I’m glad that you read the Sean Olive blog post… Just happens that I have been seated center-chair on Dr. Toole’s shuffler, by Dr. Toole himself at Harman/JBL after scoring 100% on his very difficult listening qualifier test, much to his amazement… We spent the afternoon discussing audio design and interpretive biases.
There is no doubt that we are bound by our own playback system design and environment… so many variables and bias potentials that are non-linear… There are better ways to describe subjective interpretations that first must be premised on the reality that our observations are intrinsically tied to those variables and biases. The problem with posting subjective assertions about sound-quality, is that we have no common system reference from which to assess the assertions.
Yes, though that doesn’t mean Audirvana on Mac is permitted to interact with the kernel.
I express no opinion on sound with Windows vs. Mac.
I simply want to mention that Audirvana used to have Direct Mode on Mac. Direct Mode was a driver Damien wrote for Mac that interacted directly with the kernel. It substituted for at least part of Core Audio’s function. However, a few years ago Apple limited interaction with the kernel only to authorized drivers, and Audirvana was not one of those authorized. So these days, Audirvana runs on top of Core Audio.
The reality needs to be quantifiably proven that in my case, Audirvāna Studio running macOS 15.3.2 on Apple silicon. like my M2 Max Mac Studio with 64GB of RAM and 400GB/s memory bandwidth does not produce bit-perfect signal output… Where I have given this computer/software synergy every opportunity to do so, through my system tweaks, like a superior isolated and filtered power/ground distribution ‘island’ where all audio-centric components reside, which includes Add Power harmonic resonance power filtering, USB 3.0 transmission protocol, 99% purity silver contact enhancement on all contacts including power, excellent interconnects and power cables, including specifically chosen ferrite RF/EMF suppression/filtering integration, Isolated local USB 3.0 SSD library drive, where the computer is galvanically isolated from my router and my router galvanically isolated from my modem, extensive PCIe power filtering in my Thunderbolt 3/4 PCIe chassis that hosts my USB 3.0 PCIe controller card. And where my DAC is galvanically isolated and receives signals from iGalvanic 3.0 via a 4" Up-Tone USB 2.0 fully shielded printed circuit board ‘cable’.
I have worked for years, applying both technical and subjective insights into my playback system… I am throughly confident that Damien’s design architecture on Apple Silicon does exactly as he claims it does, in producing the highest order of digital-audio signal integrity…
The real issue is how this is done on any given platform hosting Audirvāna… How much is subjective bias, filtered by expectations or assumptions and presumptions about the effectiveness of the player implementation in the OS synergy with the host platform hardware interfaces, etc, including system level noise factors, etc, etc, that may produce non-linearities like accumulated jitter, and the audibility of presumptive ramifications in playback, in concert with the many subjective and cognitive bias potentials to skew the reality of any given playback perception experience.
Antoine gave me the link to the special version of Audirvana.
Right now I am using the eq and I love it.
Do you use it? If yes, can you post your settings? Why did you choose them? For instruments? For vocals? For a special kind of sound, speakers, headphones, room? I’d love to read such posts!
I use the Audirvana studio EQ all the time since January and love it too.
My main focus was to compensate tonal differences between my headphones. My Beyerdynamic Amiron is rather neutral, but lacks a bit of treble, whereas my Hifiman HE1000 SE lacks a bit of bass and I find the treble a bit too present. I have another EQ setting for my Q acoustics bookshelf speakers.
It is essential that Audirvana has provided the possibility to save different EQ profiles, because it would be almost impossible to reprogram a different EQ at every change of headphones / speakers.
I do not change EQ settings depending to the type of music I listen too, since my idea of EQ settings is to compensate when needed to get as neutral a rendition as possible. I listen mostly to classical and jazz music.
Now, the big question is how to do that ? I started from frequency response curves found on the Internet and from these, I did my own (subjective) adjustments. 6 band EQ seems quite enough for me that (manual) process.
@al1h Humbling isn’t it…
Our hearing is never flat… our hearing is beholding to a neurophysiological phenomena quantified in the Equal Loudness Contour:
More insights
Yes… do you restrict your hearing of the natural world around you?
That depends on your appreciation of resolution and contextual harmonic, dynamic and spatiality, which ties into your next question…
Yes, by increasing resolution (up-sampling) and moving the Nyquist Frequency cutoff to higher sample-rates to effectively move aliasing out the range of human-hearing… Also the higher resolution presents a more refined signal waveform to the D/A circuitry of your DAC. Nothing is lost or gained that was captured in the fundamental encoding, no new contextual harmonic, dynamic and spatiality is created in the up-sampling process, only a bunch of zeros in the digital-audio signal.
Why not? Prior experiental reference is valid… However, you may not… Impressions can be misleading… but if your experience brings you satisfaction and appreciation, this is all that matters.
The reality is that hearing-loss sneaks up on us… As an audiophile, routine maintenance (testing) helps keep us honest… Unless “… sounds good…” is a rationalization of life, and sound-quality is inconsequential in the appreciation of music… However there will come a point of diminishing returns… At that point, what will matter?
