Needed Features / Top 10 Changes for 3.5 [Damien?]

Legacy versions MacOS
1

So… I’ve been using Audirvana for a number of years now, and I have to say, after using it since Beta… I am fairly impressed with 3.5
Well done Damien!

There are, however, some thoughts I have on 3.5, that in my opinion, would make it a lot more awesome.

At the time of this writing, here is my TOP 10 FIXES/FEATURES that would make Audirvana the greatest audio software on Earth!

  1. The “Current Playing Track” display:
    It is too small. If the title happens to be just a few words, it is “kind of” ok, but a much larger display (in main window and Mini player as well) is needed to make the display of the current track a lot more pleasing.

  2. (A second part to item #1) Grouping displayed at the front of the current track really takes away from the display. As if real estate for the current track listing was not already small enough, adding the grouping to the front of the song title really jumbles the works and makes for an awful visual experience (my opinion only here).

  3. The use of the Forward and Back buttons:
    This functionality needs to be a lot more useful. In the current setup, every time you search, once you click on something, that window is gone, and if you want to go back to the search results, you must type it in again and start over. If Audirvana had a way to remember where it is all the time, so that forward and back buttons could be a more true way to navigate where you’ve been and are going, the experience would be a lot cleaner.

  4. Source indicator:
    Something next to the current playing track to have an icon showing from which source you are playing would be most useful. For example, a folder icon for library, and then the Qobuz or Tidal logos somewhere down by the album information display (FLAC, 16/44.1, Qobuz) would be very helpful.

  5. Album View - Hover menu
    Every place you can see an album cover, it would be helpful to have the hover menu (that shows heart, play, three dots) so that adding to a playlist, or to the queue could be done anywhere. As it stands right now, only in the larger albums view can this be done. Once you actually click on an album and its larger icon appears in the top left, you can not do this… and with the smaller album icons in the bottom of the screen after an album is selected, you also do not have this function there. As mentioned before, the hover menu option any place you can see the album cover would be awesome.

  6. (Part 2 from item #5) A button to Shuffle album / playlist / search selection
    There should be a shuffle selection in the hover menu or affixed in the album view or playlist view… so when you click on a playlist, you can just “shuffle this list” - or select the three dots menu on an album and have “shuffle” as an option. Same with the results from a search, at least within your own library.

  7. Album list view - show quality info.
    Have an icon or a colored dot or the numbers themselves that shows whether the album you are looking at is mp3, flac, hi-res, or dsd.
    Maybe a blue dot for mp3, a purple one for flac, yellow for 96k, orange for 192k, and white for dsd. Or simply 320 - CD - 24/96 - 24/192 - DSD
    Something like that to help differentiate especially between similar releases in differing versions of resolution would be amazing.
    [This takes a page from the Roon book here (and if this offends for any reason, I do apologize - I am not saying “Make Audirvana like Roon” here for any reason… but this feature is very useful and would look fantastic in Audirvana)]

  8. DAC selector needs a simple refresh or “look for a new device again” button.
    If Audirvana is open and playing anything, and then you want plug in a DAC, you have to physically “STOP” the music before you plug in the new device, or close the program altogether and reopen it in order for Audirvana to recognize the new device. Again, no disrespect is intended here, but literally every other app I’ve used where you can select an external device (Tidal, Qobuz, Roon, Spotify for example) just recognize a new device as soon as the computer does, and it is available to switch to from the menu without having to stop the music or close down and reopen the program.

THE LAST 2 ITEMS ON MY TOP 10 ARE “Wish List” ITEMS AND NOT “NEEDED FIXES” - just would be awesome

  1. Home Networking:
    It would be amazing to use Audirvana to play music on your pc, and also access from and play on your phone or tablet. Basically anything that can see the Audirvana library over the network being able to play the music would be an incredible feature.

  2. Out of Network Access:
    Being able to remotely your Audirvana library from a remote device like a wifi connected phone or DAP would also be incredible. This would alleviate the need to have to travel a hard drive with you for portable listening or transferring “whatever music you can fit” onto your phone or sd card for mobile use.

Damien - You are awesome, your software is awesome. I use it every single day of my life.
I have tried ALL the others and Audirvana is still my home!

Please accept these as ideas/suggestions/wish list items only and not personal attacks or criticism.
I really appreciate you brother and all the hard work and passion you have put into this program which truly has changed the way I “do” music.

PLEASE BUMP AND COMMENT ON THIS POST IF YOU AGREE / DISAGREE / HAVE DIFFERENT IDEAS

2

Another wish:
After creating a new playlist, fill it with a map/folder or tracks that are on a HDD viewed from the Finder

3

Agree #4, #8. - Am just in the test period . .

  • What I am missing is where the album is (local/NAS/desktop - I have mupltiple iTunes folders, am unable top straighten iTunes out . . . it is so nasty . . and I started over again a few times in the years. There are several albums with just one track, or a few missing while those are in other albums with the same name + art cover. As I said, typically iTunes nastiness.). Could it be on the dropdown/followup that appears when hovering over an album?
  • And what I noted is that the playing stops once the MBP I use goes into hibernation. So, in the list of stopping Apple ‘services’ could you add ‘Disable Hibernate while playing’? I now have it set to ‘never hibernate’ but that sort of is conflicting with the other ‘wake on Lan’ setting that is there too (I mean, logically). :slight_smile:
    so far GREAT.
4

Damien (?) I found out that the file can be found at a certain point (a small ‘files’ pictogram. It works and gives the file location. I also found out the problem is because I had files in AAC (for iPod master) and others in AIFF (for home listening), so things are double up, my infortune I guess. So please delete the two replies of a newbe here, I think it is a bit inappropriate. Merci.

5

Hello @alkuiper, its not a problem, in fact you can also have the file path displayed in your library by just right click on the top of your library column to customize it and add “Audio file location”

6

Damien, merci beaucoup!

7

Hey Damien… long time since I made this post… thought I’d check in.

Curious…

Any chance we could ever see an implementation of 2 things?

  1. The “3 dots” menu on an album in every place you can see the album cover? Right now, you can only click that menu to play or add to queue, etc from certain locations. I think it would be great that if you ever see the album cover, the menu is there as an option.

  2. Can we have the ability to take anything from anywhere and just drag it to the queue at the bottom like we used to be able to in the side menu on version 2? It would be so great to just drag n drop items right on to the queue icon at the bottom, rather than having to use a contextual menu to do it.

Other things I would love to see…

A) Having to “stop” playback to change the output source. It would be nice if we could just be listening and when we need to change between maybe a bluetooth source, and internal speakers, to just click the menu, change it and keep going, rather than having to actually stop and kill the playback, change source, find where we were before and start back up again.

B) I still believe the “now playing” window in the bottom left is too small. In version 2 where this was displayed at the top, there was a lot more room for song title, artist etc. I’m not saying it has to be moved exactly, but the area to see what is playing is very small.

B) Part 2: Also, having the “grouping” displayed in front of the track title seems really out of place. Can this be taken out of the display? Most people don’t need this info in viewing the track as it plays, but rather use it for a sorting criteria to create folders/playlists an the like.

Still love Audirvana and use it every day as my only source for local files and Qobuz playback.
Keep up the good work, and please, DO chime in with some thoughts on these items.

Blessings from USA

Scot