AIR

[Georgethesixth]

Since yesterday I've been experimenting with AIR. As most of you on here already know I'm a bit of a die-hard UPnP fan.

I did carry out a number of experiments with AIR last year but at the time was not impressed by the sound which had left me wanting. In short I had found the sound a bit thin and was also put off by the numerous dropouts I experienced at the time.

Given the numerous software upgrades since then I thought I should give it another go. This is what I tried:

Macbook AIR playing Audirvana > Draytek router > Cat7 > switch > AQ Diamond ethernet > Devialet.

I found it quite hard to get it working at first. Although this was probably down to inexperience... I kept messing around with the Audirvana and AIR settings and in the end the music just came on quite randomly!

Wow! I was immediately really surprised at how different it sounded to my MiND 180. Playing really familiar tracks I was struck by the difference in presentation. So different! The soundstage seemed much wider and the music seemed clearer and almost easier to follow. Better separation between instruments and air around vocals? At the same time I wondered if the music didn't sound a little bright at times. Then it occurred to me that this was the first time I was using the Devialet's ethernet interface...

There is a lot to like! So much so that I am currently still using AIR to stream from my Macbook which is in my study... compared to the MiND setup this is a real pain as I can't use my iPhone to select and play music. Also I am struggling a little with the AIR default format settings... it seems like I need to adjust these each time based on the format being played otherwise it can sound as though the chipmunks are on centre stage!

So I suppose I need to figure out a way of making this work properly... but a very promising start indeed! Will continue to test and report back later.

Guillaume

As they say : there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent

I hope you are not confronted with the dreaded white noise syndrome.

Cheers

[GuillaumeB]

As they say : there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent

I hope you are not confronted with the dreaded white noise syndrome.

Cheers

Haha! You're a card Joris!

On a serious note... so far only two dropouts... both were yesterday evening... and no dreaded white noise yet!!!!!

Left everything running overnight... so A+ streaming to the Devialets via AIR.

Still playing this am which I was most impressed with (I had half expected something to go to sleep overnight).

Some of the brightness seems to have gone now.. I suspect it was the brand new never-used before ethernet interface in the Devialet!

Sound quality: absolutely superb!

The totaldac D1 is going to have to be very special indeed...

Guillaume

[thumb5]

Guillaume - good to hear you're up and running with AIR, and enjoying the sound. You mentioned that you had a couple of drop-outs and I see you're using a Mac with a wired connection to your Dev, so I'd be interested to know whether the symptoms of the drop-outs match what happens in my set-up, noted in this thread.

Thanks,

Ian

[GuillaumeB]

Damn.... this was all going so well! Half way through a track I started hearing some crackly sounds... around the edges of some notes. Not exactly white noise... and the music kept playing.

Anyway I disabled AIR and restarted A+, all fine now.

Guillaume

[GuillaumeB]

Guillaume - good to hear you're up and running with AIR, and enjoying the sound. You mentioned that you had a couple of drop-outs and I see you're using a Mac with a wired connection to your Dev, so I'd be interested to know whether the symptoms of the drop-outs match what happens in my set-up, noted in this thread.

Thanks,

Ian

Hi Ian, thanks... doesn't look like the same thing. My dropouts were only a second or two long and everything stayed connected. Music resumed straight after with no intervention on my part.

Guillaume

[PhilP]

I haven't had any drop-outs using wifi AIR on an old iMac and 10.6.8 streaming from Qobuz or iTunes at resolutions up to 24/96. The only 24/192 track that I tried also streamed perfectly I now use wifi AIR all the time.

Does using A+ really improve sound quality when using AIR? I'm not sure how it can if,for example, the output of iTunes is bit perfect?

Thanks, Philip

[Rufus McDufus]

I can only recount my experience of the last day - VLC or iTunes through AIR on MacBook is a bit disappointing, Audivarna+ on the same is fantastic!
Was reading something on this earlier. People involved with one of the audiophile players claimed the differences were mainly in the time domain. Whatever that means.

[PhilP]

A likely reason for people having different experiences with AIR wi-fi is that there are multiple pieces of software and hardware in the playback chain and whilst some combinations may work correctly together all the time others may do so only 99.99% of the time.

It would be better (but a bit tedious) if everyone posting on subjects that are likely to stem from s/w or h/w issues included the full specs of their systems - then perhaps a pattern would emerge. It could, for example, be a problem between AIR and Mavericks

I use:
- iMac 9,1 (built 2009)
- Mac OS 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard - which was one of the most robust releases of OS X)
- iTunes 11.3.1
- Devialet 200/Firmware 7.1.1/AIR 2.1.2

[Rufus McDufus]

You're right. In the above test I was using:
Devialet 200/Firmware 7.1.1/AIR 2.1.2
2011 MacBook Air running latest Mavericks
No iTunes - just direct to Audivarna Plus 1.5.12 (trial version). If I use iTunes instead of Audivarna, it was 11.3.1. VLC was 2.1.5.
VLC/iTunes both sounded poorer to me than Audivarna. This is with Bit Perfect & 24/96 set on AIR in all cases.

[PhilP]

You're right. In the above test I was using:
Devialet 200/Firmware 7.1.1/AIR 2.1.2
2011 MacBook Air running latest Mavericks
No iTunes - just direct to Audivarna Plus 1.5.12 (trial version). If I use iTunes instead of Audivarna, it was 11.3.1. VLC was 2.1.5.
VLC/iTunes both sounded poorer to me than Audivarna. This is with Bit Perfect & 24/96 set on AIR in all cases.

Rufus,

I'm intrigued that you say that Audirvana+ working with AIR sounds a lot better than AIR on its own and I'm very keen to try it out. Please can you let me know what settings you use with Audirvana+ to get it to work with AIR? I think someone already posted this but I can't find the post.

Thanks,

Philip