If you like your Coverflow - DONT upgrade to iTunes 11 !!!

It sounds like good to make the move. I think I will update it for now.

If only that was true. Nasty buggy software. The latest is that it decides to abandon the ipod after syncing causing it to stop charging.

Mine didn't do that. When it was finished loading my iPod, it just waited for me to "eject" it. It was also 4 times as fast in loading an iPod with 160GB of music; 3 hours Vs 12 hours for the old version - admittedly it was different iPod, too. Might be a coincidence.

Flawless install and has worked perfectly since.

They used to have EVERYTHING in sight and that was confusing as your focus would normally be on - Music, Applications, iphone etc.

Now they seem to have hidden everything so the interface is clearer - except they have hidden stuff really well.

Have they got rid of the strangely non-automatic "transfer purchases from my ...."?

When syncing with my telephone the new applications tab has - Install - Update - Remove.

You do not seem able to sort by "Installed" (which is now 'Remove'), and, although all the applications have been updated via the telephone, applications that are flagged "update" remain resolutely so flagged after the sync. And yes, I did find how to Check for Updates - in the end, eventually.

It doesn't seem as clever as claimed.

Although that might be me.

Except for all those times when it just doesn't.

I'm a huge Apple fan, but they are not a panacea. Wait 'till iCloud decides to eat your data for breakfast. Ever synced your iPhone to discover you have zero contacts, gone everywhere else too? I did. Good thing I could restore from backup. Apple builds great hardware but they can't do networking worth a damn. They don't do as good a job with software as they used to either. Their efforts to make things more iOS like have wrought bad usability problems upon OS X and I expect it will get worse. Looks like Microsoft won't fare any better with Windows 8. 

Dear Guy,

I certainly think that the final tweaks can usefully improve and optimise a system. On the other hand I am a fairly modest person when it comes to integrating software packages on computers. In reality I have never attempted it beyond fitting anti-virus software and iTunes on Wondows based PCs.

You are entirely right that switching from ESL 57s would have a vastly greater impact than almost any software system on a computer feeding a DAC.

But AIFF over ALAC was useful and there is no return from that for me. It cost nothing but a load of work to do once. The Arcam rDAC is a real blessing, and one that becomes clearer over time rather than hitting me between the eyes on day one. It was clearly better from the start, but after a while I realise that it never puts a foot wrong. 

Strangely it was troubling my PC [before the MAC fitted this week] with an issue on the USB [bus], and bringing occasional warnings that bandwidth requirements exceeded the system capacity - thus producing either an entire freeze of the computer, or a momentary drop-out in replay. Not a satisfactory solution in reality.

I am guessing that with async the Arcam is asking more than the conventional USB connection of the Aune. This meant that I reverted to using the radio sender, a USB plug-in that sends wirelessly to the rDAC, and which cause no stress to the system. Needless to say that with the Mini the async is fully supported and is an improvement over wireless. The possibilities of layout here mean that optical is unlikely as the ESLs have to go where they go best and it works out that the Nait and rDAC sit on one side of the room to the left of the speakers on the side wall, while the Mini will tomorrow find itself exactly opposite the Nait on the other side wall.

This means that the USB cable will have to live in a channel in the underlay under my Persian capret! I would not trust that a glass interconnect would stand a lady's stilleto!

ATB from George

OK, here's something a bit odd with the new iTunes. When I select music by "Album", the albums are displayed, but still grouped alphabetically by artist. This makes the "Album" view not really much different to the "Artist" view in terms of function. Is there a setting to change this that anyone knows of?

In "Remote"  on the iPad it groups them alphabetically by album name, as did the old iTunes.

Not a big deal to me, as I tend to just search with text for stuff I want to listen to, anyway.

Edit: Found it. In "View - View Options" there are number of sorting priority options that one can select.

But odd? Not odd at all.

ability to convert from AIFF to AAC at the same time as importing is gone which is  minor irritation - now you need to import then select all songs and convert in 2 steps

I'm curious why you do the conversion from AIFF to AAC?

I seem to be getting "clicking" noises using BP and iTunes 11 on hires FLAC files.

Further investigation will be carried out but I didn't hear any problems using VLC.

Anyone else noticed anything or has a comment?

+1. Unless the music collection is seriously HUGE I do not see the point of converting back to compressed lossless AAC format.

I convert back to compressed AAC for my iPod/iPHone/iPad but let iTunes do it on the fly as it syncs. That way I don't have to store and manage low res audio.

iTunes doesn't play FLAC does it?

iTunes does not have native support for FLAC. That has to be added via third party modification.

I'm currently playing hi-res using iTunes and BitPerfect. It's perfect.

Guido,

how do you check it, please?

Thanks,

Max

When it is playing a hi-res track, click on the little Bit Perfect icon on the menu bar. It will show you the data. Or go to your audio midi settings where you will see if it has switched.

Out of interest what preferences are you guys using with BP?

Thanks Race Tripper that's a good solution. I'll need to get a third disk array to do it though as I have no other need for AIFF (the other 2 are both storing replicated WAV).

If you set it to do so, iTunes just converts to compressed AAC as it puts the files on your iPod. It doesn't save a copy of them on your hard-drives. You shouldn't need any extra storage.

You just rephrased what I already told him.

I don't think I follow your reasoning for getting another drive. Maybe you misunderstood to think it only works with AIFF files.

Whatever you have now in iTunes -- be it AIFF, WAV, ALAC, etc. -- iTunes will convert that audio on the fly to mp3 format when you sync to your i-device. You just have to check the option for it on the iTunes summary page for the device. It applies only to the selected device, so you need to select the option for each device you want to sync with on-the-fly conversion.

Yes, because I felt that he hadn't really understood the concept.

You just rephrased what I already told him.

No, I didn't.

I clarified that the feature is not limited to AIFF files, because I believe that is this confusion, thinking he needs another array for AIFF when he has WAV. I also added where to find the option, and that it has to be set for each sync device. You did not make any of those points.