amarra or pure music..?

I have been trying out Fidelia which I think sounds even better than Amarra. I am not a fan of Fidelia's interface. Personally I love using the Art work cover flow interface in Itunes to search through the library using Amarra in the background as the output.

Somehow Fidelia's sonics are even more detailed and maybe sweeter than Amarra 2.1.1. There is not much in it but it is there and worth having.

Audioengr

I liked 1.2 a lot too, but 2.1.1 sounds very slightly smoother/vibrant to me in memory mode. The stuttering at the start of each track in Itunes I find ruins it. I hope they fix this ASAP. PM have managed it.

Mapman,

I have found nearly all software sounds slightly different. Don't ask me why! Especially on PC. Even Pro software from the same manufacturer.

'I have found nearly all software sounds slightly different. Don't ask me why! "

There are endless reasons why this might occur. You are pretty much at the mercy of the software.

But, if it were me designing these tools, I would envision a good design would merely stream the existing data in real time as needed by default and not do anything to the bit stream unless the user specifies. Similar to being able to bypass processing on an analog equalizer or other signal processor as desired.

Of course, bugs are always possible as well, meaning even if designed to work properly, the program still does not.

One reason I stick with Windows Media Player for example is I have found it to be very robust and reliable which is what I would expect in that it has been around through multiple revisions already, has a large user base and is designed by a major software vendor who knows as well as any company how to do these things right.

I am not very trusting off one off software vendors when it comes to this kind of thing. Doing it right is hard and takes both time and money (like most things).

Lots of folks like some of these players because they sound "smoother". If your system needs "smoothing", then they are the right choice for you.

IMO, once you have achieved really low sibilance, jitter and noise in your system, you abandon "smoothness" for liveness. This is a long road and a spendy road for some.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

I'm pretty sure Windows MEdia player just passes the bit stream and does not change it by default, at least when used just as a music server and not player.

Newer versions do have a loudness leveling option that helps keep different loudness level tracks more equal level, but that is it and you have to select to turn that on.