Quick Start Guide itunes integrated mode Main window operations Quick Start Guide Auudirvana first time you launch Audirvana Plus, you get a wizard fref asking you two questions to get started: 1.

Select the Audio Device you want to use for playback. Note that it needs to be connected for being in the list. This also gives you the opportunity to use the Audirvana plus user manual free mahual running on iphone or ipad for remote control. In this mode, freee Audirvana Plus main window uswr still active and can be raised if ausirvana by clicking on the Audirvana Plus dock icon. Note that Audirvana Plus will play all itunes music files except DRM protected onesand automatically deactivate itself for the Internet radios that will still be played directly by itunes.

You can switch between the classic playlist mode and the complete itunes integration by using the itunes Integrated Mode command in the Audirvana Plus manuall. Main window operations Transport Buttons Play: Starts the audio playback, and the following initialization steps if enabled in the user preferences : - Take exclusive access of the audio device - Select native device format audio stream for playback integer mode - Deactivate the background process that might have audirvana plus user manual free interfering e.

TimeMachine, Spotlight, Note that this one is not enabled by default. This button becomes a pause button when playing. Keyboard shortcut: Space Pause: Pause the playback. That is the device is still active and fully controlled by Audirvana Plus.

This button becomes a resume button Play icon when in pause mode. Keyboard shortcut: Space Stop: Fully stop audio playback, release the audio device, and restore the deactivated OSX services. See your DAC user manual for this. Should typically be set at 0dB to ensure bit perfect output.

The current value of volume control is displayed under the knob. If the device provides no volume remote control and dithered audirvana plus user manual free control is not enabled in user preferences, the volume control knob is inactive.

Depending on the user preferences, the knob is rotated using a vertical defaulthorizontal or rotational motion mnual the mouse. Other buttons Disp. Off: Hide all Audirvana windows Power: Immediately terminates audirvana plus user manual free playback and exit. Technical information is given at the bottom of the LCD screen: - On the left: Playing track file audirvana plus user manual free, and native bit depth and sample rate - On the right: The DAC current bit depth and sample rate On the right column are some playback status indicators: - CPU: the audorvana CPU aurirvana indicates an unexpected pause in audio playback.

The most frequent source of such issues is a lack of available memory. Try to exit other memory hungry applications e. Best possible quality. Refer to "Integer Mode and Dragging the playing position cursor or clicking directly on a different position makes the playback seek to this position. Inside this playing position ffree is given audirvana plus user manual free about the loading progress, in form of a grey progress bar. Playlist management Classic Playlist Mode The playlist window enables to manage the playlist, by adding, removing, reordering, filtering tracks.

The currently playing track is highlighted in bold and blue color, and the next loaded track is in green. The playlist is automatically saved unless deactivated in user preferences upon exit, and restored at next start up.

Playback will occur only on the displayed tracks. These two buttons are also found at the bottom left of the LCD screen of the main window. Then select or drag and drop the tracks from the itunes database. Deleting tracks The - button or the Delete key remove the selected tracks The Prune command in the Playlist menu qudirvana all tracks except the currently playing usef. Note this is the way itunes handles these M3U files - Automatically start playback when Audirvana is opened with a track or playlist usually when double-clicking on such a fere in the Finder - Save the current playlist when exiting, and automatically reload it the next time Audirvana is opened Volume Control The volume control knob can be rotated by using a vertical, horizontal, or a rotation motion with the mouse.

It is used if available connected when starting playback, otherwise the system default device is used. You can select your preferred audio device by clicking on the Change button in the Preferred Audio Device paragraph. The preferred or default if not connected audio device pous is displayed in the Active Audio Device paragraph, as well as manuaal handled sample rates. Low level playback options The options should normally not be changed as the audirvana plus user manual free mode is automatically used when all they are enabled plug and play concept Exclusive access mode: When playing Audirvana Plus takes full control of the audio device, preventing any unwanted interferences from other applications e.

Integer mode: In this mode Audirvana Plus directly sends the audio rree to the lowest level in CoreAudio, bypassing the driver audio mixer and the format converter. This enables to achieve very high sound quality. Increasing this value will reduce further the disk accesses and the associated interferences.

As a rule of thumb it is best to leave at least 2. Set the Max spl rate limit for this. To give enough time to the DAC to synchronize its clocks upon a sample rate change and avoid missing the first notes of a trackset audirvwna right Spl rate switching latency depending on you DAC pluz.

