Some tipps for you -- maybe :)

Audio Units and VST3 Plugins
#1

Using AU/VST in Audirvana is a great thing :slight_smile: Currently it is a bit…well…it is the beginning…but this will change for sure over time and it is the right way to go imo.

Maybe some tipps for you:
-If you get on Mac Apple Mainstage you get all the AU from Logic Pro. This is for beginners a great set! Mainstage is not expensive. Right now 32,99.- MainStage - Apple (DE)
-If you connect Audirvana´s output to an virtual audiocable (Mac, eg. Blackhole for free - https://github.com/ExistentialAudio/BlackHole) and take it as input for your DAW you can play with plug-ins too. You may even do so with Garageband (however limited to 44.1 with GB). Try Logic and change Project´s bitrate to desired. Using a DAW you have a fixed Bitrate! So, maybe you play around with plugins and when you have a set you like move it back to Audirvana itself. Saves RAM too and you have variable bitrates back :slight_smile: If you want to use VST, VST3 on Mac with Audirvana take e.g. Ableton or BitWig or whatever…Anyway key is the virtual Audio cabel. But keep a close eye on the bitrate…(For the criminals among us, once you are in the DAW you can record your streams…lol…)
(-Most DAWs are limited to 192 today. Which is more than sufficient imo. However Steinberg Wavelab can do 384…For this DAW integration here, you may pick the least expensive editions, as you use just one track - the Audirvana stream, however keep an eye on the supported bitrates and the plug-in integration features… e.g. Vergleiche die Versionen von WaveLab | Steinberg +++ However Blackhole virtual cable can only go up to 192. Did not look for other “cables”…)
(-Are you still able to use the remote control on you iphone? Sure, no change here :slight_smile: )
(-Here another thought on this please. If you go the routing way to a DAW, the plug-ins are applied >>after eg. upsampling with Audirvana. I would say, this is better to do the plugins after and not before like in Audirvana itself. But I am not sure about this. One for sure, if you apply “after” you need more CPU and RAM as the stream is much larger of course…On the other hand you provide to the plugin the “highest” quality…hm…maybe in a future release Audirvand will provide two slots for inserting plug-ins…one before upsampling and one afterwards…lol…also, i would like to save sets of plugins with their presets… and … and …and…saving the equalizer settings per track…like apple music can do it for local files…lol…)
Hope interesting for you, have fun!

#2

I think v3.5 and earlier did the DSP before the upsampling. The disadvantage of this is that when you upsample to DSD, DSP is no longer possible.

#3

ah, ok. well, myself does not use dsd anymore. although may try latest hqplayer again…will see…thank you :slight_smile:

#4

(if you are a NI Maschine Fan? Maschine can play back in 384 too :slight_smile: But not export…)

#5

Maybe I’m not following you here…
What do you believe to be the advantage of what you are proposing…?

I use both Logic Pro X and MainStage… the maximum sample-rate for a project is 192kHz… You are adding complication to the playback signal that is superfluous… All of the Apple Inc. Audio Unit plugins and any third-party plug-ins are available in the Audirvana Studio plug-in architecture (In Audirvana Studio there are four (4) plug-in slots that are inserted before up-conversion DSP)… You can choose your DAC as the preferred output device, so if you have a superior DAC to your multi-input/output AD/DA interface used for tracking, it can be employed…

If you are looking for real-time DSP changes in the plug-in architecture of Audirvana Studio, there exists the ‘real-time’ control option for plug-in changes, now… so you can choose presets from your library of presets for that plug-in.

Fundamentally, what you are proposing will diminish the performance of the high-quality audiophile playback engine that is Audirvana Studio.

