You’re right, many thanks. As you say it’s hard to see in dark mode.
Yes indeed. I sent a couple messages to Damien about this.
And a few more issues.
Crickets.
1 Like
[my feedback, english below]
Cela fait deux semaines que j’ai installé Audirvana Studio, sur un MacBook Pro. Voilà ce que j’en pense.
J’utilise Audirvana depuis 4 ans, et j’ai toujours été très satisfait de la qualité du son. J’avoue que sur cette version, je n’ai pas spécialement ressenti de différence, mais je n’en attendais pas spécialement. Parce que j’en suis vraiment satisfait, ce n’est pas ça qui doit être amélioré selon moi.
Il y a deux pans majeurs qui ont clairement besoin d’être retravaillés depuis des années, c’est l’interface et la gestion réseau (UPnP).
Vu le changement radical du visuel et l’adoption d’un mode de paiement différent, j’étais assez excité à l’idée de découvrir une version complètement retravaillée d’Audirvana.
Mais je constate qu’il s’agit avant tout d’un changement de design. On se retrouve avec les mêmes problèmes qu’avant, et c’est vraiment dommage.
Par exemple, c’est tout bête, mais le défilement dans la liste d’albums n’est toujours pas fluide, l’affichage des pochettes laisse toujours la place à une barre de chargement avant d’afficher l’illustration. Et pourtant, ce ne sont pas des pochettes de 3mo que j’utilise.
Mais ça, ce n’est pas le plus important pour moi. Ce qui depuis plus d’un an me pose réellement souci, c’est l’implémentation de l’UPnP. Audirvana communique en ethernet avec un lecteur réseau Yamaha Musiccast (WXC-50), c’est par ce biais que j’écoute de la musique sur mes enceintes. Or, depuis le début, l’implémentation d’Audirvana ne fonctionne pas correctement. Jusqu’alors, du côté d’Audirvana on s’évertue à dire que l’implémentation UPnP d’Audirvana n’a rien à se reprocher. Moi, je veux bien le croire. Mais dans ce cas, pourquoi Audirvana Studio apporte des améliorations et des détériorations sur ce point ?
En effet, Audirvana Studio utilise semble-t-il une implémentation légèrement différente de l’UPnP, certains utilisateurs de lecteurs Cambridge ont relevé que ça ne fonctionnait plus correctement chez eux. Chez moi, le souci de file d’attente (le fait qu’on ne puisse pas passer d’un morceau à l’autre sans que tout foute le camp) est corrigé, enfin ! Mais désormais, je ne peux plus mettre en pause (ça rompt carrément la liaison, cela fonctionnait correctement avant), et il y a toujours des comportements arbitraires (la durée du morceau, l’illustration qui ne sont pas communiqués au produit, ou encore la lecture du morceau suivant qui n’est pas lancée, sans raison particulière) ou fonctionnalités manquantes (toujours impossible de naviguer au sein d’un morceau, alors que c’est bien possible avec un autre lecteur comme Foobar2000).
C’est une évolution qui, dans mon cas est positive bien qu’insuffisante. Ça montre aussi qu’Audirvana peut s’améliorer sur le sujet, que ce n’est pas à la merci des constructeurs.
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Concernant l’interface, je trouve que le style est impressionnant et classe. Par contre, cela va au détriment de l’ergonomie dans certains cas.
Par exemple, le texte est un peu trop petit, et le blanc ça fait mal aux yeux. La lecture de la biographie d’un artiste n’est du coup vraiment pas confortable. Aussi, alors que le texte est très petit, il y a de l’espace perdu, comme par exemple à gauche et à droite de la liste des morceaux, ou dans la section audio où c’est tout petit et collé en haut à gauche.
Il y a aussi la barre de gauche, qui est inefficace. On y retrouve radios (j’ai essayé une station en AAC, cela ne fonctionne pas donc je n’ai pas encore testé mais de toute façon cette utilisation sera au mieux marginale) et podcasts (je ne risque pas d’y toucher), mais pas les listes de lecture. Elles s’affichent dans une fenêtre à part, que l’on peut agglutiner à gauche ou à droite, ce qui fait perdre énormément d’espace horizontal sans utiliser tout l’espace vide vertical. C’est sûrement très pratique d’avoir une fenêtre séparée pour gérer des listes de lecture, surtout quand on en a des dizaines. Moi j’en ai que quelques unes, mais Audirvana ne me permet pas d’en ajouter plus de 3 dans la barre de gauche. Enfin, je présume que c’est une limitation qui peut facilement être levée. Pouvoir retirer des éléments (les menus radio, podcast, artistes favoris…) serait également bienvenu afin de s’adapter aux habitudes de chacun.
