Decided to download Audirvana platform for my Windows 10 PC on a 30 day trial to evaluate what if any benefit can be derived from it.
I typically use Roon but also listen on the Qobuz and Tidal desktop apps while listening to headphones behind the computer.
My main system is Roon core on my Windows PC through the RAAT (roon advanced audio transport) to Bryston BDP PI streamer and on to my Luxman DAC via S/PDIF.
The Roon RAAT (over wifi) is the Roon preferred interface from what I understand.
With Roon, the occasional hiccup I have with it, is that my USB connection to my desktop DAC can occasionally be buggered up by the background computer activities and manifests itself as background digital noise once in a while for a short period of time. It can be annoying. Happens infrequently but it happens..
Qobuz app I generally like, nothing really to complain about. It is elegant enough but not quite to the Roon standard with Roon's incredible library approach of sorting and storing music in various folders that are easy to navigate to and logically sort music virtually any way you like to sort it.
Tidal desktop app is also easy enough to use but once again, not to Roon standards.
What Tidal app does offer is the MUSIC and DOCUMENTARY VIDEO aspect that is pretty cool and I do watch the various video content. Last night I was watching episode on the saxophone players which was interesting.
Which brings me to Audirvana. I fired it up after downloading and it recognized my desktop USB DAC as well as the OPPO player and my downstairs LG TV... That is because it works with local/computer devices as well as anything over the UPnP interface...
I was primarily interested in the headphone/desktop listening test last night so I focused on that. I synced up my Qobuz, Tidal and locally stored hard drive files of which I have close to 1 Terabyte.
1. Listening quality. To my ears, all three platforms, Roon, Tidal, Qobuz sound different enough where my ears can pick up and appreciated the differences in the sound but it is not enough of a difference to call one superior over the other as once again, there is no way to measure or gauge such things. We simply do not know what it should sound like! It is a slightly different presentation at best no doubt due to a dozen of things of A/D conversions, filters, protocols, and who knows what else.
I can definitively say that Tidal very often but not always sounds a bit more dynamic and forward sounding with its files. There can be a slight hardening of tone compared to Qobuz which is typically noticeably more laid back and analog like in its presentation.
Again, not having the standard to go by, one can only say, "I prefer" this vs "This sounds better" as we don't know "what better is" compared to the original.
At the end of the day, the "preference" and enjoyment of music should be the most important aspect vs which is closer to the truth... as we are not mixing/mastering music but enjoying it on our end.
With those thoughts, I listened objectively to Audirvana feeding my desktop DAC.
Once again, the Audirvana brought its own tiny variation of a "flavor" difference in its presentation. Any file I played, be it locally stored, Tidal or Qobuz, I was able to discern the difference and notice the difference between Tidal and Qobuz presentation on those albums where I noticed them before between the two platforms.
Overall, sound quality of Audirvana was superb. So that was my desktop and headphone listening impressions.
User interface-wise, Audirvana still cannot hold a candle next to Roon. Roon absolutely rules as far as I am concerned. It is the best interface for my personal preference and of course over the two years, I have become quite used to it and enjoy it immensely.
Audirvana is completely useable at the same time, just not as elegantly laid out. You are able to search, find, play your files, create playlists, view relevant info about the album as well as some metadata, dynamic range and a few other things. Not bad but nothing to wax poetic about either.
Test 2. Streaming to the Main System.
This morning I focused on the other part of the equation. Streaming music to my main system from Audirvana.
When I fired it up this morning, I once again saw the Oppo and my TV listed as the possible sources to stream to over UPnP.
I tried OPPO first. No problems with that interface. The music played on, sounded as good as it can be through OPPO driving the LG TV speakers.
I selected the LG TV as the target and could not get it to work. I need to look into my TV settings to see what needs to be tweaked there.
Next I tried to figure out why I am not seeing my Bryston BDP Pi streamer and realized that it needs to be switched over from Roon Ready device to DLNA Renderer so I did that through the Bryston web interface.
Once I saw the Bryston BDP Pi appear, I selected a Ray Brown Soular Energy album from Audirvana and hit play...
After a long pause, the music started to play. I picked up on the fact that it sounded a bit unnatural with a certain hardness of tone in the upper frequencies and a bit of digital like glare which I have not heard from my system in the past.
I listened some more and then the music stopped playing. No reason that I could see. I restarted the album and it started playing again.
So the UPnP protocol is not exactly stable. Nor does it sound as good as the ROON RAAT.
I decided to give Bryston a call and chat with them about the Bryston BDP Pi and UPnP. I spoke to Chris at Bryston, he is very knowledgeable and a super nice guy who is obviously also an audiophile. So we chatted about the various platforms and Chris told me that UPnP is not the best way to approach sound quality... I have to agree based on my earlier listening session. Chris mentioned the UPnP was included for the sake of convenience.
So that pretty much rules out using Audirvana for my main system and there was really no reason to switch from the elegance of Roon and the sound quality of the ROON RAAT protocol for my streaming needs.
As far as desktop and USB DAC listening... Audirvana is indeed useful. The interface with my DAC using ASIO protocol was in fact excellent.
Now, I am not a computer audio expert by any means and I have always thought that ASIO was really for sound cards and had very little to do with USB out but it did seem to sound better than the WASAPI protocol that was also a choice.
ASIO bypasses the normal audio path from a user application through layers of intermediary Windows operating system software so that an application connects directly to the sound card hardware. Each layer that is bypassed means a reduction in latency (the delay between an application sending audio information and it being reproduced by the sound card, or input signals from the sound card being available to the application). In this way, ASIO offers a relatively simple way of accessing multiple audio inputs and outputs independently.
Windows Audio Session API (WASAPI). In general, WASAPI operates in two modes. In exclusive mode (also called DMA mode), unmixed audio streams are rendered directly to the audio adapter and no other application's audio will play and signal processing has no effect. Exclusive mode is useful for applications that demand the least amount of intermediate processing of the audio data or those that want to output compressed audio data such as Dolby Digital, DTS or WMA Pro over S/PDIF.
WASAPI exclusive mode is similar to kernel streaming in function, but no kernel mode programming is required. In shared mode, audio streams are rendered by the application and optionally applied per-stream audio effects known as Local Effects (LFX) (such as per-session volume control). Then the streams are mixed by the global audio engine, where a set of global audio effects (GFX) may be applied. Finally, they're rendered on the audio device.
So as it stands, the Audirvana would be useful for my desktop listening but in reality either Qobuz or Tidal and (Roon when it is not being noisy with my USB DAC) are also completely satisfying and are not any less in sound quality in absolute terms.
My OPPO is also a ROON END point so no reason for me to run the UPnP protocol instead. Not that I even listen to my TV speakers through OPPO much to begin with.
So $96 is not a huge investment for Audirvana license but at this point I am really not sure what the benefit may be. I will keep playing with it for 29 more days to see if I want to pay and keep it for some reason.
If there is anything more significant to add, I will update this thead.
If you are a Audirvana user, please add some of your own thoughts.
