Audible difference in players? (Audirvana, JRiver, Roon, MusicBee, etc.)

[Veri]

The publisher himself admitted to sweetening the sound. Listening tests show that Audirvana sounds "better" than other bit-perfect players. This isn't proof enough for you?

I'm sorry if these facts shake the foundations of your orthodoxy. I'm happy that heresy is no longer punished by immolation.

Rather than "guessing" which frequency range is elevated, if you are so sure of this super obvious manipulation, it would be as I said, trivial to prove. No, "it sounds better" is not proof enough to me, why would anyone ever believe any one statement by any one person on the internet? This is audio science review forum, I don't really know what you're doing here.
Because yes, any one "bit-perfect" player won't play "bit-perfecter" than the other. If you waltz in and claim otherwise, prove it. It's up to you making the argument to substantiate things. Not just say words.

 

[Rottmannash]

Guys read the thread more attentively please before barking. Damien specifically answers a customer (in French, in which I'm fluent):



How much more clear does it have to be? The publisher himself is claiming that he's sweetening the signal.

As I mentioned, of course Audirvana is improving/sweetening the sound. Otherwise Audirvana would sound just like all the other (about half a dozen) bit-perfect players for OS X. I actually went to the trouble to compare them all before reaching this conclusion.

Why do you think Audirvana sounds better? Because it's more bit-perfect? Surely you realise that bit-perfect is an absolute. No bit-perfect player can sound better than another through the identical DAC unless that player is sweetening/treating the sound.

I can't find it out now, but @amirm has a test graph of stereo separation for one of the DACs he tested which shows a blurry line in the middle instead of a clean one. It surprised him in an otherwise perfect measurement performance. He mentions that he did the test with Audirvana playback. I'd suggest @amirm do some bit perfect playback tests between Audirvana and the applications I mentioned but Amir is a Windows lifer, considering his past. He could test Audirvana against foobar (which I also successfully tested on OS X for identical bit-perfect playback though the OS X foobar is a limited feature beta version).

Oh, and my opinion, Audirvana sweetening is successful for most music. Damien knows what his business as a coder and he's got a good ear. Just don't claim it's bit-perfect. Still, I'm astonished to find so many Audirvana users among men of science though. While a subjectivist* like me prefers bit-perfect! What a strange world.

My one serious criticism of the built-in sweetening in Audirvana: Plisson should allow users to turn off the Audirvana filters with a checkbox to allow real bit-perfect playback.

****

* really I'm not, I'm an agnostic here – both measurements and listening tests have their place the evaluation of audio equipment

I have to agree- if he's changing the signal he needs to allow for bit prefect playback. Wonder why he advertises bit perfect? I believe Amir uses Roon?

 

[Tks]

The publisher himself admitted to sweetening the sound. Listening tests show that Audirvana sounds "better" than other bit-perfect players. This isn't proof enough for you?

I'm sorry if these facts shake the foundations of your orthodoxy. I'm happy that heresy is no longer punished by immolation.

Can I read the paper with the tests performed? A link would be appreciated. I'd like to see how it was performed to make sure there aren't any appreciable invalidation potentials.

 

[Jimbob54]

The publisher himself admitted to sweetening the sound. Listening tests show that Audirvana sounds "better" than other bit-perfect players. This isn't proof enough for you?

I'm sorry if these facts shake the foundations of your orthodoxy. I'm happy that heresy is no longer punished by immolation.

Then the publisher is either playing both ends against the middle or you are misunderstanding some of his utterances. But this page is pretty clear...claiming bit perfect

Are there settings in there that may add some kind of optional dsp /sweetening? Dunno but.... https://audirvana.com/technology/

 

[Nango]

I see on various forums that different music players have different SQ. A hardware manufacturer told me the same thing just last week. And personally, I think I hear a benefit to Audirvana. And yet, bits are bits, right?

So, @amirm , please save us from this mystery: Do these players deliver different bits or clock speeds or jitter or "musical ether" to a DAC via USB? Does it matter if you have "good" DAC?

Must be something between the bits, even kinda vacuum ....and who or what (software) does convert them .... and to what? Strange.