Aussi, lorsque l’on sélectionne plusieurs pistes, dans la fenêtre des métadonnées, ce sont les métadonnées de la première piste qui sont affichées, ce qui rend l’édition confuse. L’approche de Musique.app me paraît assez bonne : si les métadonnées sont les mêmes sur toutes les pistes (par exemple le nom de l’album), elles sont affichées, si elles diffèrent (par exemple le titre), c’est indiqué par un signe.
Il y a un point que je trouve très positif, j’aime beaucoup les informations détaillées qu’Audirvana donne au sein du logiciel, chacune de ces bulles permet de bien comprendre les fonctionnalités, c’est vraiment bien ! De même, qu’Audirvana Studio permette de voir de manière synthétique les différentes étapes par lesquelles passent un morceau avant d’être diffusé, et de pouvoir directement influer sur ces étapes, c’est très bien pensé.
On peut aussi désormais classer les albums par date de sortie, et ça c’est cool ! (et il y a plein de possibilités pour le tri, ce sont des outils puissants)
L’affichage de la piste sous forme de spectre est ludique, et que ça s’affiche sur la touchbar est une touche de finition appréciable.
Pour terminer, j’ai cru comprendre que certaines métadonnées pouvaient être récupérées par l’intermédiaire de MusicBrainz, je ne suis pas parvenu à trouver de morceau dont je pense que les métadonnées aient été récupérées par ce biais, mais lorsque c’est le cas, je crois qu’il serait bien de l’indiquer soit en grisant un peu le texte concerné, soit via un petit pictogramme.
Un dernier point sur lequel l’interface peut peut-être progresser, c’est de ne pas obliger à passer systématiquement par le menu “…”. Lorsque je sélectionne une piste et que je veux l’ajouter à la liste de lecture en cours, ce n’est pas rapide ni pratique de devoir se rendre tout à gauche pour faire apparaître le menu et de sélectionner l’option. On pourrait imaginer qu’une touche puisse faire ça (genre la touche espace) en affichant juste un petit message lorsque l’action est effectuée.
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Les améliorations que j’aurais aimé voir depuis 3.5 mais que je n’ai pas vues :
• Configuration attachée à un périphérique :
J’ai deux types d’écoute, au casque et sur mes enceintes. Je n’utilise pas les mêmes configurations, au casque j’ai un égaliseur AU qui reproduit la cible Harman et un limiteur de volume pour pouvoir gérer beaucoup plus finement le volume de sortie, tandis que sur enceintes rien de tout ça. J’aimerais bien qu’Audirvana se souvienne de ça et active / désactive ces configurations en fonction du périphérique de sortie sélectionné. Ou alors carrément créer des profils d’écoute qui sélectionnent un matériel de sortie et une configuration définie (par exemple si je clique sur le profil “casque harman”, Audirvana sélectionne mon DAC casque, active le plug-in AU, le contrôle de volume par piste et la limitation de volume globale).
• Revenir en arrière lorsque l’on consulte un album fait revenir tout au début de la liste d’albums
• Affichage plus rapide des couverture d’album / défilement plus fluide (ça s’améliore à chaque version d’Audirvana, et ça se détériore à chaque version d’iTunes, va comprendre haha)
• Lorsqu’une illustration est mise à jour dans un fichier, Audirvana conserve l’ancienne, même après plusieurs redémarrages
• Un UPnP qui fonctionne correctement.
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En l’état, je ne sais pas si je vais m’abonner. Mon problème principal n’est pas réglé, il s’est amélioré sans raison apparente sur mon matériel actuel, et pourrait se détériorer aussi facilement.
