Amarra Music Player

Crimson · « **on:** 27 May 2009, 10:57 am »

Sonic Studio's long-awaited Amarra is now available for consumption. It's a Mac-only iTunes plug-in that utilizes iTunes' front-end and functionality (including remote control via an iPhone or iPod Touch), but bypasses Core Audio and uses its own 'audio engine'. Sonic Studio is a manufacturer of recording and production solutions used in studios world-wide. A demo version of the software is available, and I think they are running a $500 discount currently.

Amarra Audio.

rydenfan · « **Reply #1 on:** 27 May 2009, 01:05 pm »

Crimson, I was eagerly awaiting this. However, even with the "$500 discount" it is still $1,000 for the software

way too over-priced IMO.

low.pfile · « **Reply #2 on:** 27 May 2009, 03:23 pm »

very cool. I will give the demo a try.
thnx!

alan m. kafton · « **Reply #3 on:** 27 May 2009, 07:57 pm »

For those who aren't aware, Vincent Sanders of VRS Audio Solutions was the fellow who worked with Sonic Studio to bring Amarra to fruition, and is their authorized dealer/representative. While Amarra has some plug-and-play virtues, most will have many questions regarding operation and playback. For anyone who has interest in Amarra, I highly suggest contacting Vincent to get the best information about how Amarra will work in your system. As I understand, the $500 discount is available through the end of May, and will be honored through Vincent as well.

Vincent's number is 702-263-8094 and his e-mail is "vincent@vrsaudiosystems.com"

Crimson · « **Reply #4 on:** 27 May 2009, 11:56 pm »

Quote from: alan m. kafton on 27 May 2009, 07:57 pm

For those who aren't aware, Vincent Sanders of VRS Audio Solutions was the fellow who worked with Sonic Studio to bring Amarra to fruition, and is their authorized dealer/representative. While Amarra has some plug-and-play virtues, most will have many questions regarding operation and playback. For anyone who has interest in Amarra, I highly suggest contacting Vincent to get the best information about how Amarra will work in your system. As I understand, the $500 discount is available through the end of May, and will be honored through Vincent as well.

Vincent's number is 702-263-8094 and his e-mail is "vincent@vrsaudiosystems.com"

Alan,

Thanks for the info. I've got two requests in for the demo download via the official Amarra website form and haven't received a response yet. I'll send an email to Vincent.

alan m. kafton · « **Reply #5 on:** 28 May 2009, 01:21 am »

Excellent. If anyone has technical questions, Vincent is the man (and his partner John Hughes as well). Many people seem to have a ton of implementation questions, especially about their existing DAC/interfaces.

Crimson · « **Reply #6 on:** 1 Jun 2009, 12:38 pm »

Kudos to both Vincent and John for their support.

indirstr8s · « **Reply #7 on:** 7 Jun 2009, 07:38 pm »

Does amarra respond sound quality wise (not the pathological failures like ticks and pops), to higher processor speeds or better internal hard drive specs on which the music resides. For instance is it better to have 7200 rpm drive vs 5400 rpm drive. Is there a penalty in sound quality if the music is stored in an external firewire drive.

Tuckers · « **Reply #8 on:** 7 Jun 2009, 08:46 pm »

Hi Guys,
Vincent and I are dealers for Sonic Studio Amarra. We will be happy to answer all of your questions. Over on the Empirical Audio Forum, there have been may questions about Amarra, and I am moving my answers over here so as not to hijack their forum.

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=68494.0

Tuckers · « **Reply #9 on:** 7 Jun 2009, 09:01 pm »

Amarra has been designed to have a very small footprint on Mac resources. This is one way in which it is different than soundBlade (Sonics pro product), which would use about 60% of CPU resources to play a file on my 2.4Ghz Macbook Pro. Amarra only uses about 7%. On hi rez files Amarra only gets up to about 14%. We worked a lot with Sonic to achieve this so it would work on a wider variety of systems and not have those pops and ticks that plague a lot of hi rez playback.

So far we haven't had any problem with 5400 rpm drives, but we do recommend 7200 rpm. We have not noticed a difference in processor speeds but we recommend 2.0Ghz or better. We recommend 4GB of memory or better (you can usually get by with 2GB if you don't have a lot of other stuff running in the background). It does sonically seem a bit better with 4GB or more. Macs in general always perform better with more memory

We sell a complete VRS Optimization Package that comes on an external drive. This is a complete system on a drive, with it's own version of Leopard etc. You just plug it in, reboot to use this drive as your boot drive and you are running our optimized version of Leopard, drives, ripping software, music collection software etc. All you have to do is provide the Mac with the minimum specs. This is especially useful when you are using the Amarra hardware which needs special treatment in regards to setup.

