Great another piece of software I can’t say the name of! 
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No kidding. Could they have possibly picked a worse time for this, than right after the MQA debacle? I could see subscriptions maybe if it was content. But, it is not content. It’s a subscription for buggy software, while actively screwing the user base that put them on the map. I have been recommending Audirvana, despite its flaws, to many, mainly because the licensing was palatable. I might as well give my money to a company that values it’s users and doesn’t have a history of stabbing them in the back, even if it does cost me more. Scruples are still a thing.
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I watched the recorded livestream, and have to say Audirvana could have done a better job at presenting the new edition. So far what I have seen is people freaking out about the subscription model. It is unfortunate, but this is 2021 and Audirvana isn’t alone with this approach.
I for one can’t wait to demo the new software and really see what is on offer. Then I can make a decision about the value proposition. I’m hoping for good things.
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They really have screwed the pooch (bousillé) on this one…
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I have to disagree. There will be no support for 3.5 after a 3-6 month period of time. The goal is to sell subscriptions.
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Have you ever tried Roon? This is patterned exactly after them. Audirvana should think very carefully about how to support their long term customers.
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3-6 months before 3.5 disappears.
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I understand needing to depend on an income stream to continue to support and develop a product. The implication to me is that the product needs continued improvement, which makes me wonder if I’m ‘not serious enough’? I was happy with iTunes except it didnt have exclusive mode, so I added BitPerfect, but it was never stable for me. I tried Audirvana and it checked all the boxes, my only gripe is a sorting option that doesn’t work. So $70 a year to get an opinion fixed that worked in iTunes 10 years ago?
The question becomes how does Audirvana stay afloat if we don’t want to pay any more money? I don’t have an answer, though I would understand charging for a new license to run on the M1 chip (or other hardware platform), that requires ‘new work’. Their answer is the subscription, which would make sense if hardware were constantly changing … I guess I’m not serious enough about needing this to be perfect (just sort my albums by date!).
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Damien, you are risking the business of many long term users. You have an opportunity to bring this business over to your new Studio offering. However, what you’re currently presenting as a discount isn’t enough for me to even consider subscribing. I have a Roon account and you’re playing catch up with them.
Make it financially worth my while to drop Roon and sign on with Audirvana.
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Yes, I did the demo with Roon but ultimately did not subscribe with them. I’m going to wait and see how Audirvana Studio runs in my system and see what it actually brings to the table before subscribing or not.
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Myself is in this technology field and no difference with vendors we deal with regarding software licensing. Companies needs to make money, pay their people, and stay competitive. We went from eat-all-you can to per user license plus feature cost. Hopefully Audirvana takes care of existing and long time customers with discount and perks along with a stable releases. With that said, I do hope Audirvana fix existing bug in the current 3.5 release (not asking for future feature, just fix the bugs please). Keep loyal customers happy and gain new ones.
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If there was anything that wasn’t already available today from other companies, I’d agree with you. However, Roon is light years ahead of Audirvana in every aspect.
Damien should consider a much stronger financial offering to his existing licensees to bring them over to his new Studio program.
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I don’t have Roon which from their site is $12.99 a month whereas Audirvana Studio is $69 a year or as a 3.5 user $49 for first year. That means starting in 2nd year Audirvana Studio would cost me less than $6 a month, around half of cost of Roon. For myself, I can’t spring thousands of dollars for a Roon Nucleus hardware for a Core and therefore would have to utilize the software one for my iMac running Big Sur. At least for now when needed always could get support from Damien’s team, have been using them for years, and understand their move to subscriptions. Those who are upset you have to do a subscription instead of a lifetime license anymore seem spoiled.
Sure there’s other companies with audio software but that doesn’t mean all products are identical. In recent times I’ve used Audirvana to stream Tidal to an endpoint. I can do that with mConnect which is cheap but it doesn’t sound as good. It has it’s place though. Roon does a wonderful job with the metadata and related things but I’m not sure that I value that feature as much as others do. I preferred the sound from Audirvana over Roon so I didn’t subscribe.
I can’t make a value judgement without trying the product. I’m a long time Audirvana user so I want to see what Damien and his team have done with the new product. I don’t know how many beta testers there were, but it’s probably safe to say that most of the respondents to topics about Audirvana Studio haven’t tried it.
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To me, the biggest question is “how will it sound?” I have listened to Roon and it does not sound as transparent as Audirvana. There is a fix on the Roon side - a special suped up Linux hardware enhancement which sounds really good. But Damian seemed to be saying that the major sonic improvements are with Windows (kernel streaming like XXHighEnd) and the M1 chip. Nothing extra done for Intel Macs. Still, if Audirvana sounds great - and better than 3.5 - then he will have a winner.
There was no announcement about minimum hardware or OS requirements. I recently upgraded to a 2012 quad i7. Hope this machine has some legs with Audirvana Studio…
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I get that developing software indefinitely without additional income is not economically feasible. But you also have to take care of the existing customers who built your business. Customers who a bought a product with the understanding that they have support indefinitely for the money they spent. An offer for 50% discount to the monthly/ yearly fee for life feels appropriate. That shares the burden equally between the company and its users to whom it owes its existence.
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I don’t love the subscription model. And I would have liked existing 3.5 users to get a better deal. But I will give the trial a shot. Hoping to see some of the following longstanding bugs fixed with this Studio version.
- Inability to sort Qobuz favorites.
- Inability to recognize files larger than 2GB in the library.
- Inability to use the Android Remote App with my Windows PC, regardless of firewall settings. Dual band WiFi mesh should not be a barrier to functionality in 2021.
- Broken ASIO Driver integration for Topping products/XMOS USB regarding DSD files, which seemingly no other audio playback software - expensive or not - suffers from.
Each of these has been a problem for at least a year, in some cases longer. Each has been acknowledged on this forum by Damien. And most were said to “be fixed in a future update” that never came…unless perhaps Studio is that update. (Naive, I know.)
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You have some valid points. However, I must point out that there’s absolutely nothing secret that’s going to be included in Studio that isn’t already in Roon. I currently use Roon probably 80%-20% over Audirvana. Roon is a Ferrari compared to Audirvana’s Model T.
Sign up for Roon’s free trial and try Studio. You can’t lose that way.
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To be fair Roon also doesn’t support upnp unfortunately. For me personally that makes it a non option.
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How disappointing that a subscription model is being introduced, particularly since 3.5 (which I’ve had for about three years now) has never managed to iron out its various glitches.
I’m now using it on a MacBook Pro 2019 i9 16GB uPnP via my Yamaha amp and frankly I’m tired of the tracks skipping. Happens on Tidal, Qobuz and my personal library. Happened regularly on my former MacBook too.
So, a subscription model seems like a kind of insult. If I decide to use the trial, it better be superlative in its performance or I’m out. Use the money you’ll be gathering each month and invest in some decent product development.
The ad for Studio says it has a dark interface and a more transparent sound. That’s pretty much it. Hardly groundbreaking.
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