4/27/2023 0 Comments Amarra vs audirvana vs pure musicI honestly think I will only listen to these Redbook files and I don't think I'm ever really going to get on the hi-res train. For God's sake, I don't think I need another format to support. I think that might be enough background to finally get to my question. Before I try to untangle the mess of information regarding ALL of the "audiophile" players and make a choice between something like Amarra, PureMusic, jRiver, etc., I would like for someone to explain in terms that hopefully I can understand, what deleterious effect there is to just using iTunes by itself? Do these other programs just add features, that I may or may not have value for, or do they do something to make the music sound better? What? If this has been asked and answered someone point me in the right direction please. I've just recently tried the demo Audirvana, and am in the middle of a Pure Music trial. Testing was done with a grab-bag folder of 4000 tracks. They both sound slightly more robust than iTunes, and that in itself is dismaying. Seems to me any player should be sending the same 1s and 0s to the DAC. Pure Music's upsampling was very compelling, at first. But when I played familiar classics, it became evident it was mangling the files somehow. Worse, Pure Music is way too fiddly and finicky for my purposes. While they do visibly post instructions to minimize or disable many computer functions to optimize music playing, that's a non-starter for me. Might as well buy an outboard player in hardware form instead. Worst of all, PM occasionally stalls or stutters. (My iMac is loaded.)Īt least Audirvana is stable. Likely due to its independent-from-iTunes operation. I wouldn't call its library management great to work with, compared to iTunes. Guess I'll reluctantly buy this one only to play back the tiny number of DSD files in the system. Unless, as it's been suggested, it can't handle large libraries. I'm not sure what large is I don't think I'll ever exceed 50,000 tracks. My impression so far is that all these software players are tinker-toys compared to an outboard player.What is general opinion on Roon sound quality? I have used Audirvana+ for 5 years and updated each time a new version came out. I changed DACs 2 weeks ago, and my new DAC is more resolving of my server (Mac Mini with Uptone Audio MMK, LPS, SSD, 8 meg RAM feeding USB to my DAC. It sounds fantastic, but it got me thinking. So I spent all day on trying Amarra, HQ player, PureMusic, then lastly Roon. Audirvana+ is still ahead of all of these except Roon. I tried Roon about 18 months ago and it was nothing special. I don't upsample, and feed my NOS DAC resident rate. Swopping between A+ and Roon on select tracks, they sound very similar, closer than the rest of the bunch. I reckon it must be doing something with those resources to produce a more beautiful sound.But A+ has a digital sound to it, a very slight coarseness that clings to the treble region, most noticeable on female vocals for example. The CPU usage of Amarra 4 was way more than A+, as was the memory usage. Song played was a 24-bit/192kHz FLAC file. I looked as resource usage of the apps and came up with these figures on the iMac. A+'s renditions are somewhat more in the background and a touch lacking in emotion, but still eminently listenable. Amarra 4 provides a slightly more involved experience - if I'm busy working at my desk then the music captivates me and I have to stop and listen. I'm also intrigued as to why there is a perceptible difference in sound. Usability is part of the enjoyment process and A+ is leagues ahead at the moment. I intend to listen to my music through them for a while longer before making up my mind. Both of these software applications are completely new to me. For those familiar with these apps, is it worth sticking with Amarra in the hope that the bugs will be ironed out? At the end of the day, sound quality is key, but I need to be able to run the app! I have a few weeks left on the evaluation of both before I buy one of them. So I prefer the usability of Audirvana but Amarra sounds better. It's intuitive to use and very fast.Īmarra 4, on the other hand, has a horrid and confusing interface, crashes a lot and then doesn't start up easily, takes a while to load/process a track, but the sound is better to my ears. The sound is very good too - noticeably better than iTunes. I prefer the simpler, cleaner interface of Audirvana 3 Plus and it's a lot more stable. Essentially I've been listening to CD-quality and 24-bit/192kHz versions of the same tracks, but alternating between both players. I've been listening to Hi-Res music this afternoon and evening, switching back and forth between the evaluation versions of Amarra 4 and Audirvana Plus only Mac computer.
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