Audirvana Mac
Audirvana Plus, an audiophile music player for the Mac, has now been released for Windows.
A Powerful Mac Os Audio Player that Can Deal with Popular File Formats, Includes Support for Native Dsd Streaming, and Can Work with Audio Unit Plugins Sponsored Links: Audirvana is a user-friendly audio player that is capable to import your iTunes music library but can also scan specific folders and automatically integrate any new tracks. Today, I'm comparing to prominent audio players for Mac – VOX Music Player and Audirvana according to their functionality, compatibility, format support, interface and additional features. VOX Music Player vs. Audirvana Audirvana. The player looks just like iTunes. The main functions are usual: play music, create playlists. Audirvana is the creator of the high‐fidelity software player Audirvana Plus for the Mac OS X platform, aiming at the best possible sound quality, transforming the Mac computer into a very high-end HiFi audio source. Audirvana Plus brings the convenience of advanced library management, DSD / DXD, multichannel audio playback and many more.
Enjoy a 30 days free trial Download and try the full version of Audirvana for free. Download the Remote app for free as well from the App Store (iOS) and the Play Store (Android). Use our Streaming Service Partners trial versions or active subscriptions within Audirvana (TIDAL, Qobuz or HRA). Already a customer? There are many alternatives to Audirvana for Mac if you are looking to replace it. The most popular Mac alternative is foobar2000, which is free.If that doesn't suit you, our users have ranked 36 alternatives to Audirvana and 18 are available for Mac so hopefully you can find a suitable replacement.
Audirvana was developed in France by Damien Plisson, originally as an open source project (you can still get this here but it has not been updated since 2012). The description there still applies: “No equalizer, no trendy special effects, just the music”. Both Mac and Windows come with music players bundled with the operating system – in Apple’s case the mighty iTunes – but the issue which Audirvana addresses is that these players are about convenience and features as well as sound quality.
Created by Damien Plisson and acclaimed by users all around the world, AUDIRVANA has quickly established itself as the world leader in paid audio software for Mac owners by allowing music lovers who use macOs to replace Apple’s iTunes and take advantage of optimal sound quality, whether using HD online music services or managing locally stored files, including high resolution formats. Update the Audirvana 3.5 application on your Mac or PC and install Audirvana Remote on your iPhone or iPad - Connect your computer and your phone or tablet to the same wifi network. Select your computer from the Remote app, and enter the code displayed on the screen. Enjoy the Audirvana experience to the fullest without moving off your couch. Sound was unimpressive until I installed Fidelizer. At that moment I considered computer audio as viable option to my cd player. I was never able to get a stable system with jriver however. Plus the constant paid upgrades. I went out and bought a mac mini, installed audirvana and achieved better sound and system stability. Restart Mac, Restart Audirvana, Play a song, will ask to reinstall SysOpt. If You Got Ears, You Gotta Listen – Captain Beefheart MacMini, i5, 2.5GHz, SSD, 16Gb, 10.15.7 Audirvana Plus 3.5.44 Wyred DAC2 DSD Special Edition. Try Mac Audirvana Enjoy a 30 days free trial Download and try the full version of Audirvana for free. Download the Remote app for free as well from.
Another problem is that the sound system in a modern operating system is complex and needs to support every kind of application while from the user’s perspective it should “just work”; and this can mean compromises, such as resampling or normalizing the audio. This does not matter in most circumstances, but if you want the best possible sound and spend money on high-res downloads or streaming, for example, you want bit-perfect sound.
This perhaps is a good reason not to play music directly from a PC or Mac; but the counter-argument is that using your existing computer reduces the box-count (and expense) of streaming, and that the flexibility and processing power of desktop computer is handy too.
So what does Audirvana offer? The Windows version is still to some extent work in progress and not yet as full-featured as the Mac version; however the developers are promising to add the missing pieces later. However the product is already a capable player with the following key features: Download games for free for mac.