Je ne suis pas foncièrement contre l’abonnement, et si la version 3.5 reste supportée suffisamment longtemps ça ne me dérange pas, j’aimerais pouvoir y retourner si un jour l’orientation d’Audirvana Studio ne me convient plus (par exemple si tout tourne autour des services de streaming, dont je ne suis pas client et ne compte pas le devenir). Je trouve le tarif élevé mais si cela permet d’avoir une évolution plus soutenue du logiciel (ce qui pour l’instant semble être le cas) alors c’est envisageable.
English version courtesy of Deepl
It’s been two weeks since I installed Audirvana Studio, on a MacBook Pro. Here are my thoughts on it.
I’ve been using Audirvana for 4 years, and I’ve always been very satisfied with the quality of sound. I have to admit that on this version, I didn’t really feel any difference, but I didn’t really expect it. Because I’m really happy with it, that’s not what I think needs to be improved.
There are two major areas that clearly need work for years, the interface and the networking (UPnP).
Given the radical change in visuals and the adoption of a different payment method, I was quite excited to see a completely reworked version of Audirvana.
But I see that it’s mainly a design change. It has the same problems as before, which is too bad.
For example, it’s very simple, but scrolling in the album list is still not smooth, the cover art display still leaves a loading bar before displaying the artwork. And yet, I don’t use 3MB covers.
But that’s not the most important thing for me. What has really been bothering me for over a year is the UPnP implementation. Audirvana communicates via ethernet with a Yamaha Musiccast network player (WXC-50), which is how I listen to music on my speakers. However, since the beginning, the implementation of Audirvana does not work correctly. So far, Audirvana has been trying to say that the Audirvana UPnP implementation is not the reason. I want to believe that. But then, why does Audirvana Studio make improvements and deteriorations in this area?
Because Audirvana Studio seems to use a slightly different implementation of UPnP, some Cambridge player users have reported that it no longer works properly for them. In my case, the queuing issue (the fact that you can’t switch from one song to another without everything going haywire) is fixed, finally! But now, I can’t pause (it totally breaks the link, it was working properly before), and there are still arbitrary behaviours (song duration, illustration not communicated to the product, or the next song does not start playing for no particular reason) or missing functionalities (still impossible to navigate within a song, while it is well possible with another player like Foobar2000).
This is an evolution that, in my case, is positive although insufficient. It also shows that Audirvana can improve on the subject, that it is not at the mercy of the manufacturers.
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As for the user interface, I think the style is impressive and classy. On the other hand, this is to the detriment of ergonomics in certain cases.
For example, the text is a bit too small, and white is an eyesore. This makes reading an artist’s biography pretty uncomfortable. Also, while the text is very small, there is wasted space, such as on the left and right of the song list or in the audio section where it is very small and stuck to the top left.
There is also the left bar, which is ineffective. There are radios (I tried an AAC station, it doesn’t work so I haven’t tested it yet but anyway this use will be marginal at best) and podcasts (I’m not likely to touch them), but not playlists. They’re displayed in a separate window, which you can clump together on the left or right, which wastes a lot of horizontal space without using all the vertical empty space. It’s surely very practical to have a separate window to manage playlists, especially when you have dozens of them. I only have a few, but Audirvana won’t let me add more than 3 in the left bar. I assume this is a limitation that can easily be lifted. Being able to remove items (radio menus, podcasts, favourite artists…) would also be welcome in order to adapt to everyone’s habits.
Also, when selecting multiple tracks, in the metadata window, it is the metadata of the first track that is displayed, which makes editing confusing. The approach of Musique.app seems to me to be quite good: if the metadata is the same on all tracks (e.g. the album name), it is displayed, if it differs (e.g. the title), it is indicated by a sign.
One point I find very positive, I really like the detailed information that Audirvana gives within the software, each of these bubbles allows you to understand the features, it’s really good! Also, the fact that Audirvana Studio allows you to see in a synthetic way the different stages a song goes through before being broadcast, and to be able to directly influence these stages, is very well thought out.
You can now also sort albums by release date, and that’s cool! (and there are many possibilities for sorting, these are powerful tools)
The display of the track as a waveform is fun, and the fact that it is displayed on the touchbar is a nice refinement.
I understand that some metadata can be retrieved through MusicBrainz, I have not been able to find a track where I think the metadata has been retrieved through this, but when this is the case, I think it would be good to indicate it either by shading the text a bit or by a small pictogram.
