Audirvana plus 3 with MQA support

Thanks, will check for update.

Good luck to those who want MQA - other than academically its of nominterest whatsoever to me. I just hope that the extra layers in the software don't have any adverse effect on non-MQA play, though it won't affect me as I have no plans to adopt the new version - at least not until the serious library limitations of Audirvana are fixed. If it wasn't so great for sound quality I would have abandoned it long ago!

I mainly listen to Tidal nowadays, so this is an important upgrade for me. 

Installed and streaming MQA as I type, which to be fair sounds very good.  Damien has said that the SQ for non MA files has improved so I'm looking forward to trying this over the next couple of days.  Tidal was already excellent via Audirvana but I'm currently listening to Face Value whcih sounds awesome 

dayjay posted:

 Tidal was already excellent via Audirvana but I'm currently listening to Face Value whcih sounds awesome 

Bloody autocorrect at it again ? 

.sjb

Haha, I was seriously temped to get tickets to watch him just to hear a few tracks of this album live.

Crazy / lazy question....any experience appreciated!

At the moment, I have a v1 UnitiQute connected visa TOSLink to a Mac mini (late 2012; 512GB SSD and 16GB RAM) running latest macOS. In short, not connected via asynchronous USB.... I have local FLAC files on a (mountable) NAS and a Tidal account.

I can play Tidal from their Mac app (including the MQA albums with the existing decoding algorithm). I much preferred the native Naim support for Tidal in my (now gone) SuperUniti to the play-from-computer experience; even when using the mini headless from an iPad  

Can Audirvana be used with TOSLink or only asynchronous USB? If so, can the "fully decoded" MQA  tracks be sent to the Qute for D/A conversion and playback? The interface, both on the mini itself and via an iPad app, as well as the sound quality, has appeal (especially in the months ahead awaiting Nova or Atom).

Sorry I'm a bit lost on what service Audirvana supplies, and a quick look on the web and online manual only talks about selecting USB connected devices as far as I could see... hoping this is easy for expert form users to answer before I download and install.

Regards alan

I can't answer re MQA as I don't stream from Tidal, however re Audirvana outputs, you can choose to play through the Mac Mini's optical or spdif outputs, when the optical is likely to be better quality as it isolates the inevitable RF noise from the computer. Best sound quality, however, is bypassing the MM's soundcard completely and using usb, and it can be set to have one of the usb busses dedicated to that function for best performance. Also for best sound quality it is best to minimise any other usage of e computer while playing music, including avoiding having a screen and mouse if possible (headless use). 

How much difference in sound quality you will hear and whether significant to you will depend on the rest of your system your ears, and how you perceive the music, and clearly only you can decide - but Audirvana is available for free trial, so easy to assess.

In the "when is Naim going to update streamers for MQA" thread, following an observation about resolution, and listing his system, Banzai said:

"Btw, I feed the Chord Hugo directly from the Mac Mini without using any USB isolator. I think the sounds will be more sparkling, dynamic than via a USB isolator."

Banzai, is this from testing and listening, or just presumption? I ask because I found that MM/A+ Usb direct to Hugo was adversely affected presumably by the inevitable RF contamination from the computer, so it did not sound as good as ND5XS int Hugo, which at that point was my baseline. Adding  Gustard U12 isolator/converter mada a world of difference, raising MM/A+ above ND5, cementing that as the better source.

Based on my listening sessions (over a year) with and without the USB isolator (Gustard U12 in this case), I finally decided to feed the Hugo directly with the Silver Dragon USB cable, which I bought from Moon Audio in Florida.

In my system Audirvana/Mac Mini with a regen and jitterbug was considerably better than without.  The regen cuts the power feed from the Mac, in addition to regenerating the USB signal, and replaces t with clean power, in my case from a good quality power supply.  MM was less noisy than a number of PCs I tried and a Mac Book pro but still better when fettled.

I am buying Audirvana Plus 3, have paid for it, downloaded the trial version, when I open it asks for my license key, I enter it as received via the confirmation email for my payment, when I enter the license key, I get a message saying "unable to verify license key, check internet connection".  Any help or suggestions appreciated.  I sent an email to Audirvana two hours ago but have not received a reply yet.

Thanks

Jeff A

Jeff Anderson posted:

I am buying Audirvana Plus 3, have paid for it, downloaded the trial version, when I open it asks for my license key, I enter it as received via the confirmation email for my payment, when I enter the license key, I get a message saying "unable to verify license key, check internet connection".  Any help or suggestions appreciated.  I sent an email to Audirvana two hours ago but have not received a reply yet.

