Audirvana

Posted by: Chris_C on 21 March 2012

Anyone have experience of the Audirvana player for OSX? I am trialing the PLUS Trial version at the moment and I am so far very impressed. It provides iTunes integration with the ability to play native FLAC/WAV/AIFF files etc, and all beautifully packaged.

 

http://audirvana.com/

 

c.

Posted on: 21 March 2012 by Guido Fawkes

Yes it is another good player that produces a perfect bitstream like iTunes and Decibel and others, but has the advantage of being FLAC friendly and having a nice user interface that you may prefer. 

 

My philosophy is that the SQ from any bit perfect Mac player produces the same output, so use the one you feel you like the best. They do have to be set-up for bit perfect replay though for this to be true. Moreover, if you prefer a player that is not 100% (iTunes with some EQ) then no reason not to use it in my view. 

Posted on: 22 March 2012 by Chris_C
So am I correct in understanding from the above reply that iTunes is also a bit perfect player and therefore assuming different bit perfect players are playing the same file there should be any difference in the SQ provided by the player? Chris
Posted on: 22 March 2012 by Guido Fawkes

Yes Chris that is my view. 


If you turn off the EQ and max out the volume and set the sample rate in Audio Midi correctly for the track you are playing then iTunes will output exactly the same bitstream as Audirvana - at least it did when I tested it by capturing the bitstream through a UQ in to a Yamaha CD-R. I tried this with several players and they all produced the same results. I cannot hear a difference between any of the bit perfect players on a Mac through my system - either through the UQ or the Naim DAC. 

 

However, some folk report they can hear a difference and so I'd always say try it yourself and go with the player you prefer. 


In test (bit captures and my own listening) I cannot tell between different players on a Mac or WAV, FLAC, ALAC or AIFF. Every time I've captured a bitstream they were the same. Ripping CDs with a Naim US, iTunes, XLD made no difference either (there are cases when dBPowerAmp can do a better job - HDCDs). 


Getting iTunes right is a bit of pain so I use an add-on called BitPerfect which does this, but using Audirvana will work just as well and it will play FLAC. 


If I change the hardware then I can hear differences - jitter or some other noise (not sure). 


All the best, Guy 

Posted on: 23 March 2012 by james n
Originally Posted by Chris_C:
So am I correct in understanding from the above reply that iTunes is also a bit perfect player and therefore assuming different bit perfect players are playing the same file there should be any difference in the SQ provided by the player? Chris

As Guido says, worth trying a few, Certainly when i was using a Mac and Dac solution (Mac Mini with Weiss DAC2 then DAC202) the differences between iTunes, Pure Music and Amarra were quite clear. All 3 players were outputting bit perfect files (as verified using the Weiss test files and the transparency checker in the DAC202). I've never been able to find a satisfactory explanation to why these do sound different.

 

James

Posted on: 28 March 2012 by Chris_C
Mmmmmm...interesting. I have to say that I notice a difference when playing flac files through Audirvana vs playing ALAC files in iTunes. Not sure one is better quality than the other just different tonal quality, but I am still unfamiliar with both players so there may be some difference in the settings which I haven't found yet. Interesting. C.
Posted on: 24 December 2012 by Boj

I recently joint the world of Mac Mini / NDAC and went trough different players... including iTunes/Bitperfect, Fidelia and Audirvana. In my experience the SQ of Audirvana is much better then the other two. I think the reason for that is complete bypass of the volume control software. I think the software/digital volume control resamples/recalculates the bits... and degrades the SQ. When you lower your volume digitally, it "digitally" computes new amplitudes, and these amplitudes are re-done lowering the bit rate. By design the audio is no longer bit perfect when digital volume control is applied.