Amarra, Stereophile component of the year

[wdw]

The December issue of Stereophile has named Amarra as the "Computer Audio Component of the Year". I find this a curious choice. If we think of the number of posts from very satisfied users of alternate and far less costly playback software, the choice of this particular package is odd. Absolute Sound has ringingly endorsed Pure Music so is this simply the Stereophile team carving out their particular ground?

Considering the sonic similarity between the 120$ Pure Music and the 700$ Amarra, I'm baffled that they'd chose the more expensive package and the article making this chose written by Art Dudley.

 

[Sik_Lescinovid]

Obviously they were paid to make this choice.

 

[wdw]

...do you think they sell these recommendations to the highest bidder?

 

[Sik_Lescinovid]

It might work on an auctioning basis or it might be a contractual kind of thing. All I know is that there is enough evidence (for my taste) that supports this theory (your example being one of many) and I see no reason why one couldn't or wouldn't want to pull this off. When I try to inform myself of a product I always strive for as many independent (at least seemingly) user reviews as possible. Magazines, television...etc. are all tied down by contractual obligations from investors, hence their credibility is not up to my standards.

 

Anyways, I tried the latest Amarra and have so far found the SQ to be worse than what I get from Fidelia (in particular the bass) and usability to be essentially non-existent with all the bugs it has. Of course YMMV.

 

[Paul R]

Stereophile and TAS have teams of reviewers that in general, have different viewpoints and target different audiences. And I find myself more or less agreeing with different voices in each publications.

 

Art Dudley, Kal Rubinson, Mike Fremer, and John Atkinson from Stereophile.

 

Johnathan Valin, and to a lesser extent, Chris Martens and Robert Harley from TAS.

 

They are about as different as Pennsylvania and Texas.

 

I can easily see Amarra getting more votes at Stereophile than Pure Music, and vice versa.

 

What I cannot see, is either Stereophile (John Atkinson) or TAS (Robert Harley) being bought off by anyone in the industry. Just not going to happen.

 

 

-Paul

 

 

[Mark Powell]

There are two sorts of people used by magazines. One sort is the regular salaried employee. You are quite likely to get unbiased reports from him, as he is 'part of the magazine'. Magazines are always invited to shows, factory tours and so on. They are a longlasting operation with, through their employees and advertising, continual contact with the manufacturers.

 

The other sort is the freelance. Selling articles to a magazine or being contracted to write a specific article. These people have no 'organisation' behind them. They are totally dependent on the manufacturers goodwill. No one actually cares whether they go to a show or not as they do not represent anyone but themselves. If they upset a manufacturer their invites from that manufacturer will dry up. Upset too many and the manufacturers 'old boy network' will mean they do not get any invites or insider information from anyone. They are then no use to the magazines and their influence, and income, vanishes.

 

Simple. A British freelance motorcycle journalist's lack of criticism of anything was so obvious that it became laughable.

 

[bottlerocket]

I get the impression the reviewers are not computer experts. They don't care about usability or bugs or interfaces. For all I know they probably think the bugs are user error.

 

They do care about sound. From that frame of reference Amarra can come out on top pretty easily.

 

Fortunately CA members are sophisticated enough to know better.

 

 

[Mark Powell]

You say the sound is good. But others here say the sound is nothing special.

 

[Paul R]

(*sigh*) If you can't be bothered to go a listen to it, why venture an opinion?

 

Also, your point of view in regards to magazine writing, both editorial and freelance, is not at all in agreement with my experience.

 

YMMV.

 

-Paul

 

 

[Priaptor]

have purchased PM, Audirvana Plus and three weeks ago Amarra Mini.

 

While the user interface of Amarra is (supposedly going to be "fixed" any day now-won't hold my breath) buggy as hell, it is, in my opinion the unequivocal winner in the SQ ranking. So much so that is like having a new system.

 

People can say what they want but they shouldn't criticize the SQ of Amarra.

 

 

 

[Mark Powell]

I did NOT venture an opinion, I merely reported that quite a few people on this site were not impressed by it. Though there is no 'consensus', to use one of your terms.

 

The magazine side is totally obvious to anyone who thinks about it. I could name names in the audio field, but like you in another area a while ago, I am not going to.

 

The guy in the motorcycle field has truly become a laughing stock. He is not the only one. They are all magazines, with the audio ones frequently owned by the same publisher as the motorcycle ones and thus having the same policies. It's just 'consumer durables' in both fields.

 

[Priaptor]

are "bought off" in the simple sense of actually paying them off.

 

On the other hand they can indeed be influenced. For example when a company provides a reviewer with a 60K pair of speakers for over two years or 50K amps for over two years, etc, that has to have an influence. Other influences are when manufacturers wine and dine reviewers, fly them out to their factories paying for the trip, etc. Some of these conflicts of interest of so blatant that it is absurd.

 

When it comes to Amarra, PM, Audirvana, I just don't see it.

 

 

 

[Mark Powell]

One guy, obviously without reading it, says I ventured an opinion when I most certainly did not.

 

Now you say they are not bought off. I agree totally, they certainly don't go that far. But not long ago, a Hi Fi magazine editor on here said they were always trying to get gear at cut price, and he also said he dismissed one because he tried to get a 'freebie' and then tried to sell a demo box.

