Any Audirvana Plus enthusiasts out there?


Last September I bought an Audioquest Dragonfly. In my quest to feed it the best sampling rates to get the best sound, I also downloaded and bought Audirvana Plus. After messing around with the system for awhile I concluded I was getting more benefit from Audirvana than the Dragonfly, so I took the Dragonfly back. So lately I'm reading the reviews of the new Meridian Explorer and I'm thinking that maybe it'll give me the extra level of musical satisfaction that I didn't quite get from the Dragonfly.

But wait! the next time I open Audirvana I find that I haven't updated for awhile. I do an update and jump from 1.4.6 to 1.5.2, and now I'm at 1.5.4. Is it just me or did something special happen with 1.5.x, because I'm enjoying computer audio as I never have before. Just since upgrading to 1.5.4 I've already downloaded 5 new 24/96 or 24/88.2 files from HDTracks. Where before computer-based audio mostly served as background music, and I reserved involved listening to the turntable, now when I'm cleaning up the kitchen with Audirvana playing 24-bit files, the musical truth draws me out of the kitchen to sit or stand in the sweet spot and take it all in, just like when I first got a turntable to break free from mass market CD players and redbook CDs.

I'm not saying that LPs and 24/96 digital are identical, and I still like good analog a bit better, but the 24-bit files through Audirvana 1.5.x files really draw me into the music. There may be an asynchronous 24/192Khz USB DAC in my future, but for now the improvements to Audirvana are making me pretty happy with computer audio.

Anybody else have any opinions on this?
johnnyb53
I also noticed a nice improvement moving to 1.5.4. Amazing how this app keeps getting better.
Yes I agree I was overwhelmed by it when I first heard it. Like all things it has settled in my system but at the time I was thinking this is the best bang for the buck of all time. My only problem with it is the quirks and bugs. I use my iTunes to control 4 systems and this makes it a slight pain to use audirvana you have to get into the settings and switch things up to get it to work on each system. Though it is amazing even the imorovement it makes via AirPlay.
Could not agree more with this posting, I to use Audirvana Plus and could not be happier with the sound. See my previous posting on this subject:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?ddgtl&1364947210&openmine&zzMgattmch&4&5#Mgattmch
I am very pleased with Audirvana Plus as well! Damien is very talented and knows good sound ,,,I can say,this has to be the best money I have spent on this hobby!!!