Audirvana Studio vs Audirvana sound quality

I personally disagree with your impression, but that’s fine.

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Audirvana can not integrate HQPlayer.
The guys from Roon are very smart. They know that their player does not sound best, so they created a feature to integrate HQPlayer to it. (They did the same with Squeezelite, that is another great player).

But unfortunately, in this integration, Roon decodes the tracks, while HQPlayer processes and renders them.
This creates a drop in sound quality versus a playback by HQPlayer alone.

Which one you prefer?

So what about HQPlayer and Qobuz integration?

Matt

HQPlayer has no integration of streaming services.
It’s only a player for a great playback of local tracks.
It can, though, be used for Qobuz in its integration with Roon. But as I told you, this integration creates a drop of the sound quality, since Roon decodes the tracks. The sound is not as good as a playback by HQPlayer alone.

As Qobuz user I am happy with 3.5, no desire to change anything :slight_smile: :smiley:

Matt

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Audirvana players may be the best compromise for people who stream.
Hopefully the library management of AS will be improved soon. I’m waiting for it to subscribe.

Hi Doudou. :slightly_smiling_face:

I find myself listening most often to Audirvana. I have owned both Audirvana and HQPlayer for years and think both are excellent. I have no quarrel with anyone whose preference differs from mine.

I agree with you that Audirvana players are very good.
I’m an Audirvana user since 2014, and I’ll continue to use them for the years to come.

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I really don’t believe this can be true. What’s “memory handling” in this context?

For a discussion of how memory handling affects ground plane noise, see this discussion between John Swenson (designer of power networks for chips for AT&T and successors for decades) and Gordon Rankin (originator of the Streamlength protocol that first popularized the async USB input your DAC probably uses):

https://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/t.mpl?f=pcaudio&m=125989

A “bit-perfect” software audio-engine is subject to the hardware platform system-level gremlins… like power-supply noise that precipitates clocking related gate interrupts, invoking error-correction requests, etc, subsequently precipitating jitter related phase anomalies in contextual harmonic, contextual dynamic and contextual spatial relationships… If the data flow is never distorted by the hardware system it flows through as a “perfect” transmission, end-to-end, you may then say what one perceives is “bit-perfect” or as close to perfect, this playback may be, given all of the potentials that must be overcome in the transmission and playback of the bits… The “energy distribution” of the final auditioned signal will be intrinsically tied to the integrity of the data flow. As this “bit-energy” or “bit-density” flows through the hardware, it will have influence on hardware responses and the inherent capabilities of the components, sometimes taxing the power-structure at the component level, and triggering data interpretation anomalies, that precipitate audible influences on the final output signal. So… it is entirely possible for changes in “data energy distribution” to be audible in the subjective listening experience even if the audio-engine is “bit-perfect”.

Do you know a setup to use HQPlayer without Oversampling?
Thanks

First, I want to say that HQPlayer is not a replacement for Audirvana.
Both players can live side by side, for those who stream, of course, but also for people who play their own tracks.
HQPlayer does not support some formats (ALAC, ISO SATA). And has a limited library management.

Regarding your question, yes, it is possible to set HQPlayer to play without upsampling.
If you want to try it, and needs help with the settings, feel free to PM me. I’ll help you with that.

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This forum is purposed for the dissemination of information and help responses for both users and potential users of Audirvana Studio… The injection of subjective opinions regarding any other player(s), is a “straw-man” that is being posed by those that have some vested interest in the promotion of other products and does not serve Audirvana Studio users or potential users… We are all best served here, in this forum, by focusing on Audirvana Studio and it’s potentials today and in the future… Subjective player comparisons have some value, however, these subjective experiences should only be framed as an “opinion” not as fact, truth or a state of universal certainty… Opinions regarding sound-quality of any given player, are products of subjective biases, beholding to a myriad of potential influences…

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Many fancy words.
But the truth is that we are here expressing our opinions in the hope of getting Audirvāna better.
And if some players sound better that’s fine.

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Yes, these users are obviously shareholders of competing brands. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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The problems lay in the subjectiveness of the assertion: “…sound better”… Why does it sound better? … How does a unique subject objectively quantify this perception, outside of one’s subjective experience of auditioning any given set of recordings, on one’s unique amalgamation of playback components, in one’s unique electro-mechanical and acoustical environment(s) and one’s unique auditory neurology?

It is a given… However, primarily relevant only to those users in their unique environment and their subjective experiences comparing different audio-engines, however, still fraught with biases beholding to a myriad of subjective interpretations and influences… :wink: We can certainly bring insights to the forum based on our subjective interpretations, but these are only subjective interpretations based on unique sets of electro-mechanical and acoustical playback system environments and unique auditory neurologies… Never to be framed as fact, truth or of universal certainty, outside of one’s unique “playback-world” experiences. The discussion of player functionality is tangental to the core subject of “sound-quality” and is a “straw man” in this context…

You really enjoy hearing yourself talk, don’t you?

It sounds like you are a moderator here on this forum.
So what about comparisons between AS and 3.5?

Matt

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