If it was, it would have been a major obstacle in the whole computer music playback paradigm. ITunes was never, in my opinion, a bad music player. Over time, with the current release of version 2.3, those differences have become more apparent. With the initial (somewhat buggy) release of Amarra two and a half years ago, the differences between it and iTunes were readily apparent (thanks to the ability to instantaneously switch between Core Audio and Amarra by clicking on the Amarra button as described earlier). Now that we’ve got the hows and whats of Amarra down, how does it sound? In a word, sublime. Both Rowmote and Remote are available from Apple’s App Store. This EQ function is useful for tuning to one’s listening environment, and also comes with numerous pre-loaded presets.īefore I get into how Amarra sounds, one quick note about transport control: Amarra currently supports remote control via Apple’s infrared remote, the Rowmote app for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and, my favorite, Apple’s own Remote app for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. The EQ button opens the Amarra EQ window, an exceptional 4-band parametric equalizer, as shown in figure 3. The Tracks button shows a list of the tracks loaded in the current playlist, and individual tracks can be selected for playback. The Playlist button opens a playlist window where you can create your own playlist either from iTunes or Finder – this is where you would add FLAC tracks for native playback, or tracks that require gapless playback. The three remaining buttons, Playlist, Tracks, and EQ, are pretty self-explanatory. (I like this feature, as it enables the listener to toggle back and forth between audio engines while the music is playing). Make sure it says Amarra to activate the Sonic Studio playback mode. Clicking on the Amarra button toggles between iTunes and Amarra, indicating which playback engine is being used. Clicking on the Cache button activates memory playback and the button becomes highlighted in yellow. Amarra in use with iTunes Using AmarraĪs shown in Figure 2, transport and volume control settings are on the left of the Amarra pane, with two of the most important buttons in towards the center: Cache and Amarra. Figure 1 below shows how I currently have it set up.įigure 2. After installation, the first place a user may want to go is the Preferences section. I currently have it installed on a late 2010 27” iMac with 8 GB of RAM and external hard drives. It requires a software key to remove it from trial to registered status. Installing Amarra is pretty straightforward. Key features of Amarra include support of sample rates up to 384 kbps, automatic sample rate switching, memory-based Cache Mode playback, native FLAC support and conversion, an off-line sample rate converter, and a very good 4-band parametric equalizer called Sonic EQ. When installed on an Apple computer, it acts as a transport for the audio data which is then fed to an outboard DAC. It uses iTunes as its database manager (although playlists can be created without iTunes), but bypasses the audio processing engine in OS X called Core Audio. Amarra version 1.0 was released in June of 2009, and, as of the writing of this article, is now up to v2.3.2 and supports Apple’s OS X operating system only.Īmarra functions in concert with iTunes. Sonic Studio, a manufacturer of professional audio hardware and software tools, was one of the first companies to introduce a computer music player application specifically for the audiophile. These applications are typically referred to as music players, and Amarra is one such program. We have numerous audio hardware manufacturers offering DACs that cater to this particular playback source, internet web-sites and forums that are dedicated to computer audio playback, and, more recently, software applications that bypass a computer’s native OS audio process and provide their own method of processing an audio file. In the world of high-end audio, ‘computer audio’ is now almost as common as a CD player.
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