![]() A large portion of the UI in Audirvana studio is dedicated to streaming services that I am not interested in (considering the poor quality of masters you are going to get on those services), but you still have to deal with a UI and monthly-based subscription model that forces you into the online steaming model. Sure, it supports bit-perfect streaming and Tidal, but honestly, the tag engine isn’t as accurate as what you get on Roon and the sound quality cannot match Audirvana.įor my movies, it’s absolutely perfect as it’s able to crawl into more than 40TB of 4K movies, with ease, but for my music, I’ll definitely stick to Audirvana now.ĭamien may have done a fantastic job at developing the best music player on the market, but sadly, the software is plagued by usability issues and generally speaking, a mediocre user experience. It doesn’t need an expensive computer to work – I just bought two Nvidia Shield and dedicated one as a server – and cost a lot less than Audirvana and Roon.īut, music-wise, it’s definitely the worst option of the three. Audirvana Studio VS Plexįirst of all, I love Plex. Clearly, Audirvana was better, and you’ll immediately hear the difference. Most of my gear is Roon Ready and thanks to that, I could control every one of them, from the same computer.Įven though, if Roon supports Bit-perfect playback and DSP setup, I didn’t get the same feeling of wonder, musically. I took a free trial, just for the sake of this review, and honestly, nothing can touch Roon in this regard.Īlso, a feature missing in Audirvana that I loved on Roon was… multi-room playback. It’s simple, if you want the cleanest, nicest interface with rock-solid experience (with a good Core) and ultra-wide compatibility with your audio devices, get Roon. Sure, the subwoofer helped, but it would be unfair to undermine Audirvana’s effect on my setup. And if it was harder, the improvements remain clearly audible, especially in the lower section. Everything seemed sharper, better as if someone magnified every aspect of the track.įinally, I did some tests with my KEF LS50 Wireless, my desktop speakers, to check if I could spot the same enhancements, without my headphones. I chose R8Brain for oversampling, but didn’t use replay gain at any moment, and again, the dynamic range was vastly superior with Audirvana. ![]() This time, I put my own tracks to the test and I chose a few albums in Hi-Res, that I personally found well-arranged: Justice – Audio Video Disco, Eagles – Hotel California, and Daft Punk – Random Access Memories.Īgain, 10 out of 10, I could spot which was which, and this time the sound difference became much more obvious. Next, I did the same test with the xDuoo TA-30 and my mighty Audeze LCD-X. But, going back to Qobuz, or even Plex for my local files, really felt like a drawback. Going back and forth wasn’t easy, as exclusive audio access takes a few seconds each time to activate/deactivate. Bass hit deeper, highs are sharper and voices sound more natural. At the same exact volume settings, switching from Qobuz native player to Audirvana significantly improved the dynamic range. I picked a track that I listened to at least one time a day – More Than Just the Same from Infected Mushrooms – and did some back and forth between Qobuz and Qobuz + Audirvana.Īnd to my surprise, Audirvana came up as the clear winner here. Of course, the difference isn’t as obvious as if you were to replace your DAC for a better one, but head to head, on the same system, the player made a clear difference.įirst, I did a simple comparison with the Sennheiser HD800S + HDVD800. I’ve seen a lot of snake oil over the years, but this time, the hyper is real: Audirvana Studio really made a difference and I could hear it right from the start. So, did Audirvana really improve my system? Short answer, yes. All files were either streamed from Qobuz or my own library. Out of curiosity, I also tried Audirvana on my PC, connected to my KEF LS50 Wireless. My headphones? The Sennheiser HD-800S and Audeze LCD-X. For this review, I mostly used my MacBook Air paired to the Sennheiser HDVD820 and xDuoo TA-30.
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