Sample Rate Converter Settings Use the quality slider to set the desired quality level. Note that with high initial sample rates, audirvana plus user manual free best quality setting especially for Apple CoreAudio may audirvana plus user manual free demanding too much computing power for some Fre thus usre in playback pauses.

For izotope bit SRC, you have access to advanced detailed parameters to tune the sample rate converter filters: - Steepness: steepness of the transition rfee of the audirvana plus user manual free filter. Higher steepness will reject unwanted frequencies but cause more ringing in the timedomain and a higher CPU load - Max filter length: controls the memory and CPU usage used by the resampling filter. Default value k should be sufficient aucirvana most applications.

Can be increased for getting vey high quality output audirvana plus user manual free very high sample rates e. DSD downsampling - Cutoff: cutoff frequency is computed by multiplying the Nyquist frequency by the value of the cutoff scaling parameter.

Any frequencies in the stop-band, which are not fully attenuated, will result in aliasing, which is when these unwanted frequencies are mapped to different ajdirvana and mixed into the output. Use usser values for better quality and use lower values to minimize CPU manul. The steeper the filter, the greater the amount of ringing. There are two general types of ringing: pre-ringing and post-ringing. Preringing will smear transients earlier in time, while post-ringing will smear transients later in time.

This control allows audirvana plus user manual free to select pre-ringing, postringing, or anywhere in between. A value of 1. A value of 0. Setting intermediate values allows a continuous tradeoff between pre-ringing and post-ringing and allows users to linearize phase in the pass-band as much as possible.

Thus a dithering algorithm is used to lessen the audible impact of this digital volume control. Dithering engine tweaking When using audirvana plus user manual free volume control, you have access to advanced parameters for the dithering engine: - Dithering Type: Controls the type of dithering.

Type 1 dither is a traditional dither based on a rectangular probability distribution function PDFand Type 2 dithering is a traditional dither based on a triangular PDF. Dithering noise can be shaped in order to make it less audible. Simple noise shaping performs simple high-pass filtering audirvana plus user manual free the noise.

Clear noise shaping aggressively moves the noise toward the Nyquist frequency. Psych 5 is a 5thorder filter designed to move noise away from audible bands, and Psych 9 is a 9th-order filter with similar characteristics.

The choices range from no noise shaping to very aggressive noise audirvana plus user manual free, providing In most cases, 1 bit will suffice, but over -dithering with 2 bits can occasionally be useful. The None and Low settings can leave some non-linear quantization distortion or dither noise modulation, while higher settings completely eliminate the non-linear distortion at the expense of a slightly increased noise audigvana. The Normal setting should suffice for most cases. However, after noise shaping, especially in aggressive dithering modes, the highfrequency dither ausirvana is significantly amplified, and the overall dither signal can show spurious peaks up to - 60 db FS.

If such high peaks are undesirable, you can enable the Limit Peaks option to effectively suppress the spurious peaks in the noise-shaped dither. Truncation results in harmonic quantization distortion that adds overtones to the signal and distorts the audirvana plus user manual free. In this case you can enable the Suppress Harmonics option to slightly alter the truncation rules, moving the harmonic quantization distortion away from audirvana plus user manual free of aidirvana frequencies.

This manal doesn't create any random dithering noise floor. Instead it works more like truncation, but with better tonal quality in the resulting signal. This option is applicable only in the modes without dithering noise and without aggressive noise shaping.

Use this setting for this purpose. The automated detection of idevices on USB can even cause audible clicks. It is therefore strongly advised to enable SysOptimizer. It will deactivate these interfering background services at playback start, and reactivate them upon stop. Manial that this also prevents any other application to output sound during playback. Furthermore, the time indication remains to during playback. Select the DAC in the drop down list of the popup window.

Click on Select to close the popup. Note for Macs before end If you encounter some short and frequent audio dropouts and you have a Mac from before end, zudirvana may be due to insufficient USB bus power.

Of course no other device shall be connected on the same hub. One may be fere shared with an internal peripheral like the built-in isight webcam. To check your DAC is connected to the right plug: 1. Use the System Information application you can launch from audiirvana Apple menu, popping the About this Mac dialog. Then click on More info 2. Scroll the left column down to the Hardware section 3. Select USB 4. Check on the kanual right pane that your DAC is listed alone under a High speed USB bus section Connect any other peripherals, such as external hard drives, to another bus, or even to a Firewire or Thunderbolt one.

Thank for your purchase of Audirvana Plus, the audiophile player that we hope will give you great musical moments with your Mac, giving you the Sound of Your Dreams. Quick Start Guide Main window operations Playlist management Classic Playlist Audirvana plus user manual free Adding Files to iTunes User Preferences Quick Start Guide The first time you launch Audirvana Plus, you get a wizard dialog asking you two questions to get started:.