 

The publishers want to sell magazines to anoraks, in many fields. They do not usually have the slightest interest in the subject of the magazine. Some do, of course.

 

[Mercman]

The magazines rotate their recommendations to different manufacturers. It has reached the point where the relevancy of these magazines is questionable in the internet age. I learn more from forums like this then from the magazines. The magazines provide nice pictures of the equipment with specs and features. The actual comments concerning the sound of the product are no longer important to me. Most of the reviewers really stink when it comes to computer audio. I feel that very few of the reviewers are as knowledgeable as Chris C.

 

But at around $13.33 a year for a 3 year subscription to Stereophile, why bother complaining.

 

 

 

[bill_s]

"The motherboard itself is made of double-sided epoxy glass populated with surface-mount components, polystyrene capacitors, and high-quality, 0.1%-tolerance metal-film resistors. Surface-mount and other gas-tight mechanical connections are used for signal circuits. I was told that the PCB traces were laid out to reduce coupling between signal channels. The BDP-1's layout, components, circuit boards, and wiring are the best I've seen in a home audio product."

- Larry Greenhill Jun 15, 2011

 

I guess Larry did not know he was looking at an off the shelf PC Engines Alix1d mainboard available from PC Engines for US $125. I do like the pictures though but not enough to subscribe.

 

[Mark Powell]

You can't trust them. The Editor of a 'highly esteemed' UK magazine is a Technics SL1200 turnable freak. One writer asked about a Denon. The editor said it was a cheap plastic toy, he should throw it out and buy the Technics.

 

The Denon is made by Technics for Denon. The only difference between it and the SL1200 is that the shape of the plinth is very slightly different.

 

They are in the business to make money from advertising by selling lots of magazines. No other purpose whatsoever. HiFi, cars, motorbikes. No difference.

 

[Mark Powell]

Naim at least use their own boards, all of them, and populate them themselves. Also the linear power supply, including a large toroidal transformer wound to their spec by Lindorf (I think they are called).

 

On the boards is an Analog Devices Sharc, an ARM9 controller, and two Burr-Brown DACs. Don't particularly recognise anything else.

 

They do their own DSP software, but buy in V-Tuner for the internet radio.

 

[Mark Powell]

The other guy, freelancing for Stereophile, his name escapes me, was bleating on about some power cables. He reproduced some meaningless company graphs showing the voltage drop at 300 amps. No critique - he wouldn't get invited again if there was.

 

[bill_s]

Hi Mark,

Are you sure that NAIM manufactures all of the circuit boards used in their products? I just did a quick google search and found a pic of the backplane of the NAIM unitiserve. That looks suspiciously like a mini-ITX backplane to me including standard PS/2 mouse and keyboard ports, serial and VGA ports, USB ports and composite and S-video TV outputs. Give me time and I could probably identify the actual vendor of the mainboard. NAIM acknowledges DigiFi Ltd of London as the provider of the software. Granted, the digital output board is probably theirs. So, to me the hardware architecture, and provenance, is not technically much different than Bryston or, for that matter, my own DIY music player. Did not check any other NAIM computer file players but I would have a hard time imagining any audio manufaturer building their own computer mainboard. It is not economically viable.

 

[wdw]

...would enjoy hearing your comments on the differences and SQ of Amarra when compared to Pure Music. I've always assumed them both to be quite similar based on the posts on this site but recall that you have a very revealing system so would welcome your opinions on the subject.

Perhaps I'll need to download a trial.

Cheers WDW

 

[Mark Powell]

Mine's the ND5 XS. All the boards look a bit 'low production numbers' and they have all 'Naim' etched in the copper. I think you are right about DigiFi as I seem to have read that somewhere, but they certainly used to say it was 'Naim written code'.

 

You have to be wary of their all in one stuff. The 5 channel player they made a while ago used bought in 'digital' power amps, from Hypex, maybe, or some firm beginning with 'T', I am not sure. Very much the opposite of what they usually do.

 

Their regular power amps, big and small, are based on a quite old Toshiba power transistor application data sheet hand out.

 

But we have all agreed that we can do much better with a 'proper' computer we lashed up in our garden shed

 

[beetlemania]

"Obviously they were paid to make this choice."

 

I have just as much evidence as you!

 

 

[bill_s]

I live in Manhattan so the dining table is often my workbench to my wife's chagrin.

 

[beetlemania]

Art Dudley seemed to like Decibel (at $33) just as much sonically albeit he preferred Amarra's GUI. But Dudley wasn't the only one voting, it would seem that some of the other writers went with Amarra.

 

[Paul R]

Mark - I don't know you, but of one thing I am sure. You always have a strong opinion. On everything. Well - you are in good company I guess, at least you are passionate.

 

As for magazine writing, as i said, what you keep putting out is your opinion, not facts. Sure they are in business to make money- but making money is not the whole story. Reviewers are not perfect, and are subject to getting bamboozled just like everyone else. Been there. Done That.

 

As for Naim, well, it was my understanding they are buying lots of COTS parts, including motherboards. I could be misinformed there. Eloise is likely to have certain knowledge of the subject.

 

-Paul

 

 

Heh! While I was typing Eloise replied with the straight dope.