For music playback any M series will do, in retrospect the upgrade of my M2 to M3 was solely to get the upgrade to 128 GB ram as the M2 Max MacBook Pro maxed out at 96 GB. My work simulations are ram hungry.
Any M series processor will handle Audirvana processing demands. I would only say the important item is ram, minimum ram in my opinion is 16gb if you are upsampling. For those using their Mac for work whilst playing music I would get the 24GB or 32 GB ram options depending on the model, as a minimum, to ensure a smooth experience.
Internal or external SSD is less important but with prices Apple charges for SSD upgrades I understand totally why people use the external option!!
This temperature problem is also happening on iPhone 15.
The other day I took some photos with the iPhone 15 Pro and it caught my attention how hot the phone got. There were no videos, just photos.
For normal use the temperature is ok, however if you use photos and videos a lot it gets quite hot.
It seems that this new line of processors, both for computers and cell phones, is faster, but Apple will have to correct the heating problem.
The M2, M3 platform memory bus bandwidth may handle the file transfer demands of DSD and up-sampling PCM to DSDxxx, and system output bus I/O buffering, etc, with little or no concern for the ripple effects of gate operations… I think in the case of the ‘M’ platform designs and folks using the System drive to store their music library files, the focus will be on the available Virtual Memory available in concert with available RAM.
After about 10 days playing with all kinds of music with the Neo Stream upsampled to dsd512 in Audirvana Studio the following conclusions:
The above suggested audio buffer size of 2MB in the Ifi app is sometimes too small: the Neo Stream occasionally lost contact. Resulting in severe stuttering and stopping altogether. I settled on 8 Mb, without any issues up to now.
Also the Ifi app sometimes without warning reverses to Mixer Type: Software. Not during play but the next day or whenever you start listening after a while. As a consequence there is silence and you have to reset the mixer type to None.
The audio quality of the Neo Stream on DSD512 is unexpectedly good though for a device of nearly €1300.
Heh, iFi I suppose likes leaving unexpected surprises for their users. Whenever I need to turn my iFi NEO iDSD off and back on (thank goodness not often) it resets the output to Fixed rather than Variable, meaning the attenuator setting doesn’t work and volume comes on full blast. It also came that way out of the box when I first turned it on, which almost gave me atrial fibrillation until I figured it out.
@Jud
I always turn mine off when I’m done using it.
This problem never happened to me.
I always leave the display off to avoid a screen problem, but whatever key or control I use, the screen lights up for a few seconds.
The volume control button is not very precise, using the remote control it works very well.
I hope the problem never does happen to you, it’s pretty unpleasant!
I have my display set as yours, to turn on only while I’m actually adjusting something.
I use the remote rather than the volume knob, again the same as you are doing. But when the output setting (separate from the volume control and indicator) switches to Fixed rather than Variable, neither the knob nor the remote will reduce the volume below full blast, though the numbers on the volume indicator change just like they usually do. Not great UI or software design IMO, though it’s nice to know the problem is apparently limited only to certain users.
I’m guessing that’s it. I use only the NEO for controlling volume, running it directly to the amp, so my setting has to be on Variable to get any attenuation.
Using software volume control on DSDxxx works against the rationale for native DSD streaming because the DSDxxx signal is decimated to DXD (352.8kHz) so to apply the volume change… subsequent of the level adjustment, the DXD signal is modulated again to the original DSDxxx sample-rate.
It’s a nice suggestion, but the amp has no volume control. It’s just an amp, not integrated.
I do have a Spectral pre-amp. But when I listened to it versus the NEO’s built-in analog volume control, the result subjectively wasn’t close - the NEO controlling the volume sounded far better to me.
