Amarra for iTunes at RMAF...

Antipodes_audio wrote:
"The sound of a Mac without Amarra sounded like you had swapped out the Coax cable and inserted an AT&T cable - cleaner, faster, better dynamics and PRAT, but with the downside of a touch of glare. Amarra more or less removes that glare, depending on how you get the bits out of the Mac."

I agree with this almost 100% except I am not sure I am willing to agree with the "glare" portion. I am still new to Amarra, but what I hear so far is a bit of a fuller sound at the expense of a seeming loss in very minute phrasing. I am really big into capturing the phrasing of singers, especially females correctly such as Eva Cassidy (Song Birr/ Somewhere Over the rainbow) and Jane Monheit (Lovers, Dreamer & Me/ Slow Like Honey).

On the Jane Monheit piece mentioned above compare if you will the track (slow like honey) at 0:50 seconds with Amarra and without and let me know if anyone else hears a slight loss in information through the very subtle phrasing when Amarra is used. This may seem like I am being overly analytical, but come-on this is highend and I am talking about spending a grand. If it doesn't do EVERYTHING better than the native Core Audio Engine, I may have to reconsider.

Thanks,

Don

I have a question about the best software for ripping and organizing music files on Win XP.

I rip CD's via a Sony DVD payer, into Apple lossless, into iTunes with library storage in a NAS Netgear storage unit. I access these music files by SONOS (modded by Rick Cullen) into my Northstar 192 DAC.

My question is...I'm not that excited with iTunes software in sorting and managing the files. Does anyone have suggestions about a better, more effective software to replace iTunes on Win.

Thanks

I don't know about better, but different maybe. Try Media Monkey. Also just in case you were unaware, the fastest way I have found to access my music in iTunes is the icon to the left on the top bar towards the right. You will see 3 iconic buttons which allow you to choose between coverflow, grid or list. I use the list and then I go into 'view' (on a windows box) and choose show browser. This way I can select via genre, artist or album. Typically I select via artist and it is so much faster as it only lists the artist once (unless they feature another artist then you will see it again), next to the right of it you can filter even further by selecting that artists' album. Hope it helps.

Don,

I have download and installed the Amarra Mini demo on my Mac Mini. It goes into a Benchmark DAC-1 USB. I have tried to drive the power amp directly from DAC-1 and even listen to a HD-650 headphone plugged into the DAC-1 in order to eliminate any inference from the preamp, speaker, and room. Here is what I find:

Playback of 24/96 tracks is virtually identical to iTunes. Amarra might be a little bit cleaner at the high but the difference is so small that it could be purely psychological. It definitely will not pass my blind test. So I consider them to be identical in sound quality.

Playback of 16/44 tracks is a different story. Amarra sounds decisively cleaner. In the High Life track of Jazz at the Pawnshop, cymbals and tambourines sound more delicate, drums are tighter with more "skins", instruments are in general better focused and have more presence.

In terms of female vocal, iTunes does sounds a little bloated in the mid bass and gives singers a little bit more chest and throat sound. That might be the phrasing you referred to in your post. I can hear that difference very clearly in the Danny Boy track sang by Jacintha.

Which is better is hard to say. I think it depends on what you like and your system. In my system, that little bloated mid bass often being exaggerated a bit by the BAT preamp. So I much prefer the Amarra presentation.

Thanks, Sidssp for your remarks. The phrasing that I refer to is not chestiness, it is phrasing much like a great trumpet player is able to do; sort of like Miles Davis. Their were many trumpeters with more power but I know of non that could phrase as he did. I do appreciate your' comments, I had a Rex so I am familiar with what a Bat pre will inject into the audible picture. I tend to think it may be a bit cleaner without Amarra, but I am still evaluating :)

Thanks again.