Crimson · « **Reply #10 on:** 12 Jun 2009, 09:02 pm »

After using the demo version for about I week, I ordered the full version today. The differences aren't subtle, even with the demo version. Combining the superior audio processing of a pro DAW (Sound Blade) with a consumer-grade front end (iTunes) was a great idea.

cryoparts · « **Reply #11 on:** 12 Jun 2009, 09:24 pm »

Quote from: Crimson on 12 Jun 2009, 09:02 pm

After using the demo version for about I week, I ordered the full version today. The differences aren't subtle, even with the demo version. Combining the superior audio processing of a pro DAW (Sound Blade) with a consumer-grade front end (iTunes) was a great idea.

Yeah, it took me all of about 10 seconds to hear the difference and a couple of days of close listening decided , for me, that this is a "must have" product. Good stuff.

Peace,

Lee

low.pfile · « **Reply #12 on:** 12 Jun 2009, 09:41 pm »

Cryo/lee and Crimson,

How much memory are you using on the system running Amarra?

Tuckers seems to imply that you might be OK with 2GB. I would hazard a guess many here on AC, who may be interested, have fairly stock computers with 2GB or less.

cheers, ed

cryoparts · « **Reply #13 on:** 12 Jun 2009, 09:44 pm »

Aluminum 17" Macbook with 2G RAM right now. I will eventually transfer it to a newer Mac with a lot more RAM, however, I haven't noticed any problems at all due to lack of RAM.

Lee

Quote from: low.pfile on 12 Jun 2009, 09:41 pm

Cryo/lee and Crimson,

How much memory are you using on the system running Amarra?

Tuckers seems to imply that you might be OK with 2GB. I would hazard a guess many here on AC, who may be interested, have fairly stock computers with 2GB or less.

cheers, ed

Crimson · « **Reply #14 on:** 12 Jun 2009, 10:58 pm »

Ed,

Same here: 2GB on an iMac. No issues. Have you tried the demo?

low.pfile · « **Reply #15 on:** 12 Jun 2009, 11:31 pm »

Quote from: Crimson on 12 Jun 2009, 10:58 pm

Ed,

Same here: 2GB on an iMac. No issues. Have you tried the demo?

Not yet on the Demo. Some home repairs happening this month, main system is being disassembled. I will and will comment here.

cheers,
ed

Tuckers · « **Reply #16 on:** 13 Jun 2009, 12:23 am »

Amarra does work with 2GB on most systems. Sonic is being cautious and conservative about minimum specs at this time. If you aren't playing many hi rez files it should work ok. If you engage the EQ it begins to use more memory fast too.

pardales · « **Reply #17 on:** 13 Jun 2009, 01:59 am »

It makes sense to me that a software product like this could improve sound and so I am very open to trying it at some point. Will it only work with certain DAC's?

Even if I thought it wonderful, I find myself unlikely to spend 1.5K on this product. It is just way too expensive for software. Seems they are trying to recoup their costs a little too quickly. I would probably not spend much more than $300 on a product like this.

Just my two cents,

Crimson · « **Reply #18 on:** 13 Jun 2009, 10:02 am »

Quote from: pardales on 13 Jun 2009, 01:59 am

It makes sense to me that a software product like this could improve sound and so I am very open to trying it at some point. Will it only work with certain DAC's?

Even if I thought it wonderful, I find myself unlikely to spend 1.5K on this product. It is just way too expensive for software. Seems they are trying to recoup their costs a little too quickly. I would probably not spend much more than $300 on a product like this.

Just my two cents,

You are quite right. It is expensive. Unfortunately, a lot of the good pro-audio software is expensive (as can be evidenced by clicking here).

Audioclyde · « **Reply #19 on:** 13 Jun 2009, 12:27 pm »

OK, I'll admit my ignorance

--I have my music files on a mac mini (using Itunes to rip/manage), tethered to my MW Transporter via ethernet cable; of course running squeezecenter to play tunes.

Is the Amarra music player only going to be a factor if I choose it to 'play' the music files and go with a digital output from my mac mini to a digi input of the MW Transporter? In other words, as long as I'm content to use Squeezecenter in the manner that I'm currently operating, Amarra would not be a factor/usable?

Thanks!

Randy