 

[Veri]

Must be something between the bits, even kinda vacuum ....and who or what (software) does convert them .... and to what? Strange.

Like... quantum bitperfect entanglement ?

 

[Alec Kinnear]

Then the publisher is either playing both ends against the middle or you are misunderstanding some of his utterances. But this page is pretty clear...claiming bit perfect

The support/sales ticket is even more clear. Audirvana is sweetening the sound. I.e. Audirvana takes a bit perfect sound and then adds its "special sauce". Indeed, Damien Plisson is playing both ends against the middle here. Or having his cake and eating it too. Personally, I have no issue with intelligent sweetening, but the acolytes of ASR and Amir should.

Even I would rather have control over my own sweetening via AU plugins than have blanket sweetening imposed across all playback.

Those of you asking me to test this: I have. I already owned two bit-perfect players and bought another two bit perfect and installed another open source bit perfect player to test against Audirvana. Audirvana sounded "better" but it was the only one of five or six players to sound different. All testing on OS X 10.13 and OS X 10.14. Measuring the difference: the difference is subtle enough the only way to measure it besides with one's ears would be to pipe the output back into a high quality input interface and diff the files. Trying to measure the difference with REW and a UMIK-1 via speakers would lead to inconclusive results. The difference between Audirvana and bit perfect is clearly audible – which is exactly why those who prefer Audirvana, buy it at €100 a pop. Otherwise @amirm and others on Windows would just run foobar, which is free, bit perfect and awesome. OS X is more complicated with Swinsian, Colibri, Bitperfect, Fidelia, Decibel all offering a slightly different feature set (some offer great playlists, others offer AU plugin integration, others very granular control over the DAC).

I do not own Audirvana, my trial has expired and have no plans to buy Audirvana right now. Perhaps some of the "scientists" here who do own Audirvana could get up off the couch and run some tests themselves. Surely that would be an improvement over spending your time trying to drown witches ("If she floats she's a witch, we must burn her, if she drowns, perhaps she wasn't a witch after all.")?

 

[Alec Kinnear]

Can I read the paper with the tests performed? A link would be appreciated. I'd like to see how it was performed to make sure there aren't any appreciable invalidation potentials.

You have had the publisher's direct reply to support shown to you several times. I've explained my own testing process, which involved back to back playback of HD tracks with Audirvana and several other bit perfect players on OS X 10.14. Are you just trying to increase your exceptionally high post count? If you are an Audirvana owner, I suggest you do a side by side test yourself. Which player do you prefer in playback?

If it's Audirvana and both players are bit perfect, it can only be because Audirvana is sweetening the sound. I've outlined what I believe Plisson is doing: slight increase in the 8 kHz region for presence and some additional advanced stereo processing. I've got a whole host of advanced audio plugins here from Izotope and others which do similar things. I'm able to create similar effects with these plugins. As Plisson is directly modifying the sound (rather than via a heavy plugin) and only very modestly, the Audirvana processing/sweetening uses much less CPU and doesn't generate any artefacts which is is very nice.

 

[Veri]

Those of you asking me to test this: I have. I already owned two bit-perfect players and bought another two bit perfect and installed another open source bit perfect player to test against Audirvana. Audirvana sounded "better" but it was the only one of five or six players to sound different. All testing on OS X 10.13 and OS X 10.14. Measuring the difference: the difference is subtle enough the only way to measure it besides with one's ears would be to pipe the output back into a high quality input interface and diff the files. Trying to measure the difference with REW and a UMIK-1 via speakers would lead to inconclusive results. The difference between Audirvana and bit perfect is clearly audible

Sounded "better", "clearly audible", bla-bla-bla. Still waiting for anything other than plausible explanations Alec. So far you've got nothing.

 

[Alec Kinnear]

Sounded "better", "clearly audible", bla-bla-bla. Still waiting for anything other than plausible explanations Alec. So far you've got nothing.

Side to side tests with five different bit perfect players which all sound identical on 96 kHz 24 bit tracks vs Audirvana which offers heightened stereo separation (stereo processing) and slightly more presence (a subtle boost in the mid-treble) is nothing?

