Audirvana Plus 3.5

[jamesg11]

Currently using 3.2something ... what I thought was the license # isn’t working for the 3.5 upgrade. Gotta be there somewheres ... what should I search for?

[jamesg11]

1 hour ago, Jud said:

 

Absolutely, I wasn't arguing at all with your experience, just disappointed along with you that it wasn't better, as mine and others' have been.

I also immediately liked the 3.5 sonics. I had been largely using hqp to dsd256 & I now prefer my pcm in A3.5 - but not the dsf64 files which I understand still just play as is (no upsampling?) ... /& I have a huge amount of them.

[jamesg11]

On 5/13/2019 at 4:50 AM, DancingSea said:

Here’s a report on my Audirvana journey.  Going back to 2.6, A+ has always sounded too bright to me, no matter what I’ve tried, including Tube Saturator plugins that cost more the A+ itself.  3.5 fell into the same boat.  I’ve always preferred Amarra Luxe and HQP.

 

I recently swapped out my DH Labs T14 (silver) speaker cables for Audioquest Rocket 33’s (copper), and added a REL subwoofer.  Got better for A+, but still not quite there.  Then a few days ago I followed some EQ settings Copy_Of_A gave me almost a year ago.  All of that combined has A+ sounding amazing.  On par with Amarra Luxe, and very close to HQP, yet more functional than either.

 

Here are Copy_Of_A’s EQ recommendations.  I did boost the low shelf a little bit.

 

”

get this very nice and very, very good free EQ:
https://www.tokyodawn.net/tdr-nova/

activate the filters I, II and III

 

set Filter I to:
peak (the symbol in the middle above the Q and FREQ button)
Q: 0.5
Freq: 60Hz
Gain: 0.3db

(see attachment 01)

 

set Filter II to:
low shelf (the symbol above the Q button)
Q: 0.5
Freq: 360Hz
Gain: 0.5db

(see attachment 02)

 

set Filter III to:
peak (the symbol in the middle above the Q and FREQ button)
Q: 0.85
Freq: 3.2kHz (=3200Hz)
Gain: -0.2db

(see attachment 03)

 

out gain (bottom right): -5db

This should get you close to something you might like…

 

For somewhat bolder bass increase the gain of Filter II (leave Filter I and Filter III as they are for the time being).

But don't overdo ...

 

If it’s still too bright decrease the gain in Filter III (start with -0.5db ... but I wouldn’t go lower than -1db).”

Were these settings recommended just for your specific situation, or as generally good ones?

[jamesg11]

Flipped back to AV from HQP, latest version. Can’t get redbook pcm etc to dsd256 upsampling functioning via ultra rendu into rme dac, set to pure dsd, as per HQP. Plays dsd files up to 256 fine.

 

Settings I should check?

... can’t see the issue I’m afraid. Used to work okay!

[jamesg11]

Thanks Jud, as per HQP I have AV set to upsample everything ie pcm to dsd256 (I’m aware AV won’t upsample dsd to higher dsd), & the RME dac is set to dsd mode.

 

It now occurs to me that maybe the rendu’s dlna output mode, unlike hqp naa mode, may not enable dsd256 on a mac where the rme dac’s pcm upper limit is 384 ie uses dop?

No problem with naa doing this of course.

 

Anyone know if this is the issue?

[jamesg11]

Right, just looked at sonore site & dlna & naa have the same output options, including native dsd which avoids the max pcm mac trap.

So there must be a setting in AV which selects that instead of dop?

I’ll chase this later today.

(Sun is up here in Oz ... no smoke in the air ... a good day!).

[jamesg11]

Interesting - does AV actually have a DOP / native DSD preferences setting choice?

Or just select dsd + dsd256 & then max of pcm + dsd?

 

Anyway latter method has no success with pcm ... simply hangs on “loading first track”?

DSD albums up to dsd256 play fine. Go figure ...

 

[jamesg11]

Now up & going!

Not sure which pref change did it ... now to make this success repeatable.

[jamesg11]

Yep, no manual, no more - months ago did a heap of searching for it when trying to sort an issue ...

[jamesg11]

6 minutes ago, AudioDoctor said:

Ok, but why would you?

 

If you want to use HQPlayer there are much better ways than hassling with the terrible UI of Audirvana while giving up it's one advantage and that's a fantastic sound when directly connected, IMO of course.

“better ways” ... riff on this please!