If you have a desktop setup that is only for local file/PCM playback, then AS works relatively well (besides the “analysis” issues). Hell, 3.5 is perfect for this scenario.
But if you have large DSD files, use Qobuz streaming, utilize UPNP, or a plethora of other variables that have been brought up in this forum, you are bound to run into problems…ones that existed long before AS launched and have gone unresolved for years in some cases.
Qobuz works fine for me in both applications as well. But you don’t have to look very hard in this forum to find other users running into issues.
Audirvana does a lot of things right. But some of the things it gets wrong aren’t issues for any other playback software I’ve used, regardless whether they are free or $265.
What keeps me from abandoning 3.5 is the ability to integrate Qobuz into my stereo via UPNP with the Allo USBridge, which the native Qobuz app will not do.
Speaking only for myself, AS has not fixed enough of the longstanding issues to justify a subscription, with the launch version/support/updates leaving too much unresolved. I will stick with 3.5 until Qobuz makes some irreconcilable change on their end which renders 3.5 unusable for streaming.
I sometimes use the mconnect iOS app to play Qobuz to my DLNA streamers. As well as local FLAC and DFS music.
Mconnect does a decent job of presenting the Qobuz playlists and favorites. Also has no problems streaming them to DLNA including gapless.
I have had almost no problems with AS itself. I only play locally stored music, though. My main problem was that I couldn’t get the $50/year offer. That problem may have solved itself because I decided to subscribe monthly for now. I may try again to get the $50 offer sometime in June. But I like the sound quality in AS enough that I will stick with it.
Go read feedback. Out of those 764 posts, I’m guessing 98% are reporting problems. My problem was I could not download the program. The other things I don’t like are too small fonts, rough graphics blurry pictures. It doesn’t look like a finished program.
Has anybody heard from @Antoine or Audirvana via their email support in the last 10 days? Nobody is expecting daily updates but it’d be nice to get a general feel for where this whole launch is sitting right now. Is the plan still to cut off the trial after 1 month? Any progress on remote? I’ve always been impressed with Audirvana interaction for the previous model, curteous, prompt and very helpful. Since the launch of AS all interaction from them has been dreadful, and that is being kind. I take no pleasure from saying this.
Actually, you can. Use the playlist editor to create a playlist, then use the curved arrow to save it under My Music.
I’ve been playing around with Studio for the last couple of days and my initial impression is that there’s a lot to like about it, but a lot of features that could use improvement. Perhaps the most annoying thing to me is all the language translation errors. Multiple people have already commented about the Japanese mis-translations, but there are problems even with the English translations. With several million people living in and around Paris and thousands of international students attending university there, you’d think it would be simple to pay some students a few bucks to check over all the translation versions. In English, there are several words that are the same in singular and plural form, among them information, info and data. Thus ‘Infos’ and ‘Informations’ should be ‘Info’ and ‘Information’, and ‘Metadatas’ should be ‘Metadata’. Incorrect translations make the program feel like an early beta rather than a final release.
Secondly, the search function now combines results from all sources into a single list of albums and tracks. That avoids the need to search under each source separately, but because they’re all mixed together, it’s impossible to find the trees in the forest. If I have a local version of an album on my computer, I want to see it first. That should be obvious. I don’t want to listen to a streamed version from Qobuz when I have a clean download already on my machine. Even worse, I don’t want to end up purchasing it from Qobuz when I already have a better version downloaded from NativeDSD. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a way to sort the search results or to filter them.
A lot of people claim that Studio is either significantly better or significantly worse in terms of sound quality. I’ve done extensive comparisons and for the most part, I don’t find any significant differences in sound definition. I can pick out individual instruments with either version and the accuracy seems to be similar, both with my Byerdynamic T1s with the matching Impacto DAC and with my 9-speaker home theater setup, with a Yamaha video processor, Parasound Halo A23 amps and KEF LS-50s. The sound stage does seem wider with Studio than with v3.5, which is actually not a good thing when listening with headphones. I’ll be playing around with settings to see if this can be modified. Otherwise, I’m very happy with both versions.