#6

Well, glad that you comment and ask :blush:

Some advantages:
-right now it is not very comfortable to work with Audirvana (and realtime not stable enough) to come to a set of Plug-Ins and corresponding presets if you compare to the way you can do it in a DAW. A DAW allows you exchange of Plug-Ins on the fly during playback, etc….So, you are much faster to come up with something fitting (that you may at the end bring back to Audirvana)
-a DAW allows you to save different combinations of plug-ins and presets. This makes sense when you use different environments, e.g. different DACs, headphones, speakers, etc…you can save a file for your specific environment. Also you can save files for the different music you listen to. Right now, Audirvana seems even not stable for saving presets for a single plugin…Changing a set of plug-ins….we better do not talk about….still at the beginning sure…
-myself is pretty happy with the way Audirvana handles the Qobuz streams and I like SoX and r8brain. Well those are >before the interface to the DAC. This means, if you route the output from Audirvana virtually to a DAW you are not missing these features. I am not using DSD anymore as I am happy with HD PCM. But everyone as one likes and depending on the given hardware in use. The DSD discussion itself is another topic….
-I am def. not unhappy with Logic and Ableton how they process internally (64 bit) and how they communicate to my DACs…But maybe I am missing a point here…” proposing will diminish the performance of the high-quality audiophile“? To my ears it sounds fine in Logic and Ableton when routing from Audirvana… If you are unhappy with Apple Core Driver you can change that at your DAW to whatever you are fine with…
-Ableton lets you use VST(3) too on Mac…Not only AUs
-Plug-Ins via routing are applied >after upsampling and not before…E.g. Sonarworks Reference has to sit at the end of the chain…Others too…
-you are able to record in DAWs (respecting copyright stuff ofcourse)
-virtual audio cables work with everything, not only Audirvana
-…guess a lot more…

Anyway, I hope that Audirvana will extend this functionality more and more. JRiver has it since years and I was pretty happy with that before moving to Mac…

But please let me ask, what disadvantages do you see? “…will diminish the performance of the high-quality audiophile…” The only disadvantage I see is the fixed bitrate in the DAW…But what more? Thank you again! :blush:

(PS The Truth About High-Resolution Audio: Facts, Fiction and Findings - Audiophile Review :nerd_face: )

#7

I’m not trying to be argumentative in my response here…

Audirvana Studio is not a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) in the sense of Logic Pro X or MainStage, etc, etc, being a DAW… It is designed to be a high-quality digital-audio engine/platform for audiophile playback of master-quality recordings…

If one desires the functionality of a audio-production/recording platform DAW, there are many to choose from, and they all have different attributes and sonic signatures, based on the fundamental architecture of the software and the hardware platform and amalgamation of playback components upon which they run and the interconnections upon which the digital signal(s) flow, and functional need/use scenario of the end-user…

Having to divide the CPU power between two digital audio playback engines simultaneously operating in real-time, will most certainly precipitate system level distortions/jitter/phase anomalies that are to the detriment of both systems…

My feeling is, this is heading into a debate surrounding sound-quality of any given recording as auditioned on ones specific system of amalgamated playback components, and the subjective perceptions of the sound quality of any given audition of a master recording, as perceived by ones personal biases and subjective auditory neurology… If one cannot accept the sound of any given recording being the “sound” that has been imbued in it, by the mastering engineer, the producer, recording engineer and artist, perhaps then it becomes something intrinsically tied to some other cognitive bias…

Perhaps one is dealing with a hearing anomaly that one must compensate for and/or one is applying room+speaker acoustical correction/compensation and/or making headphone listening compensation EQ… Either way, there exists little need for dynamic EQ changes in order to make these compensations, as these analog things are ‘constants’ in the playback scenario… Otherwise much of which you present as being beneficial, is superfluous in the context of audiophile auditioning of master-quality recordings as reproduced via Audirvana Studio.

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#8

Very well stated @Agoldnear , you give the viewpoint of the purist “Audiophile” quite well. I think @MgP2804 is having a blast doing his own sort of producing and re-engineering to suit his current mood and equipment. More power to him……let your freak flag fly!

Certainly he can listen in both modes, for sure less is more in many cases and K.I.S.S. Is a good thing generally. Ketchup on a perfectly grilled ribeye?

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#9

I agree.… whatever floats the creative boat… The fundamental design tangents are recognizably different in intention/dogma.

