Audirvana Studio Grand Premiere

All I want and need is one piece of software to manage my library and render the music to a DAC! But it needs to a) sound good, b) find all my music even with poor or missing metadata, c) not be excessively expensive, and d) it would be a bonus if it is easy and intuitive to use.

Audirvana scored well on a), had workarounds so usable though not perfect on b), has spoilt me on c), while d) is limited by b). Time I think to find something that scores on all, while Audirvana is still working.

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B and C are somewhat mutually exclusive because getting the good metadata is probably not cheap. Neither is software quality for D. I know you don’t want to hear “Roon” and consider it too expensive, but in the context of spending tens of thousands for kit, 600 for a lifetime license to manage the content well that makes the kit worthwhile seems not excessive to me, if it solves the other requirements. You want software and service quality, compensating the people who create it seems reasonable.

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Foe those who subscribe to Roon it will stop working after 30 days if you stop paying last time I looked. Lifetimers are not protected - if something stops the Roon cloud-servers or their account of you then you are out.

I think subscribing to upgrades is o.k. as long as I mot locked out of my system if I unsubscribe or is off the net.

My Audirvana 3.5 seems to be a tad more glitchy over the past few days. Hmm…

Tidal Connect might be the solution. All I need is a new streamer and I’m all set :grimacing:

Can you not simply use DLNA for this?

For all other scenarios, if you’re using a Windows PC then Foobar2000 can’t really be beaten in terms of functionality and features. It’s completely free too.

I am a bit sceptical of lifetime subscriptions. There is more than one precedent where a product/company was sold to another company (either a competitor or a hedge fund etc) and suddenly this lifetime license expired. Either by the new owner claiming that the license ended with the former owner ceasing operations, or by simply renaming the product to something else (Roon Evolution™) and claiming that the license doesn’t apply to that.

You just have to love AI, this one made me laugh out loud.

Great album title- Benedict’s and Drawbacks.

:grin:

.sjb

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While using a Mac Mini (my current platform) the value of Audirvana has been bypassing of the general purpose computer audio drivers and hardware, providing the best possible output quality (better than digital output from a Naim ND5XS, and indistinguishable from a Melco N1A which is a more expensive purpose-designed machine. Regarding library software, the big challenge is being able to function well with metadata that is far from perfect. Meanwhile I don’t really want to stream across a network, adding in possible other variables that drive others into the switch and cable minefield,

There are various choices out there, much discussed in various threads on here, and some members have made helpful suggestions when I’ve queried previously. It seems that the time has come for me to review the possibilities and make a choice for something to try - I had just rather hoped any expense wouldn’t be necessary until the nearly 9 year old MM reaches end of life, which could be a good few years yet.

@Suedkiez I’ve trialled Roon (twice) and it was worse than Audirvana with metadata so a non starter quite apart from the fact that it [used to] cost a lot more, with bells and whistles that some people love but of no interest to me. A one-off purchase price that is high (within limits) if it does exactly what I want is not the issue, but I absolutely refuse to accept a subscription to be able to play the music I like - I have bought it and want to play any time free from cost or risk- so Audirvana’s new model is simply. To my mind subscription software is either for professionals making money out of it, or buying an ongoing service akin to renting music on an averaged pay per listen instead of buying it. As indicated above there are alternatives to Audirvana (and Roon isn’t one), just a big hassle and annoyance to have to spend time choosing one that suits.

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Many choices yes… :wink:

If you do want to keep using a standalone player, instead of a streaming alternative, then your best option might be to forego the MM and replace it with a RPI4. There are various alternatives for Audirvana available for the RPI (Volumio, Moode, Rune etc). If you sold the MM you probably won’t lose any money over the swap.

Maybe, however:

Danny Dulai Roon Labs: COO
[Oct '15]
Yah, I get it. So right now, the application obviously logs in to our cloud services, for both metadata and membership checking.
In the unlikely event that we could not maintain those services, we would release one last build that would kill those dependencies, so you could continue to use the application without our infrastructure as a requirement. Obviously the functionality would be reduced, but it would work.

If they don’t, so what. It’s 600 euros, I spent equivalent amounts on countless things in my life that I don’t have anymore. People freak out way too much about software prices. Everyone wants fabulous software, in the audio case even with built-in connections to metadata services that have associated costs themselves, but then if it costs a few euros per month (averaged) it is supposedly too much.

Myself, I spent the lifetime and my only concern is that I want Roon to stay forever. If they disappear, the 600 euros are not my problem, the disappearance is. (And if keeping Roon afloat in a few years would mean taking out a second lifetime or paying a subscription anyways, I would). I chose lifetime over subscription because in the case of Roon I am investing also my own time in grooming and I wanted to make this commitment for myself, so that I am not constantly second-guessing myself. They have 250,000 customers and like what they are doing, it is perfectly possible to survive long term with this.