Select the Audio Device you want to use for playback. Note that it needs to be connected for being in the list. This also gives you the opportunity to use the Remote application running on iPhone or iPad for remote control. In this mode, the Audirvana Plus main window is still active and can be raised if desired by clicking on the Audirvana Plus dock icon. Note that Audirvana Plus will play all iTunes music files except DRM protected onesand automatically deactivate itself for the Internet radios that will still be played directly by iTunes.

You can switch between the classic playlist mode and the complete iTunes integration by using the iTunes Integrated Mode command in the Audirvana Plus menu. Transport Buttons Play: Starts the audio playback, and the following initialization steps if enabled in the user preferences : - Take exclusive access of the audio device - Select native device format audio stream for playback integer mode - Deactivate the background process that might have been interfering e.

TimeMachine, Spotlight, Note that this one is not enabled by default. This button becomes a pause button when playing. Keyboard shortcut: Space. This exactly means output silence to the device, and audirvana plus user manual free playback.

That is the device is still active and fully controlled by Audirvana Plus. This button becomes a resume button Play icon when in pause mode. Stop: Fully stop audio playback, release the audio device, and restore the deactivated OSX services. Volume Control Volume Audirvana plus user manual free There are three types of volume control, depending on the device capabilities, and the user preferences: - Master red cursor : the device provides a remote volume control feature that is inside the DAC and normally of optimal quality.

See your DAC user manual for this. Should typically be set at 0dB to ensure bit perfect output. The current value of volume control is displayed under the knob. If the device provides no volume remote control and dithered volume control is not enabled in user preferences, the volume control knob is inactive. Depending on the user preferences, the knob is rotated using a vertical defaulthorizontal or rotational motion of the mouse. The album image is gathered from, in order of priority: - The image embedded in the audio file - A folder.

Technical information is given at the bottom of the LCD screen: - On the left: Playing track file type, and native bit depth and sample rate - On the right: The DAC current bit depth and sample rate. On the right column are some playback status indicators: - CPU: the red CPU sign indicates an unexpected pause in audio playback. The most frequent source of such issues is a lack of available memory.

Try to exit other memory hungry applications e. Best possible quality. Track playing position The current playing position in minutes:seconds is displayed on the left, and the track total duration is on audirvana plus user manual free right of the playing position cursor.

Dragging the playing position cursor or clicking directly on a different position makes the playback seek to this position. Inside this playing position track is given information about the loading progress, in form of a grey progress bar. The playlist window enables to manage the playlist, by adding, removing, reordering, filtering tracks. The currently playing track is highlighted in bold and blue color, and the next loaded track is in green.

The playlist is automatically saved unless deactivated in user preferences upon exit, and restored at next start up. Playback will occur only on the displayed tracks. These two buttons are also found at the bottom left of the LCD screen of the main window. Note that you can select folders, and thus all the files and subfolders below will be added 2 Drag and drop from the Finder Tracks or folders can be dropped to be inserted in the playlist 3 Drag and drop directly from iTunes Tracks and albums can be dropped to be inserted in the playlist 4 Navigating in the iTunes database.

Then select or drag and drop the tracks from the iTunes database. Deleting tracks The - button or the Delete key remove the selected tracks The Prune command in the Playlist menu removes all tracks except the currently audirvana plus user manual free one.

Adding Files to iTunes All the file types incl. By using the Add files to iTunes… command in the Audirvana Plus menu you can add files to iTunes catalog.

This raises the following dialog for selecting the files to add:. Select the tracks to add to iTunes Same audirvana plus user manual free for adding tracks to the playlist in classic mode See Playlist management Classic Playlist Modeadd the tracks you want to catalog in iTunes.

Select the quality of the proxy files created for iTunes Proxy only — No Sound: This creates tiny files only meant to catalog the source audio file in iTunes. These will not play in audirvana plus user manual free. Note that Deactivate completely iTunes own playback option in the iTunes panel of Audirvana Plus needs to be enabled to allow playback with these No Sound proxy files.

Very Lossy Compression 48kHz max : This creates small files with preview only quality that allows to get audirvana plus user manual free idea of what is in the file when not connected to Audirvana Plus. Lossless: This converts the original file in the Apple Lossless format.

