Pure Music 1.7 Compared to Amarra 2.11

[mpaulson2001]

I have been going back and both the last couple of days comparing PM 1.7 and Amarra 2.11. Amarra in Playlist/Cache mode using the Finder sounds quite a bit better to me on my system. One track I compared was Diana Krall's Quiet Nights "You're my Thrill". PM 1.7 did seem more spacious but in my system Amarra sounded much more like real instruments including the piano and bass. There is some subtle cymbal playing at the beginning of the track where I think the bell of the cymbal is struck with the handle of a brush a couple of times. This is followed by some shimmering brush work on the cymbal. Cymbals in PM on my system sound a little bleached out and not as weighty and dimensional as Amarra. This difference is pretty apparent to my ears on this particular track. This lack of weight in PM has also been my impression with the female voice which makes up 80% of the music I like to listen to. Besides listening tastes, very likely software differences are also system related as the combo of the Dac1 and Thiel 1.6 speakers is probably already pretty bleach blonde. I'm happy that there are such great software options. Also, 2.11 does seem to be operating very stable for me as most of the bugs reported in this forum appear to have been corrected. I have been using Amarra since version 1.2 - this is the best version for me by far. Happy Listening.