I am in the software business myself, and we also have a subscription. It’s a reasonable way to make a good product in a niche market and secure the people and the company who are doing it. The software saves users typically hours and often tens of hours of work a month, I have no ethical problem with a monthly payment of a few euros for that

OK, cannot compare, Roon is great for with metadata for me and not sure what Audirvana could do much better. But I am sure that where Roon fails for me, like obscure Austrian 80ies punk, Audirvana would too.

I was under the impression that you don’t want Audirvana anymore because of subscription and want an alternative. So there’s Roon and then there’s nothing else.

Or stop fretting about the subscription :slight_smile: Without it, your preferred choice would most likely not be sustainable. You want them to continue making software and keeping it working, this means fighting against entropy, so they need to eat :slight_smile:

I’m not arguing against any of the points you’re making, i only meant to say that a lifetime is a long time to keep a service running. :wink:

Not for “managing the library”, as this seems to include metadata for @Innocent_Bystander, and as he is unhappy with Roon’s he must have high expectations

Sure. But then, where I work started with 3 people 18 years ago with a subscription model in a similar way, finding users in a niche that needed a solution. For years it had less users than Roon does now, then for a few years it had approx. what Roon has now, over the last few it increased to approx 800,000. We are making a good living, we deliver value to customers, the company is not going anywhere, and anyone buying a lifetime (we don’t have) would have made a bargain already.
(And if we had stayed at Roon’s current user base, or even half, we would be doing fine too)

There is a larger objection to subscription models than just corporate stability.

For anything that requires a network connection to keep activated, let alone receive actual content, it is subject to unforeseen issues beyond the control of you or the provider. Internet outages. Attacks. Whatever.

For me, a very important psychological comfort is the knowledge that if all hell breaks loose, I can take my NAS, hole up in the back of beyond (cabin in the proverbial woods or nuclear bunker - take your pick) and no one can take my music and movies away from me while I ride it out.

As unlikely as that is to happen, short term outages from time to time caused by malicious actors, or just a tree taking the line down are bound to happen. I demand a fully localised streaming solution that requires no WAN access. Anything less, I have no interest in.

I believe that’s a problem with internet-connected services, not the subscription model. For instance in the case of the company where I work, it is a subscription model but has no internet requirement. The software is installed locally, the license key is renewed annually, you enter it, and it is evaluated only locally with no online checks whatsoever. Go to an island and you are fine for the whole year.

I do agree with your other points, but if one wants metadata updates and new metadata for new music, you have to be online. Also by necessity if you want to have instant access to millions of albums and not just the thousands you happen to have already on CD and vinyl.

Roon is neatly combining resilience to short-term outages and streaming. I have all my 1000 ripped CDs and purchased downloads in Roon and if the internet is down I can happily play them.

In the event of war and Armageddon, I am quite sure that high-quality recorded music will be the least of my concerns. If power is out, your NAS and your CD collection will be pretty useless, too. “if all hell breaks loose”, vinyl is what will save us. Stick a needle through a sheet of paper and assemble a flat piece of wood, a few rocks, and a string for spinning it :slight_smile: I do get the appeal of this, which is why I purchase the works at the very top of my favorites on vinyl, too

Sorry English is not my main language, and sometimes iPad makes some non sense correction and that’s the result.

So at least a good laugh is deserved.

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Yes, that is one of my options!

There are other alternatives to Audirvana and Roon - if A is out, and with its ‘check-in’ policy I cannot assume it will keep working indefinitely, then I will go for one that does not require subscription. And software not used for online streaming does not require updating, ever, if it works 100% from day 1.

Which ones?

As you say, then no (new) metadata and no online streaming. Unless the OS changes. Of course you can keep everything offline and unchanging but also only if the OS allows. Trade-offs as always in life.

You wrote that Audirvana has much better metadata for you than Roon, I have no idea how it could do that without online connection and commercial metadata services, but as I admitted I have no experience with Audirvana.

Anyways, like I said it may well be the case that keeping the Audirvana company alive was not sustainable with one-time payment. There’s not an unlimited supply of new customers.
And as mentioned, in my humble opinion it is not unreasonable to compensate the people writing the software, more so if your requirements are high, you expect the software to utilize non-free services like very good metadata, and you expect ongoing improvements. You get what you pay for, but your choices.

English is my main language and I can also write errors like that-it was not a criticism of you - more the iPad and it’s artificial intelligence.

.sjb