One last point on which the interface can perhaps improve is not to force you to systematically go through the “…” menu. When I select a track and want to add it to the current playlist, it’s not quick or convenient to have to go to the far left to bring up the menu and select the option. One could imagine that a key could do this (like the space key) and just display a small message when the action is performed.
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Improvements I would have liked to see since 3.5 but did not happen (yet?):
• Configuration attached to a device:
I have two types of listening, on headphones and on my speakers. I don’t use the same configurations, on headphones I have an AU equalizer that reproduces the Harman target and a volume limiter to be able to manage the output volume much more finely, whereas on speakers nothing of the sort. I wish Audirvana would remember this and enable/disable these settings depending on the output device selected. Or create listening profiles that select an output device and a defined configuration (for example, if I click on the “harman headphones” profile, Audirvana selects my headphone DAC, activates the AU plug-in, the volume control per track and the global volume limitation).
• Hitting the back arrow while checking an album’s tracks brings you back to the top of the album list
• Faster album cover display / smoother scrolling (it gets better with each version of Audirvana, and it gets worse with each version of iTunes, go figure haha)
• When an album cover is updated in the original file, Audirvana doesn’t update it, even after restart
• A UPnP that works properly.
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As it is, I don’t know if I’ll subscribe. My main problem is not solved, it has improved for no apparent reason on my current hardware, and could deteriorate as easily.
I’m not fundamentally against subscription, and if version 3.5 stays supported long enough I don’t mind, I’d like to be able to go back if one day the direction of Audirvana Studio doesn’t suit me anymore (for example if it’s all about streaming services, of which I’m not a customer and don’t intend to become one). I find the price high but if it allows for a more sustained evolution of the software (which for the moment seems to be the case) then it is possible.
5 Likes
Hi,
After 2 weeks using AS without “major” problems … I’ve try to update AS with the latest release available. I can’t see differences between the first one and le last one … The last one continue to bug on display folder … worth, I’ve now problems I didn’t have before … Some tracks don’t want to be played on a Tidal album. The previous track play again … and again … and again. Need to restart AS to solve the playback problem.
Radio in AAC still not working … I think @Antoine will be obligated to offer a second free trial month to solve all the problems 
To finish on a very positive mood … I still can’t believe the amazing sound quality with AS !
I rediscover my music library … and the MQA tracks sounding now never like before …
I love it !
2 Likes
Tidal Connect - Yes
MQA Rendering - NO
Am I the only one who has big problems with the transition between songs on the Qobuz streaming ? No gapless and very often a big noise at the transition to the next track. Impossible to listen serenely to Pink Floyd, Zappa and all live albums requiring an absolute continuity. It works perfectly with 3.5…
Monky I have the same transitions between tracks in Qobuz. It’s very annoying. I like the sound from AS but this annoys me as well as the impossibility of turning off the square in the upper right at the end of listening! I have already mentioned this mistake. So far, I’m sure this is a library initialization error. If I cancel the library, I will shut down AS normally.
And no repair after two weeks!
Any clue what a ‘Cross-thread’ application hang is???
This is the result when trying to use Kernel Streaming with AS
The program Audirvana.exe version 1.2.0.10020 stopped interacting with Windows and was closed. To see if more information about the problem is available, check the problem history in the Security and Maintenance control panel.
Process ID: 4900
Start Time: 01d7552b37badbf9
Termination Time: 5
Application Path: C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Audirvana.Audirvana-4118-9684-d80dbb7827cd_1.2.0.0_x64__fec4hfhj3emgj\Audirvana\Audirvana.exe
Report Id: 6a3cd11d-748c-4625-9d82-9b915ceb0026
Faulting package full name: Audirvana.Audirvana-4118-9684-d80dbb7827cd_1.2.0.0_x64__fec4hfhj3emgj
Faulting package-relative application ID: App
Hang type: Cross-thread
The program Audirvana.exe version 1.2.0.10020 stopped interacting with Windows and was closed. To see if more information about the problem is available, check the problem history in the Security and Maintenance control panel.
Process ID: 4900
Start Time: 01d7552b37badbf9
Termination Time: 5
Application Path: C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Audirvana.Audirvana-4118-9684-d80dbb7827cd_1.2.0.0_x64__fec4hfhj3emgj\Audirvana\Audirvana.exe
Report Id: 6a3cd11d-748c-4625-9d82-9b915ceb0026
Faulting package full name: Audirvana.Audirvana-4118-9684-d80dbb7827cd_1.2.0.0_x64__fec4hfhj3emgj
Faulting package-relative application ID: App
Hang type: Cross-thread
I am also unable to login to my Audirvana account. The I try I get a page that displays the logo but thats it. Consequently I can’t manage my account or subscribe. Any ideas?
There are other similar posts here. Try another browser (Firefox) or delete your browser cache. It helped me.
I can replicate this but only when upscaling by more than 2x. I had forgotten about it as I don’t tend to convert more than 2x. Also cuts off the end of the track slightly in that situation.
Hello,
I upgraded my 3.5 version to AS Studio 2 days ago (directly with version 1.2), so a little feedback:
No big issues here (still running MacOs Catalina and I won’t upgrade due to “old” hardware), except the display refresh that is slower than 3.5 was. I’m using local files and Qobuz, and a iFi USB DAC (not upsampling, keeping the default bitrate of my files and feeding my dac).
The audio analysis of my local files is still running, but the “check audio profile” is a nice addition!
I do not like the floating playlists, but I managed to drag them on the lower left of the screen. And to stop with a lock icon, I think it is confusing.
One thing that I need to check: with 3.5 I had to downsample my 5.1 files to 48KHz to get them to play without artifacts via HDMI to my AC receiver. But I think it’s an hardware issue on my mac (I have to use a thunderbolt to hdmi adapter).
And a nice thing that the SQLite database format is still the same, I can still use a SQL Query to scrobble my plays to last.fm, but I am hoping for native last.fm support in the future!
1 Like
Thanks. Deleted browser cache and that did it.
Hi!
I, too have found out that the abaility to filter out MQA files is no longer available in Audirvana Studio.
That’s a pity if someone has lots of MQA files in the library.
So, Im just checking Audirvana Studio in comparison to its predecessor 3.5.
Up to now I’m really not sure if the transition from 3.5 (“lifetime license”) to the Studio subscription model is really worth the price…
Hello,
Firstly my configuration is as follows: Macbook Pro 13 / M1 / last Big Sur update performed. UPnP use.
After waiting 26 hours for the analysis (w/o metadata) to complete, I clicked on “Artists” under local. After about 10 minutes with the spinning wheel of fate, the artists finally came up. Then, I tried to scroll down a page, and the spinning wheel was back. After another ten minutes, I gave up. I don’t have a huge local library (about 4000 albums).
I was really looking forward to Studio and in the current state I am not very enthusiastic to take the final step. At the office I still currently use 3.5 and am not experiencing this problem. I actually think Audirvana 3.5 at least 3.5 is usable.
A second problem which so far does not seem to have been listed: With 3.5, you click on the illustration located at the bottom left of the MacBook screen and it appears enlarged. I can’t find this with AS and it’s unfortunate.
Finally, the UPnP implementation remains the weak point and there is not a week without a bug.
Nothing to say about SQ. I find it improved compared to 3.5.
I hope these issues can be worked out. I will regret not upgrading to AS, but this version really does not seem up to date and that saddens me.
3 Likes
Let me make it easy for everyone:.
If AS performed to the levels that are represented in the program, that simply worked, that would satisfy the vast majority of users. I might be wrong, but I’d see no need to be on these forums.
Lastly, another number: 764 posts on AS Feedback. The vast majority of them concerning problems and issues with the program. These go back 15 days. How many responses from Damien or Audirvana? I think there’s been a couple and these were the first day or two. I’m not going through 764 posts to get the accurate number. What is Audirvana telling its customers with this silence? We do not value you is the answer. A customer focused company listens very closely to its customers. They’re the lifeblood of the business. They’ll be your best sales people if they’re happy.
I judge by actions, not words.
2 Likes
Fixing a program that had no business being released? How many minutes would it take to write an apology and tell your customers what you’re doing to fix it. Basically to act like a professional and accept responsibility for what you did.
I think that could be done in great detail in less than 10 minutes.
7 Likes
Where are they?
I don’t see many of these 99% happy customers on the forum.
1 Like
We are the 1%, apparently.
1 Like
I really hope for Audirvana that you are right.
However, if you are right, very few of them were also present on Facebook at the presentation.
1 Like