Amarra alternatives...

Posted by: Eloise on 03 November 2009

Just so people are aware, Amarra is not the only player in the "better than iTunes" audio playback engine, or at least they wont be for long.

Channel D are currently have pre-release (beta) versions of Version 3 of the Pure Vinyl software. Well this is for recording vinyl onto your computer (Mac) I hear you comment, but it also has a playback engine which integrates into iTunes for playlists, etc. The cost of Version 2 of the Pure Vinyl software is $229 and they say will be a free upgrade to Version 3 when it's available.

The second piece of software is coming from Audiophile Engineering the creator of Wave Editor software - a high quality, low cost recording and editing software. Little is know of the capabilities of their playback engine and if/how it links with iTunes but is another possibility for the near future.

Anyway just some possibilities for those considering Amarra (or not as the case maybe) but concerned of the cost and hesitant to jump. There are other alternatives coming soon which may offer the 80% performance for 20% of the cost balance often looked for.

Eloise
Posted on: 03 November 2009 by DHT
I just picked up the 'mini' version of Amarra for a friend it was £250, seems pretty reasonable , it will be interesting to hear the other players when they are released.
Posted on: 03 November 2009 by Joe Bibb
quote:
Originally posted by DHT:
I just picked up the 'mini' version of Amarra for a friend it was £250, seems pretty reasonable , it will be interesting to hear the other players when they are released.


I have "Mini" and while there is a clear improvement over iTunes sonically, it is far from bug free. Nothing serious but some frustrations. There is, for example, no facility to play gapless albums without short breaks inserted between tracks.

Anyone with a lot of live albums or music that flows from one track directly into another, such as DSOTM, Aerial, Abbey Road etc. will find that annoying. It is due to be fixed in a future release and at least it properly supports ALAC now, in addition to AIFF and WAV.


Joe
Posted on: 03 November 2009 by DHT
I know what you mean, the 'gap' is much shorter now with the current version ,I am told they are working on it, have you tried either of the other players that Eloise mentioned?
Posted on: 03 November 2009 by Eloise
quote:
Originally posted by DHT:
I know what you mean, the 'gap' is much shorter now with the current version ,I am told they are working on it, have you tried either of the other players that Eloise mentioned?

I don't think either are actually available - I tried the V2 Pure Vinyl player and it's quite limited interface though quality seams good. The Audiophile Engineering player (possibly to be named Twilight) is only just entering Beta with selected users AFAIK.

Amarra has just been updated to version 1.1 which (from reports) is less buggy than the previous versions and will play ALAC as well as AIFF and WAV now.

Eloise
Posted on: 03 November 2009 by james n
1.1 seems very stable. i'd had problems after updating to Snow Leopard after months of no issues with the previous versions with Leopard. Running 1.1 with the very latest version of Itunes is very good so i wont be doing any updating unless there is a significant upgrade (gapless playback etc.

Good to see there are other alternatives coming out (not suprising given the interest in a better playback engine) which may be more cost effective to some.

James