Audirvana Plus music player offers ‘improved’ sound, hi-res and MQA support | What Hi-Fi?

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Audirvana review 2018 free 

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Audirvana review 2018 free

  Was this because I wasn't using a separate DAC? Same result.  

Audirvana Plus Developed for Windows 10 - The Audiophile Man.

 

Remember when most people got rid of their vinyl records and started buying CDs. Who knew? Anyway, we needed a place to store our CD collection and paid a skilled cabinet maker to build us nice storage drawers inside wooden built-in units. There is just a fraction of what we used to store in there. Remember Napster and CD burners? All those disks went into the trash years ago. I rarely look in there anymore.

Who needs physical media these days? We have streaming services now…The ultimate music listening solution in this on-demand world. With the launch of on-demand music streaming services by Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Google, and others, the idea of owning physical media is considered completely unnecessary. A few companies have tried to differentiate themselves from the mainstream services by offering higher quality music streams.

Instead of streaming lossy and compressed MP3 type files, they are offering digital CD quality and higher resolution streams. Obviously this is possible now with the ubiquity of high speed internet access almost everywhere. The MP3 format was developed during the period when computing devices had tiny hard drives and home and mobile internet speeds were extremely slow. The MP3 format compresses CD files to one-tenth of their original size by cleverly removing much of the data that the program deems to be inaudible and superfluous.

To most casual listeners, MP3s sound just fine. On earbuds, Bluetooth headphones and speakers, built-in laptop and phone speakers, and car stereos, they can sound good enough. However, when spend some money to get a better music playing system, you may notice the shortcomings of the compressed music streams.

For the vast majority of people, using a computer and mobile apps for these services is more than satisfactory. On the other hand, for those who want to turn it up a notch, there are applications on the market that take those services and combine them with your digital music files, and claim to enhance their sound quality as well.

I want to discuss and review an app that I use called Audirvana. Most of the ones I found focused on the technology and features, said it sounds good and recommend it. There were no explanations or descriptions of HOW it actually sounded better. Not even the links to articles and reviews that Audirvana posted on their own website contain this information.

Let me make this very clear, I am certainly not a digital guru. I am simply an enthusiast of digital and analogue music.

This is a topic that you can get really deep into, and when I have attempted it, my head starts to spin. I believe I possess a basic understanding of the principles of digital music reproduction, and I will try make this as clear and simple as I can. Audirvana 3. They claim to have a secret sauce that upgrades the sound quality of your digital files.

I will be evaluating the MacOS version. Audirvana was released as a Mac application an by a French digital music enthusiast and programmer. Simply put, if you attempt to play a high resolution audio file through a computer, it down-samples and degrades it to be compatible with more common, lower resolution audio files. They say this process also introduces unwanted noise on top of the compromised signal quality. What Audirvana does is bypass all of that code so a purer, more robust digital signal is delivered to the digital-to-analogue converter, including higher than CD quality files.

A feature Audirvana calls. SysOptimizer optimizes Audio Playback by deactivating non-essential background services that can cause interference detrimental to sound quality. Purely functional to me. Speaking of the library, if you store music tracks on your computer or a network drive, you can add them to the library and use Audirvana to play them.

Another interesting feature is that it supports UPnP network streaming to allow you to send music to other devices on your home network. MQA licensed hardware is needed to get the full effect. I am not anti-MQA. It sounds fine to me. Tidal needed a feature to stand out from the other services and MQA fit the bill. The first thing you notice, the SysOptimizer sends all non-Audirvana sound to your computers built-in speakers.

Not the good amp and speakers connected your computer. You must close Audirvana or turn off SysOptimizer if you would like to listen to other audio sources through your hifi. Are they? The Tidal website is a bit vague with details. It does get a bit louder with it on…Hmmm. Search is by far the most poorly implemented aspect of Tidal. Since Audirvana connects directly to Tidal, they are pretty much stuck with the same shortcomings. I could spend a whole video on this topic.

Briefly, search is a universal function that is supposed to help you find a track quickly and easily. Tidal does not allow a search of just your collection of saved tracks. When using Audirvana, you also lose some Tidal features that I like and use frequently. The My Mix collections are personalized audio and video playlists based on your listening habits. I guess I forgot to mention this. On top of that, hey will even throw in a day Qobuz subscription.

Ability to add your personal music library to your streaming service of choice. The big question is: Does it actually sound better than using the Tidal app on its own. I have done extensive listening evaluations using this list of audio gear:. I also compared the sound of Audirvana playback directly to Tidal playback. Both Tidal and Audirvana sound good. I am happy to listen to music using both applications. But…Engaging SysOptimizer resulted in the music to sound a bit rolled off in the high frequency range.

With SysOptimizer turned off, Audirvana clearly had more pronounced treble in comparison. I noticed a similar effect when I was listening to the same tracks using Tidal. This brightness was something I noted very consistently. It was most notable in the snare drums, percussion, and cymbals. I was not able to discern much difference in the low bass frequencies and midrange between the two. Do rolled-off highs make it sound better, perhaps more natural? Is Audirvana removing some digital high frequency glare that my computer is adding to the mix?

Perhaps if you own a more revealing, higher end system than mine, you may notice more dramatic differences than I do. Obviously take advantage of the free 30 day trial. If you like it, by all means spend your money and support services like Audirvana that are trying to raise the bar on digital sound. A feature Audirvana calls SysOptimizer optimizes Audio Playback by deactivating non-essential background services that can cause interference detrimental to sound quality.

To break it down, what you get for you money is: Claimed audible improvement in sound quality Ability to add your personal music library to your streaming service of choice MQA and DSD support UPnP support for network streaming A remote control app for your mobile device. On the other hand, you also get: Missing service features Bland, uninspiring interface Crappy search function.

I have done extensive listening evaluations using this list of audio gear: Mac mini via coaxial out Schiit Modi 3 DAC Nakamichi receiver used as a preamp Parasound 80 wpc amplifier ProAc Response 2. Here are my personal findings: Both Tidal and Audirvana sound good.