 2011 which uses Yosemite. I gave up on Audirvana as a result.  

[Chopin75]

Can you monitor. the. RAM on the minimac? I. use Dr. cleaner to  monitor my MacBook. You would be surprised how much. RAM a Mac uses even it appears not to be doing something more than playing Audirvana. When I was. running MacBook Air with audirvana I was no able to play. DSD256 because of the huge files and difficulty in processing, similar to what you experience. But with your 16GB there should be enough RAM. I ended up switching to a. 16GB RAM. MacBook Pro though it still gets cranky with DSD255 because it keeps using all my RAM or no good reason. But I have all this crap like touch. bar and God knows what other background processing it is doing. Then I switched to Euphony audio and all problems with DSD256 are solved, and can play native DSD. You can boot your Mac mini with Euphony Audio thumb drive and it would use your RAM more efficiently. Those DSD files are huge! you and every single RAM available.

 

[Chopin75]

While running quboz on audirvana, can one load the files temporarily onto the playlist (like eCache) and then disconnect from WiFi ? I can do that with the Quboz streaming app itself but not with Audirvana. 

[Chopin75]

On 7/24/2020 at 1:12 AM, Undertone said:

Replying to RunHomeSlow and Chopin75:

 

I have several native DSD128 albums, downloaded from the vendor in DSD128. The conversion software is not the problem. Before I used offline conversion, when upsampling in Audirvana to DSD128 or DSD256, the same audio dropouts occured, and there was much higher demand on CPU resources. There is something about the configuration of my Mac Mini that is not allowing  optimized use of RAM.  

 

I'll look into Euphony Audio as an alternative.

When I booted Euphony Audio from the same crappy MacBook Air 4 GB, I was able to run DSD 128 and 256 with no dropout. Somehow it manages to use less RAM than a Mac. if you can find a way to disable the background apps of the Mac that may help. Note Euphony Audio can only boot a Mac that has no T2 chips meaning no MiniMac 2018 or MacBook 2017 (I think)  Your old macmini should work fine. Euphony sounds much better but app looks terrible though it is simpler to use and less fussy than Audirvana. I vaguely remember the DSD improvement was quite significant with Euphony comparing with Audirvana which  was always a struggle with the drop out and never sounding that great. Euphony makes your Jaw drops with DSD (sorry I know this Audirvana site, will stop now) 

[Chopin75]

10 hours ago, Jud said:

 

Does anything in Euphony or Stylus do upsampling, or is a separate player such as HQPlayer Embedded, with a separate license purchase, necessary for that?

It can only do PCM upsampling and convert Dsd to PCM. It needs hqplayer embedded to do dsd upsampling or conversion with separate license.