Publisher's own claim to improve the sound is nothing?

Yes, there are other "things" in the signal processing besides oversampling algorithms in Audirvana's software which improve sound quality. Feel free to try yourself with the trial period.

Guys are you too indolent to open up Audirvana and compare its output with a couple of other bit perfect players through your own DAC and amplification system (speaker or headphone, the effect is strong enough to hear even via speakers)? Or are you so untrusting of your own ears that you cannot do a simple AB test to check sound even against distinctly audible difference?

I was looking for a player for HD files (in the end I decided I don't really care about playback of HD files, unless offered affordably streamed, trialed Amazon HD, didn't like it, discovered and bought Primephonic for HD classical - two month free trial; half price first year while it lasts - which I really enjoy). For pop and folk, I'll stick to Spotify and deal with its sound limitations for now (apparently hires is coming). In fairness to Audirvana, the sweetening probably applies to CD and MP3 files as well (did not thoroughly test this, thoroughly tested hires PCM and DSD), thought the sweetening probably works best with higher quality masters (requires clean input).

If you @Veri and several others run the side by side test and come back with input which differs from mine, i.e. you hear no difference between Audirvana and other bit perfect players (ideally you'd test against several to establish a reliable baseline), then it would be time to revisit Plisson's claim about improved sound quality and my confirmation of said claimed sound quality improvements in a field test.

If you also hear the same improvement I did, then it's time for someone who is set up to record back high resolution audio bit perfectly and diff the files to test several players vs Audirvana. This test involves recording back the output of actual HD music files at at least 96 kHz 24 bit, not some test tones at 44.1 kHz 16-bit. It requires pro gear and the attendant expertise.

I don't own Audirvana, my trial has expired and I'm not set up to do that high resolution recording right now so I won't be able to do that part of the test for you. Sorry.

 

[Jimbob54]

Side to side tests with five different bit perfect players which all sound identical on 96 kHz 24 bit tracks vs Audirvana which offers heightened stereo separation (stereo processing) and slightly more presence (a subtle boost in the mid-treble) is nothing?

Publisher's own claim to improve the sound is nothing?


Guys are you too indolent to open up Audirvana and compare its output with a couple of other bit perfect players through your own DAC and amplification system (speaker or headphone, the effect is strong enough to hear even via speakers)? Or are you so untrusting of your own ears that you cannot do a simple AB test to check sound even against distinctly audible difference?

I was looking for a player for HD files (in the end I decided I don't really care about playback of HD files, unless offered affordably streamed, trialed Amazon HD, didn't like it, discovered and bought Primephonic for HD classical - two month free trial; half price first year while it lasts - which I really enjoy). For pop and folk, I'll stick to Spotify and deal with its sound limitations for now (apparently hires is coming). In fairness to Audirvana, the sweetening probably applies to CD and MP3 files as well (did not thoroughly test this, thoroughly tested hires PCM and DSD), thought the sweetening probably works best with higher quality masters (requires clean input).

If you @Veri and several others run the side by side test and come back with input which differs from mine, i.e. you hear no difference between Audirvana and other bit perfect players (ideally you'd test against several to establish a reliable baseline), then it would be time to revisit Plisson's claim about improved sound quality and my confirmation of said claimed sound quality improvements in a field test.

If you also hear the same improvement I did, then it's time for someone who is set up to record back high resolution audio bit perfectly and diff the files to test several players vs Audirvana. This test involves recording back the output of actual HD music files at at least 96 kHz 24 bit, not some test tones at 44.1 kHz 16-bit. It requires pro gear and the attendant expertise.

I don't own Audirvana, my trial has expired and I'm not set up to do that high resolution recording right now so I won't be able to do that part of the test for you. Sorry.

Please link us to that support thread.

 

[Alec Kinnear]

Please link us to that support thread.

It was a direct customer interaction in French. Are you seriously falling back on the argument that @BaaM is a liar and that his screenshot of his chat with Damien Plisson is a forgery?

Whatever. Don't listen to the player. Don't compare Audirvana with other players with your own headphones/your ownn speakers. Ride your high horse. It's your life.

