AIR 3 Beta for Mac

[Hifi_swlon]

Finally got round to installing and trying the latest beta

Fairly easy to A/B the microRendu/Intona combo although there's still a pause setting inputs. There's not much in it initially, but if I had to call first impression I'd say AIR has a 'thicker', deeper bass, which I actually prefer right now. Too quick a listen to compare more than that so time will tell.

That's actually some interesting observations.  When I tried the mR vs AIR, I did find that AIR was much clearer and better defined with the deepest bass, although I preferred the mR for most other aspects 100 Hz or so upwards.  My theory is that this is a quirk of the Devialet's USB input as I noticed similar when auditioning the Melco N1Z.  Although using the mR + Mutec and AES/EBU to the Devialet, the issue is gone!

Yup, shame things didn't work out though so (once again) it's not much of a dilemma. I would like that extra bass, and to be able to use Dirac. So it seems the Intona makes an improvement, but probably not as much as avoiding the USB input altogether. Maybe that will be improved in the new one.

But I'm happy back on the rendu. I had a bit of listening fatigue yesterday so don't know if that was AIR or just me playing too loud. Probably the latter!