Thanks

Jeff A

Did you go into the Audirvana Plus dropdown box at the top left of your screen then paste your licence key in to the option marked "Enter License Key'? Worked for me.

andarkian posted:

Jeff Anderson posted:

I am buying Audirvana Plus 3, have paid for it, downloaded the trial version, when I open it asks for my license key, I enter it as received via the confirmation email for my payment, when I enter the license key, I get a message saying "unable to verify license key, check internet connection".  Any help or suggestions appreciated.  I sent an email to Audirvana two hours ago but have not received a reply yet.

Thanks

Jeff A

Did you go into the Audirvana Plus dropdown box at the top left of your screen then paste your licence key in to the option marked "Enter License Key'? Worked for me.

Thanks for your reply, I believe I did what you asked and keep getting message saying "can't verify license key, check your internet connection".  Audirvana has replied, asked several questions I answered and I am awaiting further suggestions from them.  Thanks again, Jeff A

Obviously, you have no internet issue @ your home? Otherwise, you cannot post here.

Maybe you want to double check if you enter the license correctly.

banzai posted:

Obviously, you have no internet issue @ your home? Otherwise, you cannot post here.

Maybe you want to double check if you enter the license correctly.

No internet problem that I am aware of, everything seems normal today.  Have entered the license key by both copy and paste and by manual entry.  Still in communication with Audirvana, he keeps  asking me to retry, knowing it will still fail, but then checking his server logs.  So far no solution.  Thanks for your suggestion. Jeff A

Try shutting off/on your computer and/or try a different browser.

cat345 posted:

Try shutting off/on your computer and/or try a different browser.

thanks for that, but we have done that  multiple times, with no better result. with safari and firefox.  Jeff A

Not sure if I can follow it, entering the license key is done via the Audirvana program itself, no browser is involved here.

I find the Tidal MQA selection is extremely limited! Where are Ben Sidran, Bill Evans, Diana Krall, Duke Ellington, Coleman Hawkins. etc.?

Peter Dinh posted:

I find the Tidal MQA selection is extremely limited! Where are Ben Sidran, Bill Evans, Diana Krall, Duke Ellington, Coleman Hawkins. etc.?

Not sure why you're surprised -I'm surprised when I do find places that have music I like! These people will always pander to the mainstream first - for obvious commercial reasons. 

As a trivial aside, from a technical and legal descriptive angle, a digitisation of an original analogue recording, however high the resolution, isn't a studio master - but whether that would stop Tidal calling it that if they wanted to stock them is another matter.

Innocent Bystander posted:

Peter Dinh posted:

I find the Tidal MQA selection is extremely limited! Where are Ben Sidran, Bill Evans, Diana Krall, Duke Ellington, Coleman Hawkins. etc.?

Not sure why you're surprised -I'm surprised when I do find places that have music I like! These people will always pander to the mainstream first - for obvious commercial reasons. 

As a trivial aside, from a technical and legal descriptive angle, a digitisation of an original analogue recording, however high the resolution, isn't a studio master - but whether that would stop Tidal calling it that if they wanted to stock them is another matter.

Whereas I do not dispute your assertion that digitisation even from master tapes does not a master make, the oxidation and contamination of the original master may also have some impact. However, in a blind testing on Saturday night of lots of different recordings from lots of different artists, my son, completely unprompted, commented on the very varying qualities of recordings themselves.

I make no claims to be knowledgable on recording but the variances between some marvellous recordings by, say, Nat King Cole from the early '50s easily outshine many from the more famous artists of the '60s. Cream, Wheels of Fire, comes to mind, yet some Hendrix stuff polishes up very well. Obviously techniques have improved massively from the '70s onwards. Hardware, software and digitisation can only go so far in redeeming original failings. MQA itself will at best or worst will have a very marginal impact.

Ignoring the MQA functionality I have to say that on my system this version sounds brilliant, a real step forward compared to 2.6.6 which was already very good.  Well worth the cost of the upgrade.  I hope introducing streaming into the app later in this cycle doesn't have a negative impact on sound quality 

Perhaps save 3.0.0 or whatever to a separate file as back up so you can go back if you don't like future versions.

Best wishes

Steve

Gave the trial a download today before I commit fully. Sounding very good just on normal native files. Don't think I have much use for the MQA functionality at the moment.