 

[Jimbob54]

It was a direct customer interaction in French. Are you seriously falling back on the argument that @BaaM is a liar and that his screenshot of his chat with Damien Plisson is a forgery?

Whatever. Don't listen to the player. Don't compare Audirvana with other players with your own headphones/your ownn speakers. Ride your high horse. It's your life.

No, I like to read the full context of a discussion rather than selected excerpts.

 

[Alec Kinnear]

No, I like to read the full context of a discussion rather than selected excerpts.

It's your life. I accept 1. @BaaM is not lying 2. the screenshot is genuine. If Damien Plisson wishes to disavow this claim, he's welcome to. My own tests validate his claim. To be safe, I didn't test against one other bit perfect player, I tested against five other bit perfect players. Audirvana implements some special sauce/sweetening which none of the other bit perfect players do. The result is euphonic, with slightly exaggerated stereo separation and a slightly higher presence. Stereo enhancement technology has existed for decades, as has subtle equalisation. The issue with stereo enhancement technology is that usually it's excessive, compromising the fundamental integrity of the music. That's not the case here.

Moving on to tests of bit perfect playback, Archimago ran some relatively serious attempts at testing on Mac OS X (and later Windows) players. In 2013, Archimago felt his tests showed Audirvana was no better or worse than Decibel:

Bottom line is that these programs work well to output bit-perfect audio. The MAIN feature over iTunes is the ability to automatically adjust the sample rate. Beyond that, I'm happy to own both Decibel for its simplicity and flexibility in playing all kinds of formats as well as Audirvana Plus for the full feature set including DSD playback and DST decoding. I just don't see any evidence that they sound any different...

Decibel has barely changed since 2013 (I've owned Decibel that long) while Audirvana has gone from 1.4.6 to 3.5.x. Even at that time, Audirvana was using its own drivers:

"Under the hood", it's also got some extra features like memory playback, "Direct Mode" apparently bypassing CoreAudio as well as "Integer Mode". Since the software supposedly bypasses CoreAudio, I would have thought that "Integer Mode" would be an obvious given. They also talk about 64-bit processing which is great if one has need for the SRC and dithering (iZotope-based)... For these tests, I'm using Direct, Integer Mode with memory playback to the TEAC. The green "INT" indicator turns on.

Archimago's did attempt to a diff comparison with 44.1 kHz 24 bit output into 96 kHz 24 bit input. His chart shows very small differences via DiffMaker for bit perfect playback:

There are differences in 2013. Archimago said he did not find those small differences to make an audible difference in his own use. I hope someone does run a similar test in 2021 starting from a 96 kHz 24-bit master into a 96 kHz copy.

I'm curious if anyone else perceives a difference between Audirvana playback and other bit perfect players. If there is no audible difference, I do wonder why those listeners choose Audirvana over cheaper solutions with better playlist/track management and native interfaces (native players exist for both platforms). I seriously considered Audirvana myself, as I did hear improved playback. After considerable reflection, I decided I'd rather not have any sweetening baked into my player and would rather have just bit perfect and make any changes to sound myself via AU plugins.

Equally amusing and on the other end of the spectrum is that Jplay claims playback improvement which JRiver emphatically denies. In 2012, Mitchco tested Jplay vs JRiver and found playback to be identical, justifying JRiver's hoax claims! In 2013, Mitchco redid his tests with new drivers and found them identical again.

There's some good information there for anyone who would attempt a diff test. They are not easy to get right, as Mitchco's first attempts failed, showing a difference where there was none.

As you can hear from yourself, a faint track of the music, that nulls itself out completely halfway through the track and slowly drifts back into being barely audible at the end. According to the DiffMaker documentation, this is called sample rate drift and there is a checkbox in the settings to compensate for this drift.

In the absence of a diff test, has anyone else here carefully AB Audirvana on hires music against other bit perfect players, either on OS X or Windows?

 

[Rottmannash]

It was a direct customer interaction in French. Are you seriously falling back on the argument that @BaaM is a liar and that his screenshot of his chat with Damien Plisson is a forgery?

