AIR

[GuillaumeB]

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