#10

Hey @MgP2804, What is your favorite genre? Do you have a preference of music types you apply your changes to?

I use EQ sparingly with headphones to compensate for some hearing loss in left ear but otherwise run Audirvāna flat thru DAC and NAD analog amp to KEF LS50. What speakers do you use in your system?

#11

hihi, my Macbook can handle a bit more like this audio processing. the cpu keeps pretty low in percentage, ram too. i fear this argumentation is a bit for devices from the past? even my Android and my iPhone are pretty cool meanwhile in playback hires :wink:

by your so called “audiophile” argumentation, you seem completely to ignore that any of your devices has its own personal sound signature. my hd800 listens totally different to my akg 201, my yamaha reference monitors listen totally different to eg my Sonos to my Teufels to…my DAC have each their own unique sound and stage. so the perfect playback like intended? what is that? your argumentation would lead to ignoring totally the sense of any equalizer, etc…you lead to argue that crossfade and Dirac or Sonarwork are nonsense…Impulse Response… All nonsense… Audiophile??? lol +++ Well listening to music is about enjoying and having fun. Atleast to me. And yes, one day I like to listen to an album in that way another day in that way. Depending on my mood, etc…You will never ever be able to play it back at home as the artist, mastering engineer or whatever did hear it. Just because you use totally different playback devices. Isn´t that logic for you? “Audiophile” way of listening. Sorry…Come on…Some serious aruments please… Thank you anyway for your thoughts…Having fun :rofl:

PS Yes, as you noticed, the older you get, the more worse you can hear the high frequencies…So you >mandatory need to equalize starting from a certain age…Again “audiophile”???

#12

Sorry my argumentation dispenser battery is dead, You do your thing Mr. it’s all good, maybe you can be the next Steven Wilson. Keep up the good work and I look forward to listening to some of your product soon. Let us know when and where we can sample please.

Best of luck with it

#13

:rofl: having fun with both of you. anyway. let´s enjoy the music. this is, what it is about :hugs:

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#14

My platform:

MacBook Pro (2016)
2.7 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7, 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3
macOS 12.1
Audirvana Studio 1.10.2

You are not telling me anything that I do not already understand very, very well… No reason to delve into the realm of subjective, semantical connotations and subjective observation.

#16

Sure. Sorry about that. But at the age of 54 now, I need to push high frequencies…Everyone can take simple tests to check his frequency spectrum and how it does change when you get older :frowning:

#17

https://newt.phys.unsw.edu.au/jw/hearing.html

#18

yes…there you can see it…“audiophiles” :laughing:

#19

You may find this thread interesting:

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#20

Yes, and so much more to do with VST and AUs… Sure equalizing is one of the major things…Anyway do not forget about the sound signatures of your stuff. There are reasons for products like this or simmiliar: SoundID Reference - Speaker & Headphone Calibration. +++ Also you might have fun to experiment with their free SoundID™ - Audio Personalization App ++ That one takes a bit, but you get an individual file for your personal “hearing” to use at your Mac or PC…It s free to test and use :blush: +++ Anyway, myself did decide meanwhile just to equalize and use some cool effects to have fun…There is no “perfect” playback imo…

#21

You are speaking to a seasoned audiophile sound engineer, producer…
Listen to this and tell me if I don’t understand the context of your posts:

71liwO2LBAL.SS500

Another example of a recording that benefits greatly from modulation to DSD128… The original recoding was done on one of the very first Pro Tools 8-track systems, using Focusrite ISA series pre’s (20 bit ADC) and Focusrite “RED” analog compressors and EQ’s… Subsequently mastered to 15 ips AMPEX tape and then digitized for the CD master… The recording lost a lot of life in the digital transfer to the 16/44.14kHz digital master and subsequent CD release… The modulation to DSD128 brings it back to it’s full glory, short of having the 2-track tape archived to DSDxxx as the reference digital master…
It’s available as an Apple Lossless file… probably can’t find the CD to rip… I audition from an original CD rip…

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