Whatever. Don't listen to the player. Don't compare Audirvana with other players with your own headphones/your ownn speakers. Ride your high horse. It's your life.

I feel a reply ban coming on...

 

[Alec Kinnear]

I feel a reply ban coming on...

What is a reply ban and why would it be relevant here?

 

[BDWoody]

What is a reply ban and why would it be relevant here?

When someone loses the ability to respond in a thread. This often happens with newcomers who haven't learned that anecdotes and claims that go against established understanding, yet lack sufficient rigor no matter who makes them, are going to typically be dismissed, and react in ways that tend to be more disruptive or pejorative than is wanted or welcome here.

 

[scott wurcer]

My one serious criticism of the built-in sweetening in Audirvana: Plisson should allow users to turn off the Audirvana filters with a checkbox to allow real bit-perfect playback.

Bit perfect only applies to the delivery of data to the DAC input after that the concept is meaningless. The way you are using the term would only apply to NOS R2R DAC's and we know how loved they are here.

 

[Alec Kinnear]

When someone loses the ability to respond in a thread. This often happens with newcomers who haven't learned that anecdotes and claims that go against established understanding, yet lack sufficient rigor no matter who makes them, are going to typically be dismissed, and react in ways that tend to be more disruptive or pejorative than is wanted or welcome here.

So the modus operandi is to bully and browbeat and then to mute (cut out the tongue) of apostates. How sad, ASR more and more resembles some weird religious order. Let me be clear, I'm neither a subjectivist nor a pure objectivist. I've read the ASR documents about bias and testing and have used that knowledge and many of the techniques to improve my own ability to test devices. As well as a lot of practice while seeking a new pre-amp and amp (fortunately I'm not looking for speakers at the same time). Practice improves technique, theory on its own doesn't do much.

New DAC is only part of the quest (my Musical Fidelity V90 pleases me just fine, thank you) but headphone amplifiers and pre-amps these days often come with DACs. I thought it would be a good idea to be able to enjoy ultra high resolution audio files (192 kHz 24-bit) in the original, but it turns out 96 kHz 24-bit is the outside limits of my own hearing. DSD sometimes seems to have a magic live quality but in blind tests I struggle to differentiate DSD (unlike the D50s vs E30/V90). Plus the files sizes are absurd.

So in the end while the quest started with searching for a new DAC, it turns out I don't need a new DAC after all. What I needed are a pre-amp and new amplifiers. Looks like I'll end up with a new DAC anyway (RME ADI-2 DAC FS) with headphone amp and pre-amp.

It's been an interesting journey but the dogmatism here is seriously discouraging.

Would someone out there like to get off the keyboard to do a simple listening test between Audirvana and the two or three other bit perfect players they might have?

 

[Alec Kinnear]

Bit perfect only applies to the delivery of data to the DAC input after that the concept is meaningless. The way you are using the term would only apply to NOS R2R DAC's and we know how loved they are here.

Scott, thanks for a concrete answer. Here's what I'm thinking of when I think of bit-perfect. There is the file on my hard drive – the 96 kHz 24-bit Another Country recording by Cassandra Wilson (don't particularly like the song but it's revealing which is why HD Tracks included in their 2013 collection, I've had it for ages from back in 2013 when I acquired and tested the Musical Fidelity V90).

This file is then read by the player (Audirvana in this case). This has nothing to do with the DAC so far. Bit perfect would then be communication by the player of the original file to the DAC.

Any colouration of the file should be at the DAC level. The player should not change

Of course if a player applies EQ or balance to the original file, the file is no longer bit perfect and can no longer be communicated as bit perfect to the DAC (it's a modified version of the original).

If you are saying that the bit perfect moniker still applies to modified data, whether EQ'd or sweetened, then indeed Audirvana could both be bit perfect and sweeten the audio. In that case, bit perfect becomes just a method of communication and despite the fairly clear implication that bit perfect means an accurate rendition of the original file, it is not.

If this seems elementary to you and horribly off-track, my apologies. I would like to correctly understand the term bit perfect so as not to misuse it. No need to type out a long explanation if there is an accurate one online which you could point out.