1. Wide range of supported formats including AIFF, WAVE, AAC, MP3, FLAC, Monkey Audio APE, WavPack, Apple Lossless, DSD (DSDIFF including DST compressed, DSF, and SACD ISO images).
DSD support works whether or not you have a DSD DAC. If you have a DSD DAC, you get full native DSD. If you do not, Audirvana will convert to hi-res PCM and it still sounds good. You can control how the DSD is converted in settings, such as the amount of gain to apply (without it, DSD files will sound quiet).
Here is a DSD file playing on a non-DSD DAC:
Audirvana Pricing
2. MQA unfolding whether or not you have an MQA DAC. The way this works is similar to DSD. If you have an MQA DAC, the decoding will take place in hardware. If you do not, Audirvana will process the MQA track in software. For example, I have a 16-bit, 44.1 kHz MQA-encoded FLAC that plays in Foobar 2000 as a 16/44 file, downloaded from here. In Audirvana though, the same file claims to be 24-bit/352.8 kHz track.
Audirvana Plus For Mac V3.5.10 Tnt
That resolution is not genuine; but what matters is that MQA decoding is taking place. If the file is played through an MQA-capable DAC like the Meridian Explorer 2, I get a green light indicating MQA decoding on the DAC. If I play the “original resolution” version, I get a blue light indicating “MQA Studio”. WASAPI and ASIO support. WASAPI is the native Windows standard which enables bit-perfect output and is aimed at professional audio engineers. ASIO is a standard with similar features developed by Steinberg.
3. A library manager which performs well with large numbers of tracks. I tried it with over 50,000 tracks and it was perfectly responsive. It uses the open source SQLITE database manager.
4. Hi-res streaming via Qobuz, HIRESAUDIO or Tidal. There is no support for the likes of Spotify or Apple Music; I guess these are not the target market because they use lossy compression.
Not available yet, but coming, is a remote app for iOS (iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch), audio effects via VST plugins, and kernel streaming output.
The Audirvana User Interface
Audirvana Discount
Audirvana is delivered as a download though it is a click-once application which means it updates semi-automatically, prompting you to update if an update is available. The user interface is, from the point of view of a Windows user, rather quirky. There is no menu or ribbon, but by clicking around you can find what you need. Some of the settings are accessed by clicking a gearwheel icon, others (such as the per-device options shown in the illustration above) by clicking an arrow to the right of the device name. There is also a compact view, obtained by clicking a symbol at top left, designed for playback once you have lined up the tracks you want.
The current version seems unreliable when it comes to showing cover art in the library. Sometimes cover art shows up in the mini view, but not the full view.
Searching the library is quick, but because the user interface is fairly blocky, you do not see many results on a page. An option just to show details in a list would be good (or perhaps it exists but I have not clicked in the right place yet).
I can forgive all this since despite a few annoyances the user interface is responsive, the search fast, and playback itself works well.
Audirvana Plus For Mac Pro
Audirvana Plus Mac
Sound quality
How much impact does the music player have on sound quality? This is difficult to answer definitively. On the one hand, the amount of distortion introduced by a sub-optimal player should be negligible compared to other sources of distortion. On the other hand, if you have gone to the trouble and expense of investing in hi-res downloads, streaming or DSD, it must be worth ensuring that every link in the chain does justice to those sources.
It is true that on Windows, with its enthusiastic technical audiophile community, most of what Audirvana does can be achieved with free players such as Foobar 2000 or VLC. There is also the excellent JRiver as an alternative paid-for player, though this lacks software MQA decoding (appreciating that not everyone likes or needs this).
That said, the uncomplicated user interface of Audirvana Plus is great for audio enthusiasts who would rather not spend too much time fiddling with settings or plugins. Support for the iOS remote app is an unfortunate missing piece at present, and Android users miss out too.
Audirvana Mac Mini
Audirvana License Key
The Windows version needs a bit more work then (I also encounted some unpleasant noises when trying to adjust the volume within the application), but it does enough right to justify its relatively modest cost, and the bugs will fixed. Head over to the Audirvana site for a free trial.