When Audirvana Plus is running, the original file will still be played. This option enables to specify the sample rate of the resulting files. Note that the downsampling parameters use the ones specified in the Audio Filters panel of the User Preferences. If you have all the files on your main harddrive, you'll most likely use the "Proxy only No sound" type of proxy files as they'll take around kB only each depending mostly on the album art size.

Select the location of the proxy files This allows to select the location of the root folder where all the generated proxy files will be placed. To avoid having iTunes duplicate these proxy files and eat too much disk space, it is recommended to unselect in iTunes preferences, Advanced tab, the options Keep iTunes Media Folder Organized and Copy audirvana plus user manual free to iTunes Media Folder when adding to library.

After creation, neither the proxy files, nor the original files should be moved or deleted. This would break the link and prevent correct playback when using iTunes for controlling Audirvana Plus. Note this is the way iTunes handles these M3U files - Automatically start playback when Audirvana is opened with a track or playlist usually when double-clicking on such a file in the Finder - Save the current playlist when exiting, and automatically reload it the next time Audirvana is opened Volume Control The volume control knob can be rotated by using a audirvana plus user manual free, horizontal, or a rotation motion with the mouse.

It is used if available connected when starting playback, otherwise the system default device is used. The preferred or default if not connected audio device name is displayed in the Active Audio Device paragraph, as well as its handled sample rates. Simple Decimation the algorithm used before version 1.

This enables a further shorter audio signal path for better sound quality, and gives possibility to enable Integer Mode in Lion and later. Integer mode: In this mode Audirvana Plus directly sends the audio data to the lowest level in CoreAudio, bypassing the driver audio mixer and the format converter. This enables to achieve very high sound quality. There are two different streaming modes in Integer Mode: Mode 1 that brings the highest transparency, and soundstage depth Mode 2 that is more on the warm side Choose the one that fits the best your system and listening tastes.

Increasing this value will reduce further the disk accesses and the associated interferences. As a rule of thumb it is best to leave at least 2. To give enough time to the DAC to synchronize audirvana plus user manual free clocks upon a sample rate change and avoid missing the first notes of a trackset the right Spl rate switching latency depending on you DAC e.

In addition if the bridge is offering both 24bit and 32bit bitdepth, you can limit the bitdepth to 24bit by selecting Limit max bitdepth to 24bit instead of 32bit.

Multichannel capability The total number of channels of the audio device is shown, as well as the channels configuration in use. In the case the audio device is used only in two channels stereo output, the option Use as stereo only can be used to optimize the audio path. After having selected the audio device in the list left of the main windowclick on Configure Speakers… to raise the speakers selection popup.

There you can set the channel mapping for the multichannel configuration or Stereo if you have selected the Use as stereo only setting. Note that restarting Audirvana Plus is needed after any change made in the channels configuration in AudioMidi Setup. Sample Rate Conversion Sample Rate Conversion happens when - The audio device does not handle the audio track sample rate audirvana plus user manual free Upsampling is forced.

Sample Rate Converter Settings Use the quality slider to set the desired quality level. Note that with high initial sample rates, the best quality setting especially for Apple CoreAudio may be demanding too much computing power for some Macs thus giving in playback pauses.

For iZotope bit SRC, you have audirvana plus user manual free to advanced detailed parameters to tune the sample rate converter filters:.

Higher steepness will reject unwanted frequencies but cause more ringing in the time- domain and a higher CPU load - Max filter length: controls the memory and CPU usage used by the resampling filter. Default value k should be sufficient for most applications. Can be increased for getting vey high quality output for very high sample rates e. DSD downsampling - Audirvana plus user manual free cutoff frequency is computed by multiplying the Nyquist frequency by the value of the cutoff scaling parameter.

Any frequencies in the stop-band, which are not fully attenuated, will result in aliasing, which is when these unwanted audirvana plus user manual free are mapped to different frequencies and mixed into the output. Use higher values for better quality and use audirvana plus user manual free values to minimize CPU load. The steeper the filter, the greater the amount of ringing.

There are two general types of ringing: pre-ringing and post-ringing. Pre- ringing will smear transients earlier in time, while post-ringing will smear transients later in time.

This control allows users to select pre-ringing, post- ringing, or audirvana plus user manual free in between. A value of 1. A value of 0. Setting intermediate values allows a continuous tradeoff between pre-ringing and post-ringing and allows users to linearize phase in the pass-band as much as possible. Volume control type Your DAC may or may not offer remote volume control master or digital. Thus a dithering algorithm is used to lessen the audible impact of this digital volume control.

Dithering engine tweaking When using dithering volume control, you have access to advanced parameters for the dithering engine: - Dithering Type: Controls the type of dithering.