New Amarra 2.4

[Yoder]

Just upgraded to the latest version of Amarra. Two things really jumped out at me.

The first biggie was the price drop. A year ago Amarra was selling for $699 or so. I got it at the 2011 RMAF for about $250. My jaw hit the floor when I saw that the price is now $189. I'm glad to see they dropped the price since it will be more accessible to the general public, and it will put some significant competition back into the market place.

The second thing that I really enjoy is that now it interfaces with iTunes radio. I played some streaming radio last night and it has never sounded so good. While at RMAF I asked them when they were going to do iTunes radio and Netflix, etc. The guy told me that the radio would come first, and that Netflix and other streaming multimedia would be latter. Be nice if 2.5 incorporates the rest or at least Netflix.

There were a lot of other small upgrades, that in the end make it a pretty sweet piece of software. Personally, I no longer like listening to any digital music that does not first pass through Amarra. It all seems rather harsh and sterile.

[John Roman]

I'm a PC guy so I don't believe Amarra works with windows , Right? The price drop perhaps indicates their desire to capture more of a market that is very competitive. Of course that's true of most things these days, new today outdated tomorrow. I admit I was surprised at your assessment of digital music as harsh and sterile, sans Amarra. But of course variety is key to moving forward and discovering something better along the way.
best regards,
John

[tdogzthmn]

I have Amarra 2.3 but recently got another program call BitPerfect which is around $5 on the AppStore.  I was hopping that there would be a big difference in performance but to my surprise the two programs produce a result which is very close.  I've since been using BitPerfect as my main control for itunes and am very happy with the result. My one complaint is that I often get noise when switching between songs of different bit rates, which is probably the from the DAC switching circuits.  I also have notice that Amarra does not seem to change it's bit depth automatically from 16 to 24 and I have to select it manually from the MIDI controls in OSX.  Id highly recommend others try it out for themselves and see if they notice any differences.  Maybe I'm not utilizing Amarra to its full extent but I have played with the majority of its settings in the preference pane but it still yields no major improvements.

[Yoder]

I have Amarra 2.3... I also have notice that Amarra does not seem to change it's bit depth automatically from 16 to 24 and I have to select it manually from the MIDI controls in OSX.  Id highly recommend others try it out for themselves and see if they notice any differences.  Maybe I'm not utilizing Amarra to its full extent but I have played with the majority of its settings in the preference pane but it still yields no major improvements.

You can get a free upgrade. Also, when you are changing the bit-rate are you playing Redbook CDs? Amarra only plays the native rate. When I jump from a Redbook CD to a 24/48 files it plays them without a hitch.

[earwaxxer]

Ahh.. the fun of computer based audio! Not to mention the $500 USB cables. Sorry I guess I just mentioned it. I dont have the stomach for it myself. I'm sticking with the network and my $9 25ft Belkin Ethernet connection. Got to love Squeezbox!

[tdogzthmn]

I have Amarra 2.3... I also have notice that Amarra does not seem to change it's bit depth automatically from 16 to 24 and I have to select it manually from the MIDI controls in OSX.  Id highly recommend others try it out for themselves and see if they notice any differences.  Maybe I'm not utilizing Amarra to its full extent but I have played with the majority of its settings in the preference pane but it still yields no major improvements.

You can get a free upgrade. Also, when you are changing the bit-rate are you playing Redbook CDs? Amarra only plays the native rate. When I jump from a Redbook CD to a 24/48 files it plays them without a hitch.

The majority of my music library is CDs which have been ripped to AIFF files.  I have an assortment of other files which are higher resolution than redbook.  I have noticed for instance when going to a 48/24 song the bit depth will not switch.  Plus I dont like the additional interface of ammara which is affixed to iTunes like some kind of tumor... not a very clean look.  I recently downloaded the new Amarra demo to play around with, and didn't notice anything new.  For now ill stick to BitPerfect which stays out of the way but still delivers the audio satisfaction I am looking for.