I could care less about radio stations and podcasts, and I see no advantage to using Audirvana rather than Apples own Podcast and Music apps with lo-fi sources.
Finally, I hate subscriptions, but they do have their utility and far to many software companies effectively have a subscription model in that they release new versions every year and charge a hefty upgrade fee. I think that the subscription price of Studio is rather high - not as high as with Roon, which has a lot more features, but quite a bit higher than, say, VOX, with provides unlimited online storage for music and high-res playback apps for multiple platforms. On the other hand, Audirvana sounds better than anything else out there and it’s hard to argue about paying some $70 annually for an exceptional product, particularly when I’m already paying a small fortune to rent and buy music to play on it. Although both my Macs have Intel processors, the writing is on the wall in that regard. My next Mac will have an Apple Silicon chip and ultimately, v.3.5 won’t play at all on it. What I don’t appreciate is that Audirvana has released what effectively is a public beta and will charge for it when it’s clearly not ready for prime time.
I’m getting replies from them to my emails, but they are absolutely clueless. I don’t know if it’s a language barrier, but they don’t seem capable of understanding what I’m trying to tell them.
Problem is, there’s a maximum of 3 (which in itself makes no sense; why can’t I put there as many as I like?) and clicking the “x” next to them afterward doesn’t seem to remove them. Basically you put 3 playlists there and you’re stuck with them forever.
The ‘x’ button does not work indeed. If you want to delete a playlist, you must use the “update playlists” button in the menu bar, then in the navigator who pops, hover over the playlist and click on the trashcan button.
Not really sexy I give you that but at least you can get rid on unwanted playlists without having to wait a bugfix.
Was hoping to see some updates today. Either verbal or software would do at this point.
Well this sucks. Just sat down to listen to some tunes. Going to be brave and use AS instead of Roon. Hit the play icon and I get the famous first track loading error message. No matter what I try nothing works. Fire Roon up, hit play and the music plays. Why?
Totally agree with woodsdc1 - I like what I see but there’s too many flakey basic things (haven’t even explored many of the more advanced features yet). I’m on a trial, but unless the basics get sorted out I won’t be subscribing.
Major gripes are the loud click/pop between tracks (thought it was only in KS when listening to local files, but seems more widespread), AS crashes after about 10 minutes running, which I think is a problem while trying to analyze audio files with a large library, and some method of deciding what My Music should look like (content wise).
can we please get last.fm scrobbling?
…so 99% of customers don’t use the remote?!
I do use the remote. But until this one comes out I’ll be using a VNC remote. It is less practical, but it works until the remote is updated.
…I understand there are what amount to work-arounds but in my case this is not a route I want to take or feel that I should have to take.
I RDP into my headless music server and have been even throughout v3.5 because the remote never worked for me. I listed the following as a bug but it never got fixed: the problem was that the artists (tracks, etc) would stop scrolling after a random number of albums. And of course since there is no way to jump to a certain “letter”, let’s say M for Mozart I found the functionality severally lacking. (this was also requested by several people as a must have feature that was never implemented) Sigh…
Salut Yohmi, merci pour ton compte rendu très complet. Pour ma part, en temp qu’utilisateur Audirvana depuis la première version, j’avais complètement abandonné son utilisation au profit d’un serveur LMS (Logitech Media Server) et d’un serveur réseau.
Je redécouvre aujourd’hui Audirvana Studio sur un Mac mini M1, un dac ibasso DC03 un ampli casque Grado RA1 et un Casque Grado RS1i. L’écoute est vraiment plaisante et de très haut niveau et franchement je n’ai pas vraiment de choses à reprocher à part les améliorations de l’interface et du support UPNP dont tu parles.
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Hi Yohmi, thanks for your very complete report. For my part, as an Audirvana user since the first version, I had completely abandoned its use in favor of a LMS (Logitech Media Server) and a network server.
I rediscover today Audirvana Studio on a Mac mini M1, an ibasso DC03 dac, a Grado RA1 headphone amp and a Grado RS1i headset. The listening is really pleasant and of very high level and frankly I don’t have really things to reproach except the improvements of the interface and